A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

by Melissa Bourbon

  I spent the next five hours at the country club. Fern had given me Trudy’s moleskin journal for reference so I could help match dresses to the girls who were supposed to wear them. Inside were all Trudy’s scribbling, sketches, and notes about each and every Margaret gown for this year. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I planned to go through the gowns, compare notes to the drawings, and use a stickpin to affix a small slip of paper with a girl’s name to her corresponding dress.

  Josie would be there to help me. She’d called every girl on the list and summoned them back for a second go at the dress rehearsal. We would start first thing in the morning. The last things I needed to do were finish up the loose ends on Gracie’s dress and write her pedigree. Which meant calling Will and Gracie to have them meet me back at Buttons & Bows, with Gracie’s hair done up and ready to be photographed. The whole packet of photos and Margaret bios had to be off to the printer first thing in the morning for a rush job.

  “Why did Mrs. James wait until the last second to print the pageant brochure,” Josie asked. I had the Lafayettes’ notebook under my arm and my purse over my shoulder as I sucked on a bottle of water. The storm had blown through, the sky was blue, and the temperature had dropped by at least fifteen degrees. No more humidity. No more sticky skin. Now, if it would just hold until after the pageant… just twenty-four hours.

  I’d asked myself the same question. “To accommodate last minute changes, I guess,” I said. Whatever the reason, I was just glad Gracie’s picture and write-up would make it into the booklet.

  The town’s festivities had already begun. The streets just off the square were cordoned off in preparation for the parade. Bliss Park was buzzing with food vendors, stages set up for music performances, and games for kids. The activities were winding down for the night as dusk settled in, but by morning, the place would be one big party. The whole event would culminate with the pageant and ball at the country club on Saturday night.

  A cold sweat dotted my forehead. And I’d thought the pressure of pulling off a wedding gown and three bridesmaids dresses in a short span of time was overwhelming. That paled in comparison to this. Three custom period gowns was a big deal, not to mention sprucing up and altering another gown.

  Add Mrs. James’s tiered blue dress to the mix, and I’d been sewing my fingers to the bone. But most of my angst was coming from running the show. Mrs. James hadn’t called me or shown up at the country club since the deputy had sprung her from the jailhouse. It was up to me to make sure all the girls in the pageant, including those who’d be wearing Lafayette gowns, were taken care of, and that everything went off without a hitch. If Macon Vance wasn’t already dead, I would wonder if he was working behind the scenes to sabotage the whole production.

  Josie headed home to her husband, and I drove straight back to Buttons & Bows. As I pulled my truck up the long driveway on the left side of the house, I saw Madelyn Brighton sitting on one of the white rocking chairs on the porch. Her camera bag was on the little table beside her, but she peered through the viewfinder of her Canon, snapping pictures of something in the yard. My pulse skittered. The last time she’d taken pictures of my yard, she’d captured photographic evidence of Mama’s green thumb in action. First there were no flowers; then there was an abundance.

  I threw the truck into PARK halfway up the driveway, cut the rumbling engine, and climbed out. “Whatcha doing?”

  Madelyn swung her head in my direction, still looking through the viewfinder of her camera, and depressed her finger. “Just warming up.”

  “Taking pictures isn’t like playing a game of soccer,” I said, opening the little side gate and picking my way through the thicket of bluebonnets.

  “They’re not in season, you know.” Madelyn’s British accent made everything she said sound so sophisticated, especially compared to the typical Southern drawl ninety percent of Bliss residents had.

  I looked down at the stems of bold indigo petals. “Mama’s been here.”

  “Yes, she was. We had a nice chat before the sheriff whisked her off for a late dinner at Buffalo Joe’s.”

  “The best barbeque in town.”

  “You’re the third person who’s said that. I do believe we should try it.” She set her camera down and whipped out her cell phone, slid the lock screen free with her thumb, and started typing on the touch pad with her thumbs.

  “Are you texting Bill?” Madelyn had met Bill Brighton, a Texas native, at Oxford, but they’d moved back here when he’d taken a job at the University of North Texas.

  She nodded. “He’s been working so many bloody hours,” she said, “but after I’m done photographing the pageant, we’re taking a week off together. We’d like to go to the Hill Country for a little getaway.”

  “Wimberly,” I said immediately. It was the one place Mama used to take Red and me on vacation when we were kids. She didn’t like to venture far from Bliss, but Wimberly was close enough that we could go to Schlitterbahn, the water park in New Braunfels, see the River Walk and the Alamo in San Antonio, visit UT Austin, which we’d both ended up attending, and raft down the Brazos.

  “Stay at Creekhaven Inn. It’s right on Cypress Creek and just a stone’s throw to the village square. You can walk, see the ancient cypress trees, visit the wine country. It’s perfect.”

  She typed herself a note on her phone, tucking it into her pocket when she was finished. The next second she was back to pointing her camera and clicking. “You’d best keep your grandmother’s goats away,” she said, aiming her camera at the fence behind me.

  Oh no. Thelma Louise, along with Farrah, another of Nana’s escape artists and the prettiest Nubian of the herd, stood near my truck, poking their heads through the horizontal slats of the fence. Summer rain kept their pasture nice and green, but any goat would choose the succulent bluebonnets over grass.

  “Shoo!” I retraced my steps, trying not to crush the pretty little flowers. Nana’s goats helped keep the weeds in check if Mama’s gift got out of control, but the buffalo clover, as some Texans called our state flower, was like a vibrant blanket of blue and I didn’t want it eaten away by the pesky goats. “Go on,” I said, waving my arms and stomping my feet as I reached the fence.

  Farrah scooted away, but Thelma Louise just gazed up at me with her golden eyes. Her black-and-brown face, framed by her floppy white ears, made her look innocent, but I knew better. She could make all the deep, soulful sounds she wanted, but I still wouldn’t let her into my yard.

  “You trying to make it rain, darlin’?”

  I froze midstep, arms still raised. Will Flores. Why was it that anytime I happened to be doing something ridiculous—like shooing away wayward goats—Will was there to see it? “I made it stop raining,” I said, lowering my arms and turning around.

  He stood, rocking back on his heels, his hands in his pockets, a crooked little smile on his lips. Gracie stood next to him. I heard the faint click, click, click as Madelyn snapped more pictures from the porch.

  “Good work, then,” he said, his smile widening. “So next flash flood that comes through, you just do your thing.”

  Thelma Louise had finally scurried back to her own pasture. I threaded through the bluebonnets, staying on the flagstone path and trying not to crush the encroaching flowers. Mama’s charm seemed to have lingered after her; the flowers were multiplying faster than a flurry of June bugs dive-bombing in the moonlight on a hot summer night. I unlocked the front door and held it open as Gracie and Madelyn stepped inside.

  Will caught the door behind me. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, his hand, just for the briefest second, resting on my waist. “You look mighty fine, whatever kind of dance you’re doing.”

  He had a good six inches on me, and I’d worn flats today so the distance from my eyes to his… was pretty steep. I looked up at him as I passed inside. “Why, thank you,” I said, waxing heavy on my Southern accent and batting my eyes.

  “My pleasure.” As he closed the door behind him, I
was already shifting gears. Flirtation had to give way to work. Madelyn was snapping test pictures, pointing her camera in different directions. “Trying to figure out the best spot for the photo shoot,” she answered, even though I hadn’t asked.

  Gracie slipped behind the privacy screen in the workroom. I dropped my purse and Trudy’s notebook on the coffee table so I could take the gown off the dress form and hand it to her. “Let me know if you need help,” I told her.

  “It’s really lovely.”

  “I wonder if she’ll feel that way when she finds out that was her grandmother’s gown,” I whispered to Will.

  His eyes instantly darkened. “Eleanor Mcafferty wore that dress?” he hissed.

  Suddenly the air whooshed around me, rushing through the room like an invisible meteor. The clothes swayed on their hangers. My purse flopped open. The pages of Trudy’s book rustled from the coffee table. Finally, I felt a feathery breath against my ear. Meemaw had joined us.

  Will looked around, striding to the front door, which was cracked open, and slammed it shut. “Damn house,” he muttered under his breath. He scowled as he walked back to me, his lips pressed together between his mustache and goatee. “When did you find that out?”

  “My grandmother just told me the story.” Or at least enough of the story that I knew who wore each of the three gowns. “She wore the yellow one, Eleanor’s was the green silk that Gracie has, and Mrs. James’s was the cornflower blue. Will,” I said, sensing that he wanted to forbid Gracie from wearing the gown I’d fixed for her. “She was instantly drawn to that dress. It’s almost as if she sensed it had been in her family.”

  “Gracie doesn’t need anything of that woman’s,” Will said.

  “You can’t blame Mrs. Mcafferty. She doesn’t even know about Gracie,” I reminded him. Like he could forget. I squeezed his arm. “It’s just a dress.” And if I really believed that, I was sure there was some prime vineyard land in the Hill Country somebody could sell me on the cheap. What I knew for sure was that everything had a history to it, including, if not especially, fabric and clothing. The threads connected us, weaving together the past, the present, and the future, sometimes in deeper ways than we might have thought possible.

  The bells hanging from the knob on the front door jingled. “Knock knock,” Anna Hughes, Buckley’s wife, said in a singsong voice as she stepped into the shop. Her son, Libby’s beau, was on her heels. Anna’s eyes grew wide as she took in Buttons & Bows: the metal display board with photographs of models wearing my designs and swatches of fabrics held to it with tiny magnets, the rack of samples, the bolts of fabrics stacked against the far wall in the workroom and on the worktable, the antique shelf with the Mason jars filled with buttons and trims. “Wow.”

  Oh lordy. Anna and her Wow! dress had completely slipped my mind. I left Will leaning against the French doors between the two rooms, stewing over Eleanor Mcafferty’s dress, and rushed to her. “Anna!” Her timing wasn’t great, but working for Maximilian had taught me to multitask.

  “Is now a good time?” The slur of her words made me wonder if she’d had a cocktail or two already. I raised my eyebrows in a silent question at her son, Duane, but he just shrugged. Being dragged to a dressmaker’s studio was hardly exciting for a teenage boy.

  “Um, sure. Come on in. Your sister’s wedding, right?”

  Her smile faltered, but she caught it before it disappeared altogether. “Third wedding, but I’m not sure what I want…” She left the sentence unfinished when she heard the click of the camera.

  Madelyn snapped a picture from where she stood next to the armoire. Still testing the light, I guessed.

  I shut the door behind them and ushered them in. “Like you said, third time’s a charm.”

  Duane sank down on the sofa. “Or three strikes you’re out,” he mumbled. His mother shot him a stern, if wavering, look.

  I studied Anna Hughes, trying to gauge if she agreed with her son, but before I could get a reading on her, she schooled her face into a perfectly unemotional expression. I led her to the ready-made clothes. “Maybe you’ll find something here. It would be less expensive than a custom design—”

  “Oh!” Gracie yelped from behind the privacy screen.

  Anna waved me away, heading to the seating area and the lookbook. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll wait.”

  I left her to browse while I went to help Gracie, but Will beat me to her. “What’s wrong, baby?” he said.

  “I… I… I don’t know.”

  She stepped out from behind the screen. With her hair parted in the center, isolated long curls dangling in ringlets on either side of her face, and a high bun on the crown of her head, she could have stepped right out of one of the pictures framed in my stairwell.

  “You’re stunning.” I came around behind her to button her up, but as I touched the fabric, a jolt shot up my arms. A vision tore through my mind, but not of Gracie. It was a vision of Eleanor Mcafferty in this very gown, but I was looking through her eyes right at Nana and Mrs. James. They were younger, dressed in their Margaret gowns. My granddaddy Dalton was in the background.

  Another jolt went through me as Nana reached her hand out, grabbed hold of the fabric of my dress, and yanked, tearing the silk. “It’s a lie,” she said, her voice thready and thin and echoing only in my mind.

  I stumbled back, Will’s arms catching me before I lost my balance. “It was Nana,” I said, my voice hushed. “She ripped the gown.”

  Chapter 27

  Madelyn clapped her hands from the front room. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Should I come back?” Anna called. “I sure didn’t think you’d be so busy at this time of night.”

  I finished buttoning Gracie up, and ushered her over to Madelyn, noticing how Duane stared at her, rapt. Looked like Duane and Libby’s future together wasn’t as assured as Dr. Hughes was hoping for. “We’ll be taking pictures for a little while…” I trailed off, leaving it up to Anna if she wanted to come back or wait.

  She settled back against the settee, lounging like Cleopatra. “I’ll wait.”

  My gaze met Will’s. His back was stick straight and his hands were fisted in his pockets. “Sounds great,” I said, my voice more enthusiastic than I actually felt at the moment. Part of me was glad Anna was staying. It meant I wouldn’t have to lie to Will about whatever magic Gracie might be carrying inside of her. But the other part of me wanted to come clean about what I knew, figure out what in tarnation was going on, and reassure Will that everything would be okay.

  “Yeah, great,” he said. I sensed he was just as conflicted as I was.

  Madelyn started snapping pictures of Gracie, pausing every few shots to view the images. “Lovely,” she said. “Really lovely, except…”

  Something in her tone made me look up. She frowned over her camera, turning to look at the digital screen in different light. “Strange,” she muttered.

  “What is it?”

  “If it was a print picture, I’d say it was a smudge.” She frowned. “But, of course, it’s not a print picture. It almost looks like…” She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, it can’t be.” Her gaze met mine and I read the question on her face. Can it?

  Madelyn and her husband were both part of the North Texas Paranormal Society. She’d told me the magic that ran in my family was well known in the group, but our identities weren’t known. I wanted to keep it that way.

  Madelyn’s freelance job as crime photographer for Bliss had led her right into my front yard… literally. She knew magic like ours existed, so she was looking for it. From there, the deductions had been easy for her. She’d figured out our story, but I’d sworn her to secrecy. What she still didn’t know, however, was the ever-after part of the Cassidy legacy. Magic was one thing. Ghosts were quite another. I wasn’t sure if she was ready for that much truth from me.

  Heck, I still wasn’t sure I was ready for it, and I was living with it.

  She held out the cam
era for me to see. In each picture, Gracie stood to the right of the armoire, her body angled to the side, a Mona Lisa smile on her otherwise expressionless face. Above her right shoulder was a translucent shape, like a… I swallowed. Like a ghost standing just behind her.

  Hard to keep the ever-after on the down low if my great-grandmother was going to announce herself so blatantly. And to a self-proclaimed paranormal junkie, no less.

  As if on cue—Loretta Mae had impeccable timing—the pipes upstairs moaned. Madelyn looked up, her dark eyebrows pulled together in thought; then they popped up toward her hairline. “Bloody hell,” she said, darting a glance at me.

  “Damn pipes,” Will said. “I have a buddy who’s a plumber. I’m gonna get him out here.”

  “They’re always doing that,” Gracie said.

  I met Madelyn’s eyes, a silent understanding passing between us. I’ll fill you in later, my expression said. Right you will, hers replied.

  She threw herself back into photography mode. She posed Gracie, turning her this way and that, snapping photo after photo. “Lift your chin. Right. Elbow bent. Yes, just like that.”

  I knew that she was trying to capture more supernatural images, but she was doing a good job of making Gracie feel absolutely relaxed and beautiful.

  A sudden movement behind me reminded me that Anna and Duane Hughes were still here. “I’ll come back another time,” Anna said, gliding toward the door, which Duane held open for her. “You’ve obviously got a lot on your mind.”

  I hadn’t thought she’d remember to come by the shop, let alone actually commission a dress. Letting her walk out was not in the best interest of my business, but it was in the best interest of Will and Gracie. They came first, I decided. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hughes—”

  She smiled as she reached for the doorknob. “Anna. And don’t worry about it. You must be terribly busy with all the pageant preparations.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll do some sketches for you for your sister’s wedding. Come back after the pageant and I’ll show you what I come up with. How does that sound?”