“And Rose?” asked Lewis.
“Well, I think her wedding’s making her a little crazy. And I think that Maggie makes her crazy, too. They care about each other, so much. I know that, at least.” Ella remembered the way, in the months before Rose’s arrival, that Rose would pop up in odd moments of Maggie’s conversation—never by name, Ella had noticed, but just as “my sister.” As in, “My sister and I used to go to football games with my father.” Or, “My sister and I used to share a bedroom, because Sydelle the Terrible made me move out of my bedroom and move in with Rose when she redecorated.” Ella treasured every brief mention, every scrap of conversation, every glimpse she got of the two of them as little girls, especially in the early days of Maggie’s time in Florida, when Maggie was saying hardly anything at all. Ella could almost see them sometimes, in the room with two twin beds, Rose lying on her belly on the floor, poring over—what? A Nancy Drew book, Ella decided. That seemed about right. And Maggie, a tiny little thing in—what? Red overalls, thought Ella. Maggie would be bouncing back and forth, back and forth, until her red legs and brown hair turned into a blur, shouting, “The quick! Brown! Fox! Jumped over! The lazy dog!”
“I wish,” said Ella, then closed her mouth. What did she wish for? What did she want? “I wish I could make everything right between them. I wish I could give Maggie the life she wanted, and tell Rose how to handle her stepmother, and just ...” She lifted her left hand, waved it as if it were holding a magic wand. “Fix things. Fix everything for them.”
“Well, but that’s not what grandparents do,” said Lewis.
“They don’t?” Ella asked morosely.
Lewis shook his head.
“What do grandparents do?” Ella asked plaintively, feeling sorrow for all the years when she was supposed to have learned the answer.
Lewis gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I think you give them unconditional love, and support, and the occasional cash infusion. You give them a place to come, when they need somewhere to go, and you try not to tell them what to do, because they get plenty of that from their parents. And then you let them figure it out for themselves.”
Ella closed her eyes. “I wonder if Rose hates me,” she said so softly that Lewis almost didn’t hear her. She hadn’t told him, or Maggie, or anyone, but she’d been both joyful and terrified the first time she’d seen Rose; and how part of her was still waiting for Rose to ask her the questions she couldn’t answer.
“How could anyone hate you?” Lewis asked kindly. “You’re worrying too much. They’re smart girls. They won’t blame you for not being there when it wasn’t your fault, and they can’t expect you to fix everything for them. Nobody could do that.”
“Does it make me wrong that I still want to try?” Ella asked.
Lewis smiled at her and took her hand. “No,” he said, “it just makes me love you more.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
The first problem with trying to find an off-the-rack wedding dress, Maggie learned the next morning, was that they only came in two sizes, neither one of which was the size she thought her sister wore. “Sample sizes,” the bored clerk had explained, when Maggie asked to see something that wasn’t an eight or a ten. “You’ll try ’em on, find what you like, and we’ll order it in your size.”
“But what if you don’t wear an eight or a ten?” she asked.
“We pin ’em if they’re too big,” said the clerk.
“But what if they’re too small?” asked Maggie, fingering the gowns and knowing there was no way they’d fit her sister. The clerk had shrugged and scribbled a name and address on a piece of paper. “They’ve got larger sizes,” she said.
And the next store—a branch of a gigantic bridal-gown chain—did indeed have larger sizes, hanging in its coyly named Diva section. “Do they come with their own entourage?” Ella had asked. Maggie wasn’t sure about entourages. But she did know that the dresses were awful.
“I don’t know about this,” said Ella, showing Maggie the umpteenth empire-waisted A-line dress they’d seen. This one had bunchy silk flowers on the bosom.
“It’s okay,” said Maggie. “It’s adequate, you know? But I want to find something that’s perfect, and I’m not sure this is the place.” She sighed, leaning against a glass case of discounted garters. “I’m not even sure what the right thing is. I feel like I’ll know it when I see it, but I’m not sure I’m going to see it!”
“Well, what does Rose like?” asked Ella.
“She doesn’t know what she likes,” said Maggie. “Her favorite piece of clothing was a blue hooded sweatshirt with a zipper up the front.” She sighed again. “I guess I’d better start talking to dressmakers.” She shook her head. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.” She gazed around the store. “Not here, though. Where’s Lewis?”
Lewis, as it turned out, was back in the dressing room, offering helpful critiques to brides-to-be.
“I don’t know,” said a tiny redhead in a puffy meringue of a dress, “do you think it’s overwhelming me?”
Lewis looked at her carefully. “Put the third one on again, the one with the low back,” he said. “That’s still my favorite.”
A black girl with shells and beads laced through her braids tapped his shoulder and twirled around.
“Definitely you,” said Lewis, nodding his approval.
“Lewis!” called Maggie. “We’re going now!”
A chorus of complaints came from a half-dozen dressing room stalls. “No! Not yet! Just one more dress!”
Lewis smiled. “It seems like I’ve got a talent for this. Maggie, maybe you should put me on retainer.”
“Done,” said Maggie. “But we’ve got two days until Rose leaves, and no dress yet, so we’ve got to keep shopping. Let’s go.”
Later that night, Maggie and Ella drove back to Golden Acres through the night air that was thick with moisture, and the whirring of cicadas, and disappointment. The dress they’d driven to see had been a disaster—the polyester-satin blend too shiny, the sweetheart neckline too plunging, the beads around the hem sewn so loosely that a few fell off to rattle against the fake linoleum of the would-be seller’s kitchen floor. When Maggie said that it wasn’t quite right, the woman had told them they’d be doing her a favor if they just took it with them.
“Was it yours?” asked Maggie.
“It was supposed to be,” she said.
So now they were driving back home with the dress swaying from its hook over the backseat like a ghost, and Maggie was feeling pissed-off and panicked.
“What am I going to do?” she asked. And she was surprised when Ella answered.
“You know what I think? I think that this really is a case where it’s the thought that counts.”
“How’s she supposed to wear a thought down the aisle?” Maggie asked.
“Well, she can’t, but just that you’re doing this, and trying so hard, it shows how much you love her.”
“Except she doesn’t know that I’m doing this,” Maggie said. “And I really want to find her something. It’s important. It’s really important.”
“Well, you don’t have to find a dress before Rose leaves. You’ve got five months. You could always find something you like and order it. Or you could sew her something.”
“I can’t sew,” Maggie said morosely.
“No,” said Ella. “But I can. That is, I could. It’s been so long, but I used to make all sorts of things. Tablecloths, curtains, dresses for your mother when she was little . . .”
“But a wedding dress . . . well, wouldn’t that be hard?”
“Very hard,” Ella confirmed. “But we could do it together, once you’ve figured out what you want.”
“I think I know what I want,” said Maggie. In fact, after looking at more than a hundred different dresses, and pictures of perhaps five hundred more, she was starting to get a sense of what was going to look perfect on Rose. She just hadn’t seen the actual dress outside of her imagination. A ballgown, she was thinking, bec
ause Rose had a nice enough shape, and enough of a waist to make it work. A ballgown with maybe a scooped neckline, low but not indecent, maybe with a row of beads or seed pearls along the edge, nothing too flashy, and certainly nothing too itchy. And three-quarter-length sleeves would be the most flattering length, certainly better than the short sleeves, which were somehow matronly, and the sleeveless dresses, which she knew Rose would never wear. And a full skirt, a fairy-tale kind of skirt, a skirt that would sort of remind Rose of Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz, except not quite that costumey, and definitely a train, although not too much of a train. “And I think Rose would trust me.” Which wasn’t quite true, Maggie admitted to herself. She hoped Rose would trust her. She hoped.
She drove, and thought, picturing the dress in her mind. “When you’re sewing,” she asked, “do you have to find a pattern of exactly what you want to make?”
“Well, that’s the way it’s normally done.”
“What if you want to sew something different than any patterns you can find?”
“Hmm,” said Ella, tapping one fingertip against her lower lip. “Well, I guess what I’d try to do is find parts of patterns and put them all together. It would be tricky. Expensive, too, once you’ve added up all those yards of fabric.”
“Like a few hundred dollars?” Maggie asked in a small voice.
“More than that, I think,” said Ella. “But I’ve got some money.”
“No,” said Maggie. “No, I want to pay for it. I want it to be from me.” She drove through the thick darkness, hearing the far-off rumble of thunder as the skies prepared to deliver Florida’s nightly shower. Every old insecurity, every high-school taunt, every boss who’d fired her and landlord who’d evicted her and guy who’d called her stupid rose up in a wave within her. You can’t, they said. You’re dumb. You’ll never figure it out.
Her hands tightened on the wheel. But I can! she thought. She remembered the afternoons she’d spent putting her flyers up all over Golden Acres, a drawing of a dress on a hanger and the words YOUR FAVORITE THINGS, and MAGGIE FELLER, PERSONAL SHOPPER written on them, and how the phone had rung so constantly for the next two weeks that she’d finally installed her own line. She thought about going over her budget with Jack, how he’d explained it to her over and over again, never once losing his patience, telling her that to save for her own shop she should pretend that her money was a pie, and that she’d need to eat most of the pie to survive—and that was her money for rent and groceries and gas and such—but if she could put away a little piece, even a little tiny sliver every month, that eventually (“Not soon,” he’d cautioned, “but eventually”) she’d have enough for the big things she wanted. She’d look at the figures again, and carve out a slice for Rose’s dress.
And she thought of the little empty store she’d seen, around the corner from the bagel shop, empty for three months, with a sweet green-and-white-striped awning and a storefront of fly-specked glass. She thought of how she’d walk by it on her break and imagine polishing the glass, imagine painting the walls creamy white and dividing the back room into cubicles by hanging lengths of white cotton and gauze. She’d put padded benches in each changing room so the customers could sit, and shelves for them to stick their purses, and she’d find old mirrors at tag sales, and every price would be a round number, tax included. It wouldn’t be Hollywood, but it would be what she was good at. What she was best at. Her favorite thing. And she was succeeding at it, which meant there was no reason that she couldn’t succeed at this, too. She wouldn’t fall down on her face and need to be rescued. She’d be the one who did the rescuing instead.
“Can we try?” she finally asked. The dress in the backseat swayed gently, back and forth, like it was dancing.
“Yes,” said Ella. “Yes, dear, of course we can.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
“House of Stein, Simon speaking.”
“Do they know you answer the phone like that?” asked Rose, rolling over on the bed. It was ten o’clock in the morning. Ella was off holding crack babies at the hospital, and Maggie was on one of her top-secret missions, which meant that Rose had all four rooms of the apartment to herself.
“I knew it was you. Caller ID,” said Simon. “How are things? Are you relaxing?”
“Sort of,” said Rose.
“Sun and fun, fruity drinks, the occasional cabana boy?”
Rose sighed. Simon was teasing, as usual, and he was funny, as usual, but he didn’t sound quite like himself yet. The Jim thing, she thought. And the whole secret-grandmother thing, and Rose’s sudden departure for Florida. She’d have to go home soon and start making things right. “The only cabana boys here are eighty years old, with pacemakers.”
“Watch out for them,” said Simon. “It’s the elderly ones who always surprise you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Ella’s fine. And Maggie . . .” Rose furrowed her brow. Maggie had changed, and Rose wasn’t sure she trusted it. She got out of bed, carrying the phone as she strolled toward Ella’s living room. “Maggie’s become a businesswoman,” she said. “She’s a personal shopper, which actually makes a lot of sense. She’s got really great taste. She always knows what to wear, and what’s going to look best on other people. And the people here, lots of them don’t drive anymore, and even the ones who do sometimes have a hard time getting around the malls . . .”
“I have a hard time getting around malls,” said Simon. “It’s genetic. The last time my mother was at Franklin Mills, she called the police because she thought her car had been stolen, when in reality she’d just forgotten where she’d parked it.”
“Oof,” said Rose. “So is that why she put twenty stuffed animals in the backseat, and tied all of those ribbons to the antenna?”
“No,” said Simon, “she just likes ribbons. And stuffed animals.” There was a pause. “I was kind of angry at you when you left, you know.”
“About Jim Danvers?” Rose swallowed hard, even though she’d been expecting this.
“Yeah,” said Simon. “About that. I’m not upset that it happened. I just want to feel like you can tell me things. Like you can tell me anything. I’m going to be your husband. I want you to lean on me. I want you to say good-bye before you go somewhere.” Across the line, Rose heard him swallow hard. “When I came home, and you weren’t there ...”
Rose closed her eyes. She remembered that feeling too well, of what it was like to walk into an empty house and find that the person you loved had disappeared without a word.
“I’m sorry,” Rose said. “I’ll try.” She swallowed hard and walked in front of the bookshelf filled with the pictures of her, and Maggie, and her mother in her wedding dress, smiling a smile that said that she had her whole life in front of her and that it was going to be a life filled with happiness. “I’m sorry about leaving the way I did, and not telling you about Jim. You shouldn’t have had to find out that way.”
“Probably not,” said Simon. “But I was too hard on you about it. I know how stressed out you’ve been, with all the wedding stuff.”
“Well,” said Rose, “I’m the one with time for it.”
“Oh, along those lines,” Simon said. “You got a call last night from a headhunter.”
Rose’s pulse quickened. When she’d worked at Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick, she’d get calls from headhunters a few times a week, people who’d come across her name and résumé in some legal directory and would call her trying to get her to jump to another firm, where she would undoubtedly wind up working even longer hours. But since she’d taken her leave, the phone had stopped ringing.
“Someone from the Women’s Association for Women’s Alternatives.”
“Really?” Rose was trying to remember whether she’d heard of the group, and what they did. “How’d they get my name?”
“They need a staff attorney,” said Simon, sidestepping the question, which gave Rose her answer—Simon had called. “They do advocacy work for low-income women. Custody, child suppo
rt, visitation, stuff like that. Lots of time in court, I’d bet, and the pay’s not great because it would be a part-time position at first, but I thought it might be interesting.” He paused. “Of course, if you’re not ready yet ...”
“No! No,” said Rose, trying not to shout. “It sounds . . . I mean, I’m very . . . Did they leave a number?”
“They did,” said Simon, “but I told them you were on vacation, so no hurry. Go enjoy yourself! Put on your bathing suit, go give some old man a coronary.”
“I’ve got to call Amy first. She’s been leaving me messages every day since I’ve been here, and we keep missing each other.”
“Ah,” said Simon. “Amy X.”
Rose grinned. “You know she only called herself that for three weeks in college.”
“I thought she called herself Ashante in college.”
“No, Ashante was high school,” said Rose, remembering when her best friend had renounced her “slave name” midway through Mr. Halleck’s honors U.S. history class.
“Give her my best,” said Simon. “Which will probably not be good enough for her.”
“Amy likes you just fine.”
“Amy doesn’t think anyone’s good enough for you,” said Simon. “And she’s right, but I’m not bad, generally speaking. And you know what?”
“What?”
Simon dropped his voice to a whisper. “I love you very much, my bride-to-be.”
“Love you, too,” said Rose. She hung up the phone, smiled as she imagined him at his cluttered desk, then dialed her best friend.
“Girl!” shouted Amy, “tell me everything! How’s the grandmother? Do you like her?”
“I do,” said Rose, surprising herself. “She’s sharp, and nice, and . . . happy. I think she was really sad for a long time, and that she’s really happy now that Maggie and I are here. The only thing is, she stares at me a lot.”
“Why?”
“Oh, you know,” said Rose, feeling uncomfortable. “Not seeing me and Maggie grow up. I told her she didn’t miss much.”
In Her Shoes Page 39