This dress gave me all of that.
And the photos would give me proof that the day had happened.
Alison made me try it on right there in the living room, and then, when I complained one last time over wearing a bridal gown, she went to my room, pulled out all my scarves and shawls and came back with her arms loaded.
She tried a bunch of different options before she finally wrapped a sheer, green scarf around my shoulders. “Now it’s just a white formal. Promise me you’ll do this.”
“I will as long as you come with me.”
She shook her head. “Not hearing the conviction. Promise you’ll do this no matter what.”
“I promise. But you are coming, right?”
Her mouth twisted. “I can’t. I’m heading out of town. But you can’t back out now. You already promised. What kind of lawyer breaks their word?”
My fingers smoothed over the layers of silk as if I could find comfort in each individual thread. “Adam broke his word,” I muttered.
“And that’s why he’s going to pay for your pretty pictures.” She smiled, triumphant in her evil master plan.
“It’s really unfair for you to have such skills of persuasion.”
Alison laughed.
Chapter Two
I hadn’t stepped foot inside a hair salon since I’d gone to prom my senior year in high school. Eight years had passed since that unfortunate night. The misfortune hadn’t been the fault of the hair style, which had been perfect, but more the fault of the date, Nathan, who showed up to my house already trashed because he’d indulged in the limo mini bar.
At the first scent of alcohol, my dad had a talk with the limo driver, put in a call to my date’s dad, and sent Nathan home.
After that night, the rumor went around that my dad was an ex-marine who’d threatened the life of my sorta-date. No guy wanted anything to do with me. Luckily there had only been a few months left of school, but that had been long enough for me to get the nick name “Julie-Ex” instead of Juliet.
Nathan came up with the name and acted pretty smug until he ended up in juvenile court with a DUI. Well, he was still probably smug about the nickname even then, but at least I felt some kind of legal vindication about the whole thing.
I tried hard not to think about the results of my last salon experience. After all, I reasoned, it isn’t like I’m trying to impress a guy this time.
But the old nickname kept floating to the surface of my memories. Maybe that was my destiny. Maybe I would always be Julie-ex.
My phone rang twice during the salon visit. I jumped both times, making the stylist curse under her breath. But I didn’t answer my phone. What if Adam was trying to call? What if he’d heard about my plan to keep the photo shoot appointment? The photographer was a friend of his mom’s. It stood to reason Adam would’ve informed his family of the breakup by now. Maybe they cancelled the appointment for me.
How stupid would I feel if I showed up at the photo studio and was turned away?
Totally stupid.
These were the thoughts that kept my hands twisting in my lap as the stylist reinvented my dull brown hair into something wonderful with twists, braids, and ringlets. When she turned me around and let me look in the mirror, I gave the first real smile since Adam walked.
It had been a week since then. My parents and friends all knew of my disgrace. They all clucked tongues and cooed sympathy and offered to bump Adam off and throw him in the Hudson, which offers I appreciated, but declined. I felt guilty enough going through with the photo shoot. Hiring a hit man was really out of the question.
I paid the cab driver, hefted the dress bag out of the car, and finally stood outside the Brooklyn photo studio. The insanity of the plan made me wish I’d stayed home with a book instead. I stood there staring at my reflection in the glass door for several seconds, before deciding that honesty was the best policy. I couldn’t go through with a lie. It wasn’t my style.
The front door to the studio opened as I turned to leave.
“Can I help you with something?”
Caught.
I turned slowly to face my guilt to meet the smiling warmth of a nice-looking guy. “I... um...”
The guy blinked a set of warm, hazel eyes at me. Did my stomach flutter at that? No. Of course not. I was just nervous and stupid and—
“You must be Adam’s fiancé, Juliet?”
“I’m Juliet.” I didn’t say anything about Adam, since really, what could be said that wasn’t horrifying?
“Great. You’re right on time. Do you want to use some of my studio for the shots, or do you want to just go on location like we’d talked about earlier?” He smiled, waiting for an answer.
There was no way out without explaining myself. This was a just-go-with-it moment. I narrowed my eyes, trying to understand what I was seeing. He’d just said “my studio” as if it belonged to him. Adam had said the photographer was a friend of the family, which I took to mean that the photographer was some stodgy old guy in his late fifties with a bad comb-over. Sure, he’d sounded younger on the phone, but that wasn’t exactly a clue. Voices didn’t get gray hair and wrinkles. “You’re Jack Montague?”
“Unless I’m in trouble, in which case, it’s my prerogative to change my name to whatever gets me out of trouble again.”
I think he expected me to laugh. Instead I said, “You’re absolutely not what I expected.”
He grinned at that and gave me a once over that let me know he’d checked me out before saying, “You aren’t what I expected either. You’re not exactly Adam’s type.”
I bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked flustered to have made his last statement out loud. “That wasn’t an insult, no matter how it sounded. Adam usually goes for vapid girls, the ones with long legs and empty heads.” He paused. “I’m making this worse, aren’t I? I just meant Adam has never before aligned himself with a girl wearing jeans and a button up flannel shirt.”
I looked at my outfit, chosen because a button up would keep my hair intact and because it was comfortable. I liked comfortable. Were my clothes the reason Adam was with someone else?
No.
He chose someone else because he was a crappy human being who didn’t understand the meaning of faithful. I wasn’t going to take his blame. The week spent sorting out my feelings had been good for me.
I shrugged, realizing Jack waited for a response. “Do you have a problem with flannel?” I asked.
“If you’ve gotta ask, then you’ve never seen my closet.”
“I haven’t seen your closet,” I said, hating that the idea of seeing his closet appealed to me. Wasn’t I in mourning over lost love? One cute guy checks me out, and I’m suddenly over heart break? Get. A. Grip. Juliet.
“So how about it?”
Heat flooded my face. “Seeing your closet?”
He laughed. “No. Should we stay in the studio or go to other locations?”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Oh. Right. Of course. I don’t know; can I see the studio first?”
He opened the door for me then waited for me to enter. “This way,” he said, and moved past me to lead the way down a hall filled with large portraits and fine art photography.
The portraits were amazing, catching glimpses into real human life in a way I’d never seen a photographer do. I expected him to be a basic wedding photographer—the kind that took shots of the stereotypical girl in white staring down into a bridal bouquet.
His portraits depicted something else. They seemed to tell a story of the person being photographed. One family portrait had been taken from behind the father and mother holding hands while their little toddler daughter slept on her dad’s shoulder.
The picture gave off the feeling of being safe.
Each picture I passed pressed an emotion through me.
“Did you do all of these?” I asked, following slowly enough to make him stop to wait for me.
“Yep. Doesn’
t help my business any if I put up some other guy’s pictures on my wall, does it?”
I laughed, feeling good to know that I had a laugh left in me. “You have a good eye.”
“Thanks.”
I finally turned my attention back to him, following him back into the studio.
Strange props filled the spacious area that made up the studio. Old chairs, ladders, paint buckets, hanging backgrounds of all kinds, fence panels, a street light, and lighting equipment littered the bulk of that space.
The props weren’t anything spectacular, nothing that called out “bridal shoot” to me, so I was about to tell him that we should just go on location since I’d already planned it out with him when the appointment had first been made. I wanted my pictures done in the city I loved, featuring Central Park. But then Jack opened some wide French doors that led out to a backyard of sorts. The dense foliage of trees and meadow grasses startled me. In the city of cement, one expected to see such intense green only in parks.
Six trees planted in two rows close enough that their overhanging branches touched at the top, giving the illusion that the small yard was actually much larger. Dozens of books hung from their spines in the trees, their pages rustling softly in the breeze. The books twirling slowly hanging in the air, their pages splayed out as if waiting to be plucked from the air and read, created an enchanting effect. This was a place for little girls to become princess and have tea parties. A place for little boys to become adventurers and play hide and seek.
It was a place of magic.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, and meant it. “Who would have guessed this was back here?”
He didn’t answer, but looked on the yard-scape with a certain degree of pride. “Sorry about the books. I forgot they were out here. I friend of mine is a literary agent and a client of hers was visiting the city and wanted to get some pictures for her website. It seemed like a good enough prop. I can take them down while you change if you want to use the garden. Or we could just go on location.”
“We can do both. But leave the books. I like them.” The entire scene reminded me of the music video Shadow Puppets by the group Book on Tapeworm.
“Books for the bride. Great. You can do your costume change in the dressing room.” He ushered me back into the studio, pointing out the door to the changing room. “I’ll get the lighting set up for a few shots then we can go to the places we discussed earlier.”
I nodded again, though he wasn’t looking at me, and so didn’t see, and entered the room he’d indicated.
He called my putting on a wedding dress a “costume change.” And so it was. I was a grown woman playing dress-up for the day. Pathetic.
A large mirror hung over a dressing table with several glass apothecary jars filled with things like bobby pins, safety pins, and single use packets of lip gloss. Jack obviously understood his job.
With my dress on and buttoned up my back as far as I could reach on my own, I realized a second person was necessary to get it buttoned all the way to the top. Originally, I’d planned on bringing my mom with me to the photo shoot, but since she knew about the break up, she’d never approve of me going through with the shoot. I’d forgotten all about the buttons.
“Idiot!” I muttered to myself. Then louder, I said, “Um... hello? Jack?”
It took a moment before he answered. “You called for me?”
I rolled my eyes, feeling my face heat up with my own stupidity. “This is going to sound so incredibly lame, but I can’t reach all the buttons in the back, and I kind of need...” Words failed me.
“Help?” He finished when it became obvious I couldn’t.
“Yes. Help.”
“Are you comfortable with me coming in then?”
To answer, I opened the door.
He stood standing just outside the door when I opened it, which put us face to face in a way that was too close to be comfortable, especially considering what I asked him to do.
We stared at each other a moment before he blinked, shook his head slightly, lifted his arm, and made a twirling motion with his finger.
Right. He needed me to turn around. I complied, glad that the new flash of heat on my cheeks wouldn’t be visible with me facing the other way.
His fingertips brushed the skin just below my bra, making me shiver, and then feel stupid for shivering, because there was no way he hadn’t noticed the goose-bumps.
Good thing I bought a brand new, cute, lacy bra to wear with my dress since the thing was now doing a public debut.
Alison would laugh herself sick when I spilled the misery of this moment.
Jack didn’t rush through the process. There was a hesitation between finishing one button and beginning the next. Had he ever done anything like this before? I glanced to the table with its bottles of pins and lip gloss.
Probably.
Which meant there was no reason for my stomach to feel like an entire butterfly migration had just taken to the air.
But I couldn’t help it.
As the heat of his fingers brushed my skin with each button, my face radiated that heat. I stared at the floor, wishing to be less ridiculous, less vulnerable, less needy.
Once he’d reached the top button, he hesitated a moment longer, letting his fingers hover over my neck a moment. Then I felt them trace the outline of my necklace.
The movement felt insanely intimate and more affectionate than anything I’d ever felt from Adam. My breath caught.
He picked up my necklace and moved the clasp to the back of my neck.
Oh.
Right.
The clasp.
A new heat wave hit my face, which I was glad he couldn’t see until I realized he was looking at my reflection in the mirror.
He had the decency to look away when he realized he’d been caught watching me. “All ready then?” he said, walking away from the dressing room door, where he pretended to be picking out props for me.
I knew he was pretending, because the prop box was labeled TODDLER and had balls, stuffed bears, and stupid hats in it. I didn't think he expected me to utilize anything from that box.
Had he felt that spark of connection too?
He thinks you’re engaged, idiot.
That settled that.
He likely hadn’t thought anything about buttoning up my dress, except that maybe I was a total lunatic for acting like a schoolgirl with a crush.
“Shoes,” I said. “I need my shoes.”
He nodded and kept his head down while he still rummaged through the toys like a man on a mission.
I turned away, lifting my dress to step into the bejeweled heels, so I wouldn’t trip on my own hem.
I looked up to find Mr. Photographer watching me again. Instead of looking away when he’d been caught this time, he smiled and lifted the camera hanging around his neck. “Ready now?”
I pulled the green scarf off the hanger. “Ready.”
It was a lie though. This man unnerved me in a way that made me feel like I’d never be ready.
Chapter Three
He let me lead the way to the garden.
Stepping out into the sunlight diffused by the trees, with my skirts brushing aside the long grasses, made me take a sigh of contentment I hadn’t felt since Adam had basically called me worthless baggage holding him down. And really, had I ever felt this kind of contentment?
No.
Not really.
I always felt like I’d been weighed and measured and had fallen short of expectation—a stock purchase that didn’t pay off.
Here in this moment, wearing this dress, in this place, I felt possible, like the future in front of me was waiting for me to reach out and accomplish great things.
How had I not realized how liberating a break up with the wrong guy could be? Adam had been the wrong guy. Right guys didn’t cheat. I raised my face to the sun, feeling warm, comfortable, and grateful in being possible.
When I turned to see where Jack wanted me to stand, I f
ound he was already taking pictures.
I laughed. “You ought to warn a girl when you’re doing that kind of thing.”
His face was mostly covered by the camera, but not enough I couldn’t see him grinning. “But then I’d miss out on you acting naturally.”
“Ah. I see. You’re one of those sneaky photographers.”
He finally lowered the camera, his grin even wider. “If by sneaky, you mean the best kind of photographer, then yes. Yes, I am.” He gestured to an antique divan-styled sofa that was in the center of the trees. He must have set it up while I’d been changing. “Have a seat.” He strode up to the divan and patted the red upholstery.
I sat and looked up, waiting for further instruction.
He didn’t say anything else, but instead placed his hands on my shoulders and gently eased me back against the side of the divan that arced up into an elegant single wing. When I met his eyes and felt a smolder of something I shouldn’t have been feeling for my photographer—especially when he was a friend of Adam’s family—I hurried to look away.
Curse my red cheeks!
He lifted my arm and rested it over the top of the curved wing, brought my other arm up so my hands were close but not touching. Then he plucked a book from the tree closest to us as if picking an apple and settled it into my hands.
He stood back and studied the scene before saying, “Tuck up your legs so you look comfortable.”
I did as told.
He fussed a little more, pulling up the hem of my dress so my shoes peeked out, and fixing the way the skirt fell to the ground. He then shook his head and removed the green scarf from around my shoulders.
“But—” I began to protest, but stopped when his smile settled over me.
“Trust me, Juliet. I know what I’m doing.”
He arranged the scarf over the bottom of the divan, then drew it up over my feet where it dipped down again until it came back up at my knees then dipped down before settling over my hips.
He stepped back again and lifted his camera to his face. “Perfect. Now read the book.”
A Timeless Romance Anthology: Summer Wedding Collection Page 7