One Day Like This: A feel-good summer romance

by Laura Briggs

  In truth, she had already finished the dress for Bianca—she just hadn’t found the guts to show it to their client yet; something she acknowledged with a twinge of guilt as she hung a dress with a similar lace bodice on a rack at the clothing store that afternoon.

  She had an appointment to view sample bouquets with Maxine at the flower shop as soon as her shift was over; then came homework for classes and more online browsing for possible wedding gown options. Tessa’s words on this last subject had been unwelcome today, but Natalie couldn’t deny they were also a little bit true.

  Tessa was so stubborn sometimes. Then again, her friend had planned to use Stefan as a human shield between herself and the world of wedding planning until dumb luck had shoved her front and center in their new business. Natalie, on the other hand, intended to go on hiding behind the skirts of someone else’s designer dress, at least until she felt confident that her future was not selling clothing at a retail store.

  After work, she walked past the window display for The Bridal Closet, a short distance from her new work site. In the past, she had pictured one of her own gowns among their row of couture designs, where a prospective bride might spot it and know it was just the right one. Years later, that same bride might pass it on to her daughter, or even her granddaughter, the dress adopting the different pieces of their family history as they passed it down the line.

  An awfully traditional notion, she thought, with a crooked smile—for someone who was a little tired of traditions and old-fashioned ideas. But it was just a fantasy—the dress and the dreams associated with it.

  Natalie turned toward home again in the twilight, her tote bag swinging softly against her side.

  Twenty

  The light on the answering machine was blinking when Tessa came through the door, a grocery sack in each arm. The handyman was at lunch, Ama was working in the restaurant, and Natalie was at class. So no one was there to hear the shriek Tessa let out when she played back the message from the manager at the NiteLite.

  Pulling out her cell phone, her fingers raced over its keypad, composing a quick text to Ama and Natalie. A few minutes later, both her business partners had joined her at Wedding Belles headquarters. Natalie wore a look somewhere between panic and excitement, as she asked, “They really canceled Bianca’s reservation? But how? Why?”

  “Something about a leak in the cooling system flooding their building last night,” Tessa explained. “They’ve had to cancel all their major events for the next few weeks until their ceiling is replaced—so they’re giving Bianca’s deposit back.”

  “That’s good, at least,” said Ama. “Now Molly and Paolo won’t have to pay thousands of extra dollars in wedding bills.”

  “And Bianca can use it to pay for more practical stuff, like groceries and utilities, for a while,” Tessa said with a smile.

  “Yeah, but… what now?” Natalie glanced between them, brow furrowed. “We have just weeks to find new places to host the wedding and the reception.”

  “For fifty people,” Tessa added, her initial enthusiasm for the concept starting to fade as reality set in. “We could definitely have a problem with that.”

  “Plus, the invitations already went out with the NiteLite as the venue address,” Ama reminded them, chin resting on her hands in contemplation.

  Oh, right. The invitations.

  * * *

  “We can fix the invitations, I promise you,” Tessa assured Molly and Paolo as they sat across from her in the Wedding Belles parlor later that day. Blake was on a supply run, so they didn’t have to worry about blowing his cover—although Tessa almost wished he was there for moral support at least, since both Ama and Natalie had had to leave for other obligations.

  “Amended invitations will be sent out as soon as you settle on the new locations,” Tessa continued, keeping her voice upbeat and confident. “And I promise you that I will personally contact each of the guests on your list to ensure they’re aware of the change in plans.”

  “Thank you,” said Paolo. “We really appreciate that, believe me. But…” He glanced at Molly, the two of them communicating some unspoken thought. Her fingers reached for his, linking together on the sofa.

  “We’re kind of worried about the timing,” Molly admitted. “It’s just so last-minute, having the reservation fall through. Even if it wasn’t the right one, it was the only one we had. And if we have to postpone the wedding now—”

  “What?” Tessa felt the color drain from her face with these words.

  “We don’t want to,” Paolo assured her. “It’s just gotten more complicated than we thought it would be. Gran is pretty disappointed about losing the NiteLite, and we didn’t exactly have a ‘Plan B’ for if it fell through.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Tessa said. “And Natalie and Ama—and Mr. Ellingham,” she added, at the last second. “Let the four of us be your contingency plan. We can fix this for you.”

  “Can you?” Molly looked as if she wanted to believe this, although her smile was still a little uncertain. “We would both be so grateful if you could. We really don’t want to postpone our wedding if there’s a way around it.”

  “But if we have to cancel, we have another plan,” said Paolo.

  Elopement, Tessa thought. The one way to save Bianca money, for the two of them to have a quiet, private ceremony with no frills… and no one to make them serve a five-layer cake afterward.

  “You won’t have to,” Tessa replied.

  She sounded utterly confident as she spoke these words. If they could just hear the beat of her heart, though, they would know she was terrified in this moment. Because, as much as Tessa wanted to keep her promise to them, there was no “Plan B” right now. And if they canceled this wedding, all three of them knew how monumental Bianca’s disappointment would be. But only one person in the room knew how devastating it would be to the Wedding Belles themselves.

  There was nothing standing between this disaster and themselves. Except three very determined women, and one handyman who couldn’t plan a wedding if his life depended on it.

  * * *

  “What about the rose garden? Molly sort of liked that idea, right?” Natalie asked.

  She was busy hemming a skirt in a cotton fabric that sported a cute Mexican-style flower print, perfect for summertime. But her model for this project, Tessa, was having a hard time holding still as they discussed possible solutions for their latest crisis up in Natalie’s sewing room.

  “That’s the problem,” Tessa said. “Molly ‘sort of’ liked a lot of our suggestions. I want this to be something she loves, though. Her and Paolo both.” And Bianca, she added silently, since it went without saying. All three of them knew Bianca would have to be happy with the wedding they planned if it was going to be a true success, at least in the eyes of Paolo and Molly. It wasn’t just about the price now.

  “All of us want it to be that way,” Natalie agreed. “But I have to be honest, Tessa. If even Molly and Paolo can’t figure out what would make this their dream wedding, then how are you supposed to know? I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “No, you’re being too easy on me because I’m your friend,” Tessa replied, grinning a little in spite of her worried mood. “As a wedding planner, I have to make each client’s event the best it can be. You wouldn’t sell a dress to a client if it wasn’t the right fit, would you? Of course not. And I can’t do that with someone’s wedding day, either. It has to be perfectly tailored just for them.”

  “Hold still,” Natalie scolded. “I’m having trouble pinning this skirt.”

  “Why can’t you have Ama do this after her cookies are done?”

  “Who do you think this is for? I don’t want her to see it early.” Natalie reached for another pin. “Hold on, I have a sequin hanging by a loose thread.”

  They went in circles with more suggestions for the wedding venue. Beautiful gardens and churches, the park with its canopy of oaks and dogwood blossoms; even the b
each. None of these seemed like the right fit, though. Something was still missing.

  By three o’clock, Natalie was off to class, the finished skirt tucked safely in her backpack to show to Cal later that day. Tessa slipped back into her jeans, which seemed boring in comparison to the skirt’s bright flowers and sequins. There were similar squares of fabric stacked on top of the old trunk where Natalie kept ribbons, lace, and other supplies for trimming garments. A few dress patterns and colored pencil sketches were strewn across the nearby desk, where a gift box tied with a simple lavender ribbon drew Tessa’s eye.

  The dress for Bianca. She recognized it instantly from Natalie’s description: the delicate lace sleeves and silky fabric in a classic cut. Her friend had finished it days ago, yet here it sat, still waiting to make its debut in the world. Just like the other dresses she could see hanging in the partly open closet, so many of them familiar to her from when Natalie first sewed them years ago.

  Would they stay hidden away forever? The idea was a painful one, since it meant her friend’s talent would stay hidden, too. And what about this one? Natalie hadn’t made a move to deliver it. But Tessa was certain that Bianca would adore this dress, if she just had the chance to see it.

  Poor Bianca. She would be devastated if the wedding really had to be postponed. Despite their differences on just about everything else connected to this event, she and Bianca shared the same goal: a beautiful, unforgettable wedding day for two very deserving people.

  Maybe that would be enough to see it through, Tessa thought. Tucking the gift box beneath her arm, she slipped from the room and shut the door behind her.

  Twenty-One

  Tessa had to knock twice before Bianca answered her apartment door.

  “Come in, come in,” she said, waving Tessa inside with a smile. “Will you have some tea?” she asked. “I make some every day at this time. You like peppermint? I have some lemon, too.”

  “Peppermint sounds good,” Tessa said. The television in the living room was on mute, some kind of game show on the screen. Bianca ushered her into the kitchen, where she took two teacups from a cupboard overhead. Tessa set the gift box she was carrying onto the table as they waited for the kettle to boil.

  “For me?”

  “For you,” nodded Tessa. Bianca wore a puzzled smile as she lifted the lid for the box.

  “For the wedding,” Tessa explained. “Natalie—Ms. Grenaldi—thought you might like to wear it.” She didn’t mention who had made it, however.

  “Such a pretty color,” Bianca exclaimed, holding the fabric up to the light. “So rich, too. It is like the wine my husband used to buy. He liked to cook with wine, my Pietro. Imagine—a dress for me. I will look stylish—like a princess at the wedding.”

  She was smiling, a look of delight on her face. “I will try this on when Molly is here,” she promised, placing the dress carefully back in its box. “I cannot wait. Tell Ms. Grenaldi I thank her. So very nice of her.”

  “It was her pleasure,” said Tessa.

  “Tell her to find a dress for Molly—she is so good at this. If she can do so well for me, what will she do for the bride? She worries too much about the price of things instead of finding the best one.” She patted Tessa’s arm. “Tell her that we trust her. Maybe she won’t be so worried while she is looking.”

  “I’ll do that,” Tessa said, hiding a smile as she wondered what Natalie’s reaction would be to this piece of news. Disbelief and then denial, probably.

  “Come, come,” said Bianca, lifting the teacups and proceeding to the living room. “Sit down.” She patted a cushion before the low coffee table where both cups rested, steam rising from the tea within. She turned off the television set, the brightly colored game show background vanishing.

  “You know,” Tessa said, as Bianca handed her a cup of tea a few moments later, “I realized when we met that you weren’t really Italian, but I keep forgetting. I guess it’s the name.”

  “Bianca?” her hostess said. She laughed. “My husband gave it to me. Italian for ‘white,’ he told me. He liked it—a name for the girl with such fair skin. I had milk skin back then. Fair hair—no dye to cover the white,” she added with another laugh. “Bertha Auganes from the country of Norway. Only I was not the stout farm girl they pictured, but a skinny little thing who couldn’t lift the heavy baskets.”

  “Who were ‘they’?” said Tessa. “Your husband’s family?”

  “His village.” Bianca placed her cup on the table. “I came there as a hired girl. An adventurer, because I had nowhere to go. My father was killed in the war. My mother, she had a bad heart.” Here, Bianca pressed her hand over her own chest. “She told me before she died… told me to make a new place in the world. To be brave and find a better life than they had known.”

  Tessa realized that Bianca was even older than she had previously imagined her to be. The fighting that had killed her father was World War II; Bianca must have been at least a half-grown child during the 1940s.

  “So I went south—following the harvests,” she continued. “First I worked on a friend’s farm, then the farm of one of my mother’s distant cousins. They told me about a village where a friend stayed in Italy during the war, where you could live cheap as a boarder and work in the vineyards when the crops were ready. No cold winters of darkness and snow, but sunshine even in winter. It sounded so beautiful that I decided to go.”

  Bianca took a long sip from her cup. “It wasn’t like the pictures,” she said. “It looked so dry and dusty. And I was poor and could only speak a few words of Italian from a little book that my cousin gave me. The work was hard—the family was afraid I was too little to be any good at it, though I showed them it wasn’t true. I cried to go home every night… but then I met Pietro.”

  “Your husband,” Tessa prompted. She had forgotten her own tea while listening to Bianca’s story, and the liquid was tepid when she tasted it.

  “He was strong. Not handsome, but so funny. Such… ‘good humor’ is the words. He taught me better Italian; I taught him some words in Norwegian. And then he was going away to America. Three days—and he wanted me to come with him.”

  “Three days?” echoed Tessa.

  “No, no. He had been planning to go away long before that,” said Bianca. “Only he didn’t tell me. He didn’t know he wanted to marry me, see, until it was almost too late. Then everything must be rush and scramble so we can get on the boat and go to the other side of the ocean. We ended up here… well, a few streets away from here,” she corrected. “We had two rooms, and he had a job at a factory.”

  Tessa had placed her tea aside now, although she wasn’t quite ready to leave. “Tell me about your wedding, Bianca,” she said.

  Bianca snorted. “That day,” she said. She shook her head. “It isn’t worth telling. All went wrong. It was just a quick ceremony so we could get on the boat. It’s nothing you want to hear about.”

  “I do,” insisted Tessa. “I think it’s important. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it was still important.”

  Bianca put her cup on the table. “I show you,” she said. She opened a drawer in the dining room buffet and took out a tin similar to the one that held the precious wedding funds. From inside, she took a photograph and showed it to Tessa.

  “My wedding,” she said. “No dress, no nothing. That little building behind us is the church—not much left after the war, either,” she explained.

  A small group of people stood outside of a plain stone building: the woman in the middle wore a neat print dress with a lace shawl around her shoulders, and a few ornaments in her hair. Beside her was a taller, darker man in a suit, smiling for the photo. She recognized the two of them from the photo of Bianca’s first day in America.

  “His uncle took the picture,” said Bianca. “They gave the camera to us as a gift. It cost a lot of money… I don’t know which person in the family chose it, or bought it.” She laid the tin box on the table and moved aside a couple of magazines in order to s
it on a nearby chair. “We had to hurry to pack our things. Pietro’s mother was crying as she fixed the food we ate—you know, I do not remember if anyone danced at our wedding dinner. I can remember nothing but the thought of the boat, and if I would be sick aboard it… and missing my home.” She smiled. “It was so sudden.”

  “The shawl you’re wearing in the picture is beautiful,” said Tessa.

  “Paolo’s mother loaned it to me,” said Bianca. “It was green—for good luck. In Italy, green is important for weddings. The print of my dress didn’t have any, since it was… yellow, I think.” She frowned. “In Norway, it is different. In the old days, you wore the costumes—folk dress, they call it now. All the bright embroidery, and the pretty needlework on the apron. The women in kerchiefs, and the bride in her special crown. You march to the church—march to the music of the fiddle with all your family and friends. Like a big parade.”

  “I guess you didn’t have any of your family or friends at the wedding, with the short notice,” ventured Tessa. “Did you not have any of your traditions?”

  “I had the crown,” said Bianca, smiling. “That much I did have. It was Pietro’s doing.”

  She lifted from the tin a stiff piece of fabric and cushioning that resembled a flat pillow, or two doilies with cardboard sandwiched between them. From its sides dangled lots of prism pendants, their faux gold frames now tarnished. Two ribbons hung from either end.

  “It ties underneath the chin,” explained Bianca. “It is worn like a hat, with the prisms dangling around the brim. This is a poor imitation, but it was all he could do.”

  “Pietro made it for you?” said Tessa, amazed. She turned the crown in her hands, examining the old stitches now loose around the stiff, yellowed lace doilies’ edges. Some beads had been sewn around the perimeter of the hat, now missing except for a few pearl ones here and there.