“Don’t dawdle, Samara,” Shane said.
Samara rejoined them. Geri passed the dining hall. The din rose and fell from people enjoying their evening meal. She continued to the door at the side of the building. Then went through it and out into the heat of the setting sun.
“Where are we going?” Diana asked.
“Right over here.” Geri stopped in front of a small building. It had housed the gift shop, but Geri had relocated that within the main building. Sales increased three hundred percent in the first month of the move.
Opening the door, she went inside. The group followed her. The air was thick and stuffy.
“What is this?” Shane asked.
“My new bridal shop,” Geri announced as if she’d just given birth. “We have so many weddings here, why not a bridal shop? This way the brides can have a full package.”
“One-stop shopping,” Shane said flatly.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“I do,” Diana said. “I love going to one place and being able to do everything without driving all over the place.”
“What do you think, Samara?” Geri addressed her.
“I think you’re an astute business woman and if you think this will succeed, then it will,” she answered.
“That was diplomatic,” Carmen chimed in.
“Geri, you’re spread thin right now.” Samara ignored Carmen. “Do you think you have time for a new venture?”
“That’s the beauty of it. I’m hiring a manager.”
“Who?”
“Whom,” she corrected.
“All right, whom?” Carmen shouted.
“My mother.”
“What?” Shane and Diana spoke at the same time.
“She’s divorced and at her wit’s end. She needs something to do. Plus, she’s good with people. This will be perfect for her.”
“Geri, has she ever dealt directly with the public?” asked Samara.
Geri shook her head.
“What about her job? Isn’t she still working in that tax office?” asked Shane.
“She isn’t in tax. She’s in financial analysis and she says she’s tired of it. She wants to do something different.”
“This feels like a midlife crisis to me,” Diana said.
“There’s probably some of that,” Geri admitted. “The divorce hit her hard. She needs something to concentrate on.”
“Do you think she’ll be happy here?” Samara asked. “She’s only been divorced a few months. A bridal shop, with all the tearfully happy brides, could depress her.”
“She promised she’d tell me if she didn’t think she could do it.”
“Well, I’m behind it then,” Samara said.
“I knew you would be,” Shane stated matter-of-factly. Then she looked at Geri. “I’m with you,” she said.
Geri looked at her other two friends who nodded their assent.
“Great!” she said as she smiled, and embraced them in a group hug. “Now that that’s settled,” Geri continued, then backed away from the group, “I need your help.”
“Sure,” said Shane.
“What?” Carmen asked. They could all hear the skepticism in her voice.
“We thought we’d open with a huge fashion show.”
“Oh, good idea,” Carmen said.
“Something big,” Geri elaborated. “We’ll advertise it all over the place, Internet, local radio, area bridal shops, even to the customers here.”
“And you want me to try to get someone from the television station to do a story on the opening?” Samara knew this was the help Geri wanted.
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t ask that,” Geri said, surprising all four women.
“You have to do that,” the group almost spoke as one.
“Don’t worry, Geri,” Samara eclipsed the discussion. “I’ll ask Mac if he can do anything.”
Geri rushed over and hugged her. “That would be wonderful.” Turning back to the group. “But that’s not all.”
“What more do you want?” Shane asked. “Diana will buy her gown here.”
“Sure I will,” Diana agreed. “I can be your first customer.”
“Thanks, but that’s not it, either.” She paused, taking the time to look at each one of them before she spoke. “I want you all to be models in the fashion show and wear the gowns.”
“No way,” Samara said, taking a step back as if Geri’s words could physically attack her. “No way am I putting on a wedding gown.”
For the second time in two days, Samara was doing something she’d told herself she wouldn’t do. Last night she’d sworn she wouldn’t be in Geri’s fashion show. But she let herself be talked into it. Now she was committed.
But only as a bridesmaid.
After her agreement, Geri and her other friends seemed to run amok with plans. Diana put on her marketing hat and suggested a television campaign. While it was well out of Geri’s budget, they all jumped on the bandwagon. Shane suggested placing ads in the playbills used in the theater. Geri took it a step further and suggested an all-out, national, print-media campaign. They all laughed, but the action didn’t stop. Ideas were being thrown about like candy pouring from a piñata. Samara couldn’t resist getting into the fray. Planning was fun. So much so that Samara forgot about the letter the guard had given her before she left work.
The envelope fell out of her pocket the next morning when Samara picked up her jacket from where she’d dropped it the night before. She opened the flap and pulled a postcard out. The photo was vintage. It was a picture of a restaurant. Samara recognized it as a place in Georgetown near Key Bridge.
On the back was a date and time. Nothing else. She turned it over several times, but nothing more appeared. She looked at the photo. After a moment she laughed. This had to be Justin’s idea, a reply to her challenge.
Eight o’clock, it read. And the date was tonight. She laughed, thinking there was no way she was going to meet him. Just like she wasn’t wearing a wedding gown in a fashion show, she reminded herself.
As she turned, she saw the trunk and regretted that she hadn’t had it moved to storage. She approached it slowly. For Geri and Diana’s sake, she lifted the lid, the white lace gown staring back at her like an angel that had fallen from heaven. She picked up the dress and held it by the sleeves, looking at the fine detailed work that some loving hand had spent days completing. Samara wondered what had that long-ago seamstress thought as she worked her art into the dress.
Samara went to a long mirror and looked at the dress as she held it against herself. Stretching her arm out, she admired the mutton sleeves. She liked the look, had admired them in many late-night movies made in the ’30s and ’40s. Of course, most of the actresses wearing them had perfect posture. Samara stood up taller at the thought.
The lace as Carmen had said had hand-sewn pearls in it and was fully intact. But what Samara really liked was the way the satin folds draped to the floor and the large bow that ended in a train.
Many women had gowns cut down to a shorter length. She could do that and it would no longer be a wedding gown. But as she saw herself in the mirror, she knew there was no way she’d be able to cut the dress. It was too beautiful.
And it looked as if it was her size.
All day she’d thought about the invitation. All day she’d told herself she wasn’t going to meet Justin. They had nothing in common. There was no reason for her to respond. It wasn’t really an invitation. Yet she wanted to go. She couldn’t explain it, not even to herself. She hadn’t been attracted to anyone in a long time and Justin touched something in her. Something that called to her in the most basic way.
And here she was, standing in the lobby of the Carriage House and scanning the room for Justin Beckett.
“Reservation?” the maître d’ asked. He smiled admiringly at her.
“Beckett,” she said confidently, but Samara didn’t know whose name the reservation was in, if there was a reservation.
<
br /> The man looked down a sheet on a podium she couldn’t see over. Then he took a couple large menus and led her to a table in a secluded spot. She couldn’t see the door and wouldn’t know when Justin arrived until he was practically sliding into the chair opposite her.
“Might I suggest a glass of wine?” he asked, then went on to give her the vintage and year. It matched the date of the vintage photo on the card.
Samara nodded and he offered her the menu, displaying it with exaggerated panache.
Samara smiled, but it had faded by the time the waiter offered her a third glass of wine and Justin had yet to show. Refusing it, she kept looking around, feeling that everyone in the place was staring at her and she somehow had on a sign that said I’m alone.
She checked her watch. Asked the waiter for the time and then checked hers again. She’d surveyed her fingernails, twisted her hair, rearranged her silverware and studied the menu more times that she should. Justin was an hour late.
And she was hungry.
Ten minutes later the maître d’ came to her table.
“Ms. Scott?” he addressed her by name.
Samara looked up and nodded. “Yes,” she said.
“Mr. Beckett has left a message for you. He regrets he’s been called away on a family emergency and will not be able to meet you tonight.”
“Oh,” she said, lost for anything else to say. “Did he say what the emergency was?”
“He didn’t give any other details.”
“How did you know who I was?” She was sitting alone in a busy restaurant and she’d been here for over an hour. Even she would know who the call was meant for.
“Mr. Beckett described you perfectly. He said to give you anything you want with his compliments.” The man nodded slightly in what looked like an almost-bow. “Would you like to order?”
Initially, she thought of refusing. Eating alone wasn’t something she planned to do. But she was hungry, and she’d waited for him a considerable amount of time.
“Yes,” she told the man. “I would.”
Chapter 4
“What do you mean he didn’t show up?” Cinnamon Grier stopped in midstride as she and Samara left the National Weather Services office in Virginia. Mac, Cinnamon’s husband, stood across the parking lot waiting for them.
“I mean, I sat in the restaurant like a dumb wallflower waiting for him and he never showed up.”
Samara had come to Virginia for the weekend. After being stood up, she wanted to get out of the city and it had been a while since she had visited her sister. Mac approached them when they stopped walking.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Justin stood her up.”
“When?” Mac asked.
“Last night. We had a date—”
“A date,” Mac said, with a wide smile.
“Not a real date. The man needs to show up to call it a ‘date,’” Samara said. “This was the second time I’ve sat alone in a restaurant because of him.”
“The other time he was virtually kidnapped by his ex-wife who might be a little vindictive to you.”
“Well, that’s her problem, not mine.”
“I know, but actually Justin was a victim in that situation, too.”
“This time the story I got from the maître d’ was he had a family emergency.”
“Well, he did,” Mac said.
Both women looked at him as if he’d suddenly transformed into a wizard.
“What do you know about it?” Cinnamon asked.
“Justin’s sister had a serious accident. He drove home last night.”
“Home?” Samara asked. “Where’s home?”
“Maryland. He’s from Cumberland,” Mac said. “It’s a couple of hours from here, traffic permitting.”
“Is she going to be all right?” Samara asked.
“I haven’t heard.”
Samara suddenly felt guilty. She’d been angry all night with Justin. Her thoughts of him standing her up had been harsh and unforgiving. Now she discovered he has a valid reason. Family was important to her and she knows she’d drop everything and run to Cinnamon if she were hurt.
“If you want, I can call and find out,” Mac offered, reaching for his cell phone.
“Don’t do that,” Samara stopped him. “I feel like enough of an idiot for thinking the worst of him.”
But her brother-in-law didn’t take her protest to heart. Right after dinner at the house that used to belong to their grandmother and where Cinnamon and Mac now lived, he told her she had a phone call.
Samara glanced at the place where she’d left her purse. Her cell phone hadn’t sounded. And the house phone hadn’t rang.
She gave her brother-in-law an askant look.
“You didn’t?”
“I was concerned,” he said, spreading his hands. “Justin is a good friend and I wanted to be sure he didn’t stand up my favorite sister-in-law for nothing.”
His smile was infectious. Samara understood why her sister fell for him. But that didn’t mean she forgave him for calling Justin. Matchmaking was often attributed to women, but Samara knew that men were just as apt to hook up their friends in relationships, too.
While she had gone out with the thought of it being a date with Justin, they were not in a relationship. She went to the kitchen and picked up the receiver.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Justin, this is Samara.”
“Hello, Samara.” His voice sounded surprised, but happy. She could hear his smile through the line. A warm feeling washed over her. She was amazed at how the sound of his voice wiped away her pent-up anger. “I apologize for last night,” he began.
“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t anything special.” She felt her stomach clench at the lie. She’d spent a lot of time getting ready and she felt like a fool sitting alone in that restaurant. But he had a valid reason for not coming. “How’s your sister? Mac said she had an accident.”
“She was cleaning windows on the second story and fell off a ladder. Her condition is serious, but stable, so we’re optimistic,” he said, sounding solemn.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“I hate to cut this short, but I’m about to run back to the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I won’t hold you.”
“We’ll make up that date when I get back.”
“We’ll talk about it then.”
As Samara replaced the receiver, she smiled. It took a moment for her heartbeat to return to normal. She didn’t want to return to the living room with the glow of happiness lighting her face and in every move of her body.
Tourists clogged the entry points of most of the monuments in the District from late March or early April, when the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival began, through December, when the lights of the huge mall Christmas tree were lit by the President. Justin loved the city and didn’t mind the tourists. Where he came from in Maryland, there was never this much activity. And the only place that stayed open twenty-four-hours-a-day was an all-night pharmacy.
Justin sat on one of the park benches in Lafayette Park. He watched the rush of families taking pictures of the White House across the street and noted the park police patrolling the area. Of course, there were also plain-clothes Homeland Security people among the crowd, but they were not detectable.
Justin was waiting for Samara. She often walked this way. Like him, the tourists didn’t bother her. Seeing her coming, he stood up. She was on the other side of the street, but he knew her walk. Knew the line of her body, the way her hips swayed, the arch of her arms as she swung them easily, the curve of her smile and the brightness of her eyes when she was enjoying herself.
Stepping off the curb, Justin waited for her as she crossed toward the park. There was no traffic in front of the White House. It had been cordoned off years ago as a security measure.
“Samara,” he called, not wanting to frighten her by stepping in front of her like a mugger.
She stopped, l
ooking for where the sound had come.
“Here.” He raised his hand and jogged a couple of steps.
“Justin,” she responded.
Her smile made his heart flip.
“When did you get back?”
“Today.” In fact, he’d come here from the airport. He’d checked in with the office and gone straight to the park where he knew she’d be passing.
“Are things better with your sister?”
He nodded. “She’s going to be all right. And thank you for asking.”
“That’s good. I don’t know how I’d survive if something happened to my sister.”
“I understand. Deanna and I are very close. In fact, our entire family is close.”
“I remember your brother. Do you have a large family?”
Justin fell in step with her. They walked through the park toward Sixteenth Street.
“Three brothers, one sister.”
“Five of you. From the same parents?”
“Fortieth anniversary this year.”
“That is large. I only have Cinnamon. She’s really my half sister, but we never think of each other that way.”
“No brothers?”
She shook her head. “None. I envy people with large families. They seem to have so much fun.”
“We do,” Justin agreed. He smiled, remembering some of the antics that had happened while they were growing up. “There is also the rivalry and sometimes we hate each other. So many personalities, so little room in one house.”
“But in the long run, it all works out,” she assumed.
He nodded. “The things we did as kids would make my parents’ hair stand on end if they knew,” he laughed. “I couldn’t imagine not having my brothers and sister around.”
“Other than Christian, do they all live in Maryland?”
The Right Wedding Gown Page 5