Lost and Gowned

by Melissa F. Miller

  I rolled my shoulders and forced myself to focus on what Reverend Mark was saying. I could feel Dave’s eyes on me, curious and worried. So I jutted out my hip and gave him a playful bump. The anxiety melted from his face and he shook his head in good-natured amusement.

  “Then you’ll say your vows. Blah, blah, blah. And kiss the bride,” Mark said.

  “Blah, blah, blah?” Sage asked, frowning. “Maybe they should rehearse them.”

  I shook my head. “No. We wrote our own. I want them to be a surprise.”

  Now Thyme leaned forward to catch the minister’s eyes. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Reverend Mark?”

  “No worries. I’ve had the sneak preview. I can assure you they’re heartfelt and wholly appropriate. Rosemary and Dave just want to wait until tomorrow to share them with the rest of the world,” he assured my sisters.

  “You didn’t let her make any jokes in hers, did you?” Thyme stage whispered. “Her jokes are terrible.”

  “Lousy,” Sage confirmed.

  “I can hear you, you know.”

  Even though I came right back at them with a retort of my own, I was glad for my sisters’ gentle teasing. I almost forgot about the man lurking on the beach. Almost, but not quite.

  As Mark shook his head and tried to move on, I couldn’t help craning my neck to scan the shoreline out of the corner of my eye.

  The beach was deserted. Now, I found myself wondering where the stranger had gone.

  Chapter 8

  Sage

  I watched Chelle pull the fabric tight around Rosemary’s back. She muttered to herself around the pins in her mouth. Thyme shot me a worried look. Meanwhile, the bride-to-be seemed to be oblivious to the tension in the room.

  “Can you alter it in time for tomorrow?” I asked the seamstress.

  Chelle exhaled, her breath ruffling her long bangs, and removed the pins before answering. “I can. But you and your sister make sure Miss Wasting Away here eats between now and then, would you? Otherwise, she’s going to be lost in this thing no matter what I do.”

  She stepped back and examined her handiwork. Luckily, Rosemary hadn’t chosen a particularly floofy dress. I mean, it’s not as though there were yards and yards of satin and miles of lace enveloping her. She didn’t even have a train. So with the streamlined cut, I was pretty confident Chelle could work her magic.

  Rosemary twirled and examined herself in the mirror. She must’ve liked what she saw because she reached over and squeezed the seamstress. “Thank you so much, Chelle. It means a lot to me that you’re doing my dress.”

  Another glance from Thyme.

  Chelle and our mom had been good friends before our parents had gone off on their late-in-life adventure—or, as Rosemary would put it, before they fled the jurisdiction. I suppose the truth is they were closer to fugitives from justice than happy-go-lucky retirees. But, I tried not to think about it that way.

  Chelle must’ve heard some deeper meaning in Rosemary’s words, too. Chelle squeezed her before holding her at arms-length and giving her a good, long look. “Your mama would be so proud of you,” she sniffled softly. She glanced over Rosemary’s head and swept Thyme and me into her gaze. “She’d be proud of all three of you. I just wish she could be here to see this.”

  The guest room Rosemary had claimed as her bridal suite was utterly quiet. Thyme nodded with an appropriately mournful look. Rosemary quirked her mouth.

  Before she could say anything snarky, I hurried to fill the silence. “Rosemary said you can’t you make it to the wedding tomorrow. We’ll miss you, but we’re glad you were able to join us for the luncheon.”

  She dabbed her eyes. “I’m sorry I’ll miss it, too. But … some dear friends have come into town unexpectedly, and I haven’t seen them in quite some time.” Chelle was clearly fumbling around for an excuse.

  Now I felt guilty. I hadn’t meant to put her on the spot.

  Thyme rescued both of us. “How wonderful that you’re going to have an opportunity to reconnect with old friends! Isn’t that the best?”

  Rosemary stepped out of the gown, and we eased it into the big white garment bag that Dave insisted on calling a body bag. I figured he ought to know what a body bag looked like, what with being a homicide detective and all. I’d overheard Rosemary tell him if he peeked inside this one, he’d need a real one.

  As Chelle zipped the bag closed, she gave Rosemary a final warning. “I mean it about not losing any more weight. Brides and crash diets don’t mix. I ought to know.”

  “What do you mean?” Rosemary asked.

  “Well, I worked with a bride once who dropped a ton of weight the week of her wedding but didn’t come see me for adjustments. As she and her new husband were walking down the aisle to leave the church, her strapless dress went zoop!” Chelle gestured dramatically, flinging her arms down the sides of her body toward the floor. “There it lay, on the floor of the church, puddled around her feet.”

  “Oh, yikes.” I cringed for the unnamed, undressed bride.

  “That wasn’t the worst of it; she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Didn’t want to ruin the line.”

  Thyme’s mouth popped open and her eyes grew round.

  Rosemary giggled. “I guess that’s one way to have a day to remember.”

  “That must’ve been the most embarrassing wedding ceremony in recorded history,” I mused.

  You’d think so,” the seamstress said, warming to the subject. “But at least Lady Godiva’s ceremony ended with a marriage, unlike another wedding I attended. At that one, the priest asked the groom, ‘Do you take this woman?’ The groom thought about it for a bit then answered, ‘You know, I’m really not sure.’”

  We were silent for a long moment, imagining the scene.

  Chelle continued, “I always thought it would have been a kindness if that man had just not shown up. Better to be left standing at the altar by somebody who got cold feet than to be rejected in front of your friends and family.”

  Rosemary tilted her head. Her expression was thoughtful, as if she were considering the pros and cons of both approaches.

  “I’m going to go back to the shop right now and whip through these alterations,” Chelle promised. She nodded in Thyme’s direction, “If you want to come with me, you can wait and bring the dress back.”

  I tried to suppress a frown. I was in charge of the dresses. Thyme was in charge of the flowers, the music, and the place settings. I didn’t like the idea of Thyme traipsing off with Chelle without me.

  But I could hear my father’s voice in my head, chiding me: ‘Oh, Sage, you don’t have to have middle-child syndrome if you don’t want to.’ So I managed a tight smile.

  “Sure, as long as that works for Thyme’s schedule. You didn’t have plans with Victor, did you?”

  “Nope. I’m happy to run into town,” she chirped. She guided Chelle toward the door with one hand, the dress bag folded over her other forearm.

  I glanced over at Rosemary after the door closed behind them. She was looking out the window toward the ocean, but something about her gaze made me think her mind wasn’t on the whitecaps.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  After a beat, she turned toward me. “Just thinking.”

  “About your dress falling off or about Dave equivocating during the vows?” I teased.

  She chuckled, but I thought her laugh sounded oddly hollow. And I couldn’t help noticing she didn’t answer my question. For a wild moment, I thought she was going to tell me she was having second thoughts about getting married. But she didn’t, and I wasn’t sure how to broach the topic.

  Chapter 9

  Thyme

  I wished I’d thought to grab a book to bring along to pass the time while Chelle altered Rosemary’s gown. But I hadn’t. And Chelle, ordinarily vivacious to a fault, did not like to be distracted when she worked. So she set me up with a mug of chai and several issues of some glossy fashion magazine while she shut herself away in her ba
ck room to focus. I flipped halfheartedly through the magazines for a few minutes, but to tell the truth I’m more of a Scientific American or Mental Floss girl. I put the stack of magazines aside and sipped my drink while I occupied myself with one of my favorite pastimes: people watching.

  I’ve never been able to decide if I majored in psychology because I’m so interested in the strange behavior of strangers or if I’m so interested in the behavior of strangers because I majored in psychology. Either way, I found it fascinating to speculate about what was going on with the passersby outside the big picture window in the front of the dress shop.

  Take the harried father pushing the double stroller with one hand and holding an armload of grocery bags in the other. Did he know his sweatshirt was on inside out? Where was his partner? I pictured a mom out of town for business while he juggled the kids. Or maybe he was a Mr. Mom and this was all part of his daily routine. Although, judging by the harried expression (and the inside-out shirt) he wore, I was guessing this was not an ordinary Friday afternoon for him.

  Then there was the older couple who’d been making out on the wrought-iron bench across the square from the shop for at least the last ten minutes. They appeared to be in their early seventies. She was a petite Asian woman. He was a tall African-American man with silver hair. And they were sucking face like a pair of teenagers. Were they a married couple who’d been together for half a century and still felt the spark of love and lust? Or high school sweethearts who’d been separated by time and circumstance and had only just rediscovered one another after their respective spouses passed away? Or, I thought, warming to this idea, were they star-struck lovers carrying on a decades’ long extramarital affair who had traveled to Seashore to spend a weekend together without fear of being caught?

  The man must have felt me watching him, because when the couple came up for air, he shifted his gaze toward the window where I sat. I flicked my eyes away quickly, and that’s when I saw the man in the suit standing outside the candy shop. He was watching me watch the lovebirds.

  As soon as my eyes met his, he turned his attention to The Sugarplum Shoppe’s window display. But I wasn’t fooled. As a veteran people watcher myself, it was easy for me to tell when I’d busted someone watching me. I laughed to myself and picked up the nearest magazine. I flipped it opened it to a random page then peeked over it to get a better view of my watcher.

  He stood out, that much was for sure. One, he was wearing a black business suit and tie in a town where the dress code meant your good pair of flip-flops qualified as formal attire.

  Two, he had the squared-off muscular physique of someone who considered his body to be a temple. He stood, ramrod straight. Square jawed, with his haircut cropped close to his head, he screamed ‘military discipline.’ There was no way this guy was salivating over dark chocolate fudge drizzled with sea salt caramel or coconut cream cupcakes dotted with crystallized ginger. I’d have placed money on him being one of those extreme fitness dudes who ate almost nothing but meat jerky and dragged trucks around by ropes.

  Seashore, New Jersey, was the quintessential beach town, home to a handful of Victorian bed-and-breakfasts, several gift shops specializing in nautical-themed household goods and overpriced children’s clothes with anchors embroidered on the pockets. There was a flower shop and a funky little bookstore, a bead shop, and a pet store. There was one hair salon, Curls by Clare, and a barbershop, complete with a red-and-white striped pole. A handful of restaurants, most of them specializing in seafood (with the notable exception of Marcello’s Trattoria), two bakeries, a coffee and tea shop, and one consignment store rounded out the main square.

  Seashore was not a town that hosted corporate retreats, conferences, or business meetings of any kind. The county courthouse was located in the county seat, two towns over, and even the town solicitor favored Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts. Maybe, maybe, you’d see someone wearing a suit at a funeral, but that was about the extent of it. So, lawyer, banker, or candlestick maker—whoever he was, the guy in front of the candy store didn’t blend in.

  I spent a few minutes trying to come up with a good story for the guy in the suit, but the best I could manage was that he was an assassin. As if there’d be a paid hit man roaming around this speck of a seaside town, I scoffed at myself. Still, I shivered at my own overactive imagination.

  I turned slightly in the chair so I was looking away from him and grabbed one of the magazines. I paged through it listlessly, until Chelle emerged triumphantly from the back room holding the long white bag. Her arm was high above her head to keep the bottom of the bag from dragging along the floor.

  I dropped the magazine and shot up. “You’re finished already?”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t hard. I just needed to add some darts and take in the seams in the back.”

  “Thanks again. You’ve done a beautiful job with the dress, and it means a lot to all three of us that you’ve been involved.”

  She crossed the sunlit room and handed me the dress bag in an almost formal gesture, sort of bowing from the waist as she did so. “And I mean what I said earlier, Thyme. I wish I could be there tomorrow, but my friends….”

  I nodded as she trailed off. “We understand.” I leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek. “The next time the three of us are at the resort, we’ll have you out for dinner and we can look through the wedding pictures together.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She walked me to the door and held it open as I maneuvered my way through the doorway with my precious cargo. She gave me a little wave goodbye and flipped the sign hanging from the door from ‘Open’ to “Closed’ before going back inside to close up the shop for the day.

  For such a simple dress, Rosemary’s wedding gown weighed a ton. I staggered toward the resort’s old truck with my awkward load, grateful for our little town’s ample parking during the off-season. At least I didn’t have far to go, seeing as how I’d snagged a spot close to the dress shop.

  I fumbled awkwardly for the keys with my left hand while holding the garment bag up high so it didn’t hit the sidewalk. Somehow, I ended up twisted into a modified standing triangle pose, which is how I caught a glimpse of the suit guy out of my peripheral vision as I was unlocking the passenger side door to the truck.

  He’d left his post in front of the candy shop, and was now standing across the street in front of the old bank. His back was to me, and he was staring into the front window, which wouldn’t have been noteworthy, except for the fact the bank had been shuttered since Sage’s freshman year of college.

  She’d sent them a resume looking for a summer job. By the time she’d come home for an interview, Atlantic Coast Savings & Loan had been bought by a large New York bank and our little seaside branch was on the chopping block. The bank’s closing was a blow to the town, especially to our parents, who ended up securing funding from less savory sources once the bank left town.

  In any case, unless the guy in the suit was a big fan of dust, spiders, or yellowing paper, there wasn’t really anything inside worth looking at. The thought that he might be following me hit my central nervous system like a shot of espresso, and I shoved the bag with Rosemary’s dress onto the passenger seat, no longer worried about keeping it pristine. As I jammed the keys into the ignition my hands were shaking.

  I took a centering breath as I started the engine. Don’t panic, I ordered myself. Why would some random man be following me?

  My effort at reasoning myself out of my worry failed miserably.

  Because I could think of tons of reasons why the man in the suit would be following me. Maybe he worked for one of my parents’ creditors. As far as we knew, the bank—a real bank—now held all their outstanding debt, and we’d made a ton of progress in paying it down. So much so, that they’d actually forgiven part of it and had extended the deadline to make the final balloon payment. But that hadn’t stopped Herk the Jerk from continuing to try to get a piece of the action. He believed he’d been cut
out and wasn’t happy about it, to put it mildly. Perhaps he’d found some small, overlooked debt our parents owed to some other loan shark and was back in the picture.

  Or maybe this guy lurking around the bank had some connection to Helena, Victor’s sister. Her abusive ex-husband had been a crooked police officer in Brazil and had stalked her to New York. He was behind bars now, but seeing as how I was instrumental in putting him there, he could conceivably be nursing a grudge.

  My trembling worsened, and the truck lurched as I drove along the quaint streets that led from the square to the road out to the beach. Despite the bright, sunny afternoon, my mind had gone to a dark, frightened place, and I couldn’t seem to bring it back. I sped out of town and, without signaling, made a sharp right at speed onto the bumpy access road that curved through Clyde and Lila Dowell’s farm. It wasn’t technically a public road, but I’d worked for the Dowells for four summers, and I had a standing invitation to take the shortcut home from town.

  Of course, that invitation would not extend to suit-wearing outsiders. I could almost picture Lila standing on the wide-beamed porch, in a sundress and barefoot, shouldering Clyde’s hunting rifle as she shot out my pursuer’s tires. I surprised myself by giggling at the image. Then I checked my rearview mirror. Nothing behind me but dusty road.

  I let out a big whoosh of breath and removed my tense hands, one at a time, from the steering wheel to shake them out before my muscles cramped.

  Maybe that guy was a real estate broker in town to see the bank building. Or a commercial appraiser or something. And maybe he had a wicked sweet tooth, so he was salivating over The Sugarplum’s treats. The explanations I created seemed flimsy even to me, but with each mile I put between myself and town, I believed them more.