by Tif Marcelo
“I can make decaf.” His body followed his voice with a rush. His shirt was untucked now, wrinkled at the bottom, giving off a boyish charm that made her insides skip. Pearl understood she saw Trenton with childhood-crush colored glasses—he was always going to be that guy.
“Nah.” She smiled. “I’ve got to be up early. But thank you.”
“Wait.” He scooped a beanie from a basket next to the front door and jammed it on his head. “I’ll walk you home.”
“It’s three blocks to my house.”
“Still, it’s late.” A slithery snake of a scarf materialized in his hands, and he slung it around her neck, tying it into a haphazard knot.
Pearl turned away so she could bite her lip and compose herself at this sweet, natural gesture, then followed him out the door of the town house.
The street was dark except for the soft glow of the gaslights next to front doors. She crossed her arms against the cold. “When it’s dark like this, every house looks exactly the same. A door in between two windows. Three floors. Top floor dormer windows. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss my house altogether.”
“It’s not a bad thing. It makes for a neat-looking street.”
“Yeah, I suppose, but there’s nothing wrong with standing out, is there? Being seen?” The thought came out in a tumble, and she winced at her own candor. This was her first solo conversation with him in the last seven years, and it wasn’t the time to bare her feelings.
His voice echoed through the quiet street. “No, you are absolutely right. Everyone—I mean, every house—should be seen for what they are. I get it, you know. It’s a fine line, being part of a neighborhood that’s supposed to look a certain way, yet be a home with its own value. Because it’s not just about the structure, it’s about what’s been improved, invested in.”
Her face heated at his answer, at his ability to understand the meaning behind her words. “Exactly. Some people never remodel.”
“Some make massive changes,” he added.
“Right,” she said. “And unless there’s a chance to show it off, no one would be the wiser.”
They’d arrived at 2404 Duchess Street. Pearl turned to Trenton for a swift goodbye. She needed to be alone, to process the information she’d revealed today. “Thanks for walking me home.”
“Anytime.” He kissed her on the cheek.
All Pearl could do was nod. Geez, it was like she was thirteen all over again. Get over it!
She turned and stuck her key in the lock.
“And Pearl,” Trenton said, now a couple of steps away. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you wanting to stand out. I see you.”
Pearl watched him walk off without another word. Once her heart calmed and the goofy smile on her face receded, she walked into her town house to dream of something more tangible than that compliment Trenton gave her and truer than the crush she still harbored.
She was going to dream about a future to work toward.
three
Mood: “It Had to Be You” by Frank Sinatra
The whole shop was in upheaval, at the stage of decluttering where everything had been dragged out of its nooks and crannies. Boxes were piled up in random places, papers dug out from years of storage, and with barely enough room to navigate through the shop, Mari hung signs that expressed her apologies for the mess.
In between greeting customers and tidying the shop, she eyed Pearl in the accessories area, talking up a client. With an iPad in her hand, Pearl scrolled through the screen with a finger and alternately pointed out veils hanging on a wall display behind her. The client was engaged, animated, eyes glued onto her sister’s face.
Her baby sister was so good at that, at making customers feel comfortable, at getting them to stick around the shop. She was a saleswoman, and her smile was disarming. She held people’s gazes with confidence, acknowledged their thoughts, and knew how to turn it all around into one pretty pitch. These were her strengths.
But Pearl had been late again this morning by two minutes. Not a big deal on a time clock, since Mari opened the shop daily, but it grated on her like the squeak of a metal hanger on a clothes rack. Today was Friday. Next to the usual Wedding Day, Saturday, Fridays were the most hectic with the shop’s management, as well as with prepping for events. Add their first ever inventory to the list . . .
At the sisters’ first meeting five days ago, Jane had reported that in her initial evaluation of the finances, she’d discovered cracks in the foundation: incomplete expense reports, discrepancies in the books. Her solution: a total shop inventory.
With no perfect time to close the shop, Mari agreed to undertake the task immediately.
Mari now climbed the creaky wooden steps to the third floor, the only one currently kept immaculate, into what she’d described time and again as the “area of hope”: the wedding dress, fitting room, and alterations area. Three tall mirrors reflected light from south-facing windows; no need to turn on the lights until late afternoon. A wall of exposed brick, painted an antique white, played off the bright multicolored area rugs covering hand-scraped wooden floors. Three rows of dresses hung from high racks in the middle of the room, with aisles wide enough for two people to squeeze through the fabric that billowed from the racks. It had been Mari’s idea to add rugs to this floor, to muffle the sounds of footsteps. And to aid in the intimacy of dress shopping, the de la Rosas spaced out their clients so only one roamed the stacks at a time.
On this floor, brides cried, they squealed, they bore their disappointments. It was where brides decided, officially—YES!—that they would indeed march down that aisle and take the biggest risk of their lives. And in less than an hour, Mari’s top client was arriving for her first fitting. Her dress, special-ordered from Israel, had finally arrived.
Mari took note of the condition of the room with her Third Floor Checklist in mind. Temperature comfortable? All the light bulbs working? Windows streak-free? Rugs vacuumed? Did it smell more like lavender and pine rather than fabric?
For now, it was a yes to all.
A cough and the scrape of a hanger against metal alerted Mari to where Jane and their intern, Carli Swanson, were in the rows. She found them in the furthermost row. Jane was reading SKU numbers and descriptions, while Carli looked through a white binder, acknowledging each entry with a “yep.”
Not wanting to bother them, Mari headed to the backmost office, beyond the client dressing room and behind a curtain, to where their lead seamstress, Amelia Garland, worked in her lair. The sound of Louis Armstrong’s distinct singing voice filled the air, wrapping around Mari like a ribbon.
The song tugged her into the space. Mari knew all of the greats by now, with Amelia part of the Rings & Roses family since it all began. Amelia had played Etta James and Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole on repeat Mari’s whole life. She never got tired of it.
The blond woman was alone at the moment, behind her sewing machine, hands buried in the ivory fabric of a dress for one of Jane’s clients. A pincushion was wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet of shiny studs. The needle of the industrial machine stitched against the bodice of the dress, marked with blue washable ink and clover-topped pins.
Amelia didn’t look up from her work. “How are things going out there?”
“Great.” Mari answered back brightly. She pulled her stool from the back of the room, behind a wall of ribbons and bolts of fabric. Although they didn’t make wedding dresses at the shop, they found it necessary to have extras of every type of fabric and ribbon known to humankind. Amelia was a magician at bridging the gap between the original design and what brides envisioned. The dresses on the rack were simply the beginning of the process, the blank canvas of what would eventually become a fully customized wearable work of art.
Mari had been a full-time wedding coordinator the last decade, but this space, amidst the smell of sewing-machine oil and the purr of the motors, was her place for a breather, a reset.
It was where she was
least expected to perform. Mari was always cerebral. Not like Jane, with her penchant for numbers and science. Unlike Pearl, with her constant chatter that put people at ease.
Mari’s head was always full of stuff: of ways to do better, to be better. She checked her motivations and efforts against action. She was always asking herself: What else could I have done?
In Amelia’s space, Mari could shrug her shoulders down, slouch into her stool, and simply relax.
“Great? Is that it?” The sewing paused as if the machine, too, was waiting for Mari’s answer. “You’ve sat in that same spot a thousand times the last twenty years, and there’s always a reason why, Marisol.” Her cheeks wrinkled as she smiled, leathery from her visits to Bethany Beach, where she spent every available long weekend during the year. She owned a four-bedroom beachside home steps from the surf.
A quick thought came to Mari: Amelia was a short-stay rental landlord herself.
Speaking of . . .
“Darn right, there’s a reason.” Mari beamed. “I’m thrilled. We’ve all slept better because there have been zero parties next door.”
“Ah. Your ultimatum worked.” Her eyes twinkled. “But I was talking more about Rings and Roses. How did your first week fare?”
“All right. Mommy only called me twice this morning. We’re slowly adjusting to managing the shop among ourselves—not having an extra person is a blow, and we’re still scrambling to fill shifts. I’d like to hire an assistant or salesperson soon. Inventory should wrap up today. I’d say things are moving along well.” She paused, mesmerized by the needle threading through the fabric. “But it all feels too smooth.”
Amelia had gotten to the end of the stitch, and she snipped the thread from the fabric. She rose from her chair, snapping the fabric straight, and with a magician’s flair revealed a scallop-trimmed bodice adorned with beads.
As usual, it took Mari’s breath away. A dress on the rack was beautiful in its own right, but once it chose an owner, it came to life.
“What do you think? Is it lovely, or is it lovely?” Amelia held the dress up to herself and blinked flirtatiously, making Mari laugh. “Good,” she said, as she walked the dress to a rack, but not before she looked askance at Mari. “I wanted to hear that laugh. For a second there, I thought I heard doubt in your voice.”
“It’s not doubt.” Mari picked at a piece of lint on her pinstriped slacks, gaze rooted downward and inward at how Amelia could wade through the muck that Mari came in with and find the pearl. “I’m just being realistic. I did run this business next to my mother. There were good and bad times.”
“And there will always be both those times, so enjoy the moment.” She fluffed the dress in between the others on the rack. “You’re in a much better spot than when your mother and I came into this business. You have the knowledge and the experience. Not to mention the help of two other sisters who are every bit as talented as you. They are your biggest assets.”
A grumble made its way out of Mari’s throat. Amelia had meant her advice to be helpful, but at the mention of the intricate and complicated relationship she had with her sisters, especially Pearl, the truth came down like a red velvet curtain at a theater.
They might be her biggest assets, but they were also her biggest challenges. She’d felt the undercurrent at their last meeting, more so than in the many years they’d worked together. Under one boss—their parents—there had been someone to rally against.
Now, it was as if they’d been let loose after being held back by gates. Pearl with her lack of seriousness, Jane’s detachment from the business, still understandably putting her son first. Was there truly such as a thing as an equal share? From the couples she’d worked with, she’d learned equality wasn’t possible each and every day. It was a give and take, a constant negotiation.
“What’s your biggest worry?” Amelia perched on her chair. Using a small brush, she swept the lint and thread off her workspace and into her hand.
Mari inhaled, the words at the tip of her tongue. The anticipation of relief was mere seconds away. She’d finally reveal that the pressure to succeed weighed on her shoulders. The need to take Rings & Roses to the next level bore heavy on her mind twenty-four seven, and wrangling her opinionated sisters in the process seemed insurmountable.
But the cell phone in her hand buzzed, slicing the moment in half. It was a text from Pearl: Hazel Flynn arrived. Settling her in your office.
“Your top?” Amelia teased.
“Yep.” Mari hefted herself onto her feet and nodded toward the singular dress hanging on a tall rod. A glory of lace and beads, angelic and provocative all at once. “Ready for another round?”
“But of course. Let me put on my lip gloss. Let’s give her the time of her life, shall we? But Mari?”
“Yes?” Mari had a hand on the curtain. She looked back at Amelia, who leveled her with the kind gaze she’d come to rely on.
“It’s okay to worry. But don’t let it consume you. We’re all here to help, and you can rely on us.”
She smiled, her mind already on the next step. “I know.”
Hazel Flynn’s smile was the kind a wedding planner wanted to see first thing in the morning: wide and disarming, open and sincere, and not the transactional smile Mari sometimes encountered from clients who saw her as just another employee rather than an expert in her field.
Hazel’s smile was like a friend’s.
So, aside from Hazel’s unlimited budget and exquisite taste, if she’d asked for the world, Mari would’ve found a way to package it in a turquoise box and wrap it with a satin ivory ribbon.
“The future Mrs. Brad Gill.” Mari entered her office with open arms, and Hazel, an easy half foot taller than Mari’s five-foot-two frame—five-four in her black patent leather two-inch heels—fell into it like Mari’s nephew had done time and time again, with part relief, part excitement. Like she’d needed a hug. Jean Patou’s Joy, a scent so light it was as if she’d skipped under a mist of it, brought a smile to Mari’s face because the perfume was perfectly Hazel. Delicate and sweet. She stepped back. “Are you ready for today—” She faltered, noticing Hazel was alone. “Where’s your matron of honor?”
Unlike other brides of Hazel’s social stature—old money, well connected, and lovely to boot—Hazel had her Louboutins firmly planted on the ground. She’d planned for an intimate wedding of seventy-five attendees, and only one in her entourage: her matron of honor. A recent transplant from Atlanta, she’d given Mari four months to bring together all the chaotic moving parts of the most important day of her life.
The event was sure to be glamorous, classic. But the plans had been fraught with issues, as could be expected, especially because of the short timeline, with only three months left till the big day.
“She’s on crutches.” At Mari’s raised eyebrows, Hazel’s lips quirked downward. “She fell while dancing the Cha-Cha Slide in four-inch heels at a charity banquet and broke her ankle. I can’t even make this up. I hope you don’t mind my stepbrother coming. He’s in town for business the next couple of weeks, and I didn’t want to do this alone. Is that okay?”
“A hundred percent okay. I’ll let the ladies know to expect him.” Mari’s fingers flew on her iPhone, sending a group text to her sisters and Carli. A pang of worry shot through her. Mari had chalked up the lack of participation from Hazel’s friends to her need for privacy and that they were only, technically, a month into the planning. But Hazel’s mother was also MIA. Hazel seemed alone. “Let’s head to the dressing room. Or would you like to have coffee before we head up? Wait. Can you have—” she glanced down at Hazel’s belly.
Hazel nodded. “Coffee is still allowed. But I had my cup today. Water will be fine. Or soda? Oh no, I shouldn’t have soda either, I think. Sorry, I’m nervous.”
Mari peered at her, knowing exactly what she needed. She sent another group text. “Since we’re waiting for your stepbrother, let’s relax a bit before we begin.” She led her back to the twee
d armchair and sat across from her.
“Mari, I have to be upfront. The reason why I’m nervous is because I have to tell you something.”
“Anything.”
“It’s about my family . . . they don’t know I’m pregnant. And I don’t want anyone to find out, not until after the wedding.”
Mari stilled. When Hazel had walked into her office a month ago with her wish to marry in a hundred and sixty days, Mari had initially refused her. Budget be damned, the timeline was nearly impossible for where they wanted to marry, at the Carnegie Institution for Science in DC. But the woman was distraught, practically begging, finally admitting she was six weeks pregnant with the baby of a man she’d only met two months prior but whom she’d fallen madly in love with. In the end, Mari had said yes, but she hadn’t realized part of her job was to lie. “Hazel . . . wow.”
“My stepbrother has given me a hard enough time with the timing of the wedding and me moving here to Virginia. I don’t want one more thing to add to the stress.” She lay a hand on her belly. “I don’t want bad vibes for this little one.”
A knock on the door produced Carli, carrying a tray of iced peach tea and delicate Filipino-style meringue cookies in pastel colors from Barrio Fiesta, a local Filipino store and restaurant.
Hazel accepted her glass gratefully; she sipped it like it was chocolate milk after a race, color rising to her cheeks. “Oh, that’s so perfect. Thank you.”
“Of course.” When Carli walked out, Mari said, “Okay. I will do my best to keep it under wraps. We’ll have to update Amelia, our seamstress, and my sisters as well. I’d mentioned your pregnancy as part of the alterations and general wedding plans. But I don’t foresee it being a problem.”
“Thank you.” Another gulp of her tea, and Hazel’s glass was half empty. “Not gonna lie, it’s been stressful with Brad traveling a bunch. I moved in with him so we could plan this wedding together, but he’s not been around to do it with me. I mean, obviously, we discuss the wedding, since we keep making changes.” Her voice dipped into a whisper, and her gaze dropped. “We’re still getting to know one another.”