by Meg London
“It’s beautiful.” Emma stroked the fabric gently. “It must be very old. It looks like something they would have worn in the twenties.”
Arabella shook her head. “Actually, it isn’t, but I couldn’t resist it since it’s in such beautiful shape. It was made for the J. Peterman Company sometime during the 1990s. The same company made a lot of the pieces that were worn in the remake of the movie Titanic.”
“I brought some paint samples with me.” Brian pulled out a fan of colored paint chips. “O’Connell’s Hardware will be pleased to offer you a discount.” He grinned and the dimple in his right cheek deepened.
“That’s very kind of you.”
“We have to go above and beyond to compete with the big box stores these days. We’re even opening half days on Sunday; otherwise the weekend DIY crowd will head to one of the big stores that do keep Sunday hours. So many mom-and-pop places are closing their doors.”
Emma nodded. “That’s why Sweet Nothings needs something special to compete with the chain places at the malls. But I’m confident we’ve found it.” She stopped for a minute as a thought formed in her mind. “What if we had a grand opening complete with a fashion show?”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Arabella said.
“We can have models showing off your best vintage pieces.”
“Will you be modeling some of the styles yourself?” Brian grinned at Emma.
Emma felt the heat rush into her face, and when she looked at her aunt, Arabella was giving her that smug smile again.
Emma and Brian spent the rest of the afternoon with their heads together over the new design for Sweet Nothings, their talk punctuated by the faint sounds of Pierre’s snoring. Arabella ghosted about, occasionally gifting them with that same smug smile she’d bestowed on Emma earlier. Emma was dying to ask her what was up, but she had the feeling she’d find out soon enough.
Finally they poured the last glass of lemonade and pushed their chairs back.
“So what really brings you back to Paris?” Brian asked suddenly.
Emma stammered. “I told you. My aunt needed help with the shop, and my mother thought that with my experience I could…” She trailed off at the look on Brian’s face.
“Really?”
“No. Not really, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet. How about you?”
“I came back to help my father with the store.” Brian drained the last of his lemonade and wiped a hand across his mouth.
“Really?”
He laughed. “Yes, really.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad I came back. Liz’s kids are getting bigger, and I want them to know who their uncle Brian is.”
He gave Emma a look she couldn’t quite read—wasn’t even sure she wanted to read.
Arabella came out of the back room with her purse over her arm. “If you don’t mind keeping an eye on Pierre, I’m heading down to Angel Cuts for a wash. Angel Roy gives all of us shop owners a discount so if you need a trim, that would be the place to go. Of course you’ll have to listen to Angel go on and on about her latest conquest—she figures herself to be Paris’s femme fatale, but at least the cut’s cheap.” She gestured at Emma. “I love what you’ve done with your hair, by the way. Very Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.”
Emma put a hand to her head. “Thanks.” Cutting her hair short had been a whim, but she liked it. Guy said it played up her eyes, which he’d told her were almost as violet as Elizabeth Taylor’s. Emma had laughed at his outrageousness, but she’d been pleased, too. She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about Guy right now.
Arabella glanced toward the window and frowned. “Is that Deirdre Porter?” She moved closer until her nose was almost pressed to the glass then turned around with a sigh. “The mayor’s new daughter-in-law—I don’t know who she thinks she is. Speeding through town in that expensive red sports car of hers.”
“I thought she was rather pretty,” Brian said.
Arabella and Emma both swiveled in his direction.
He held his hands up in defense and laughed. “Okay, okay, I didn’t mean anything by that.”
Arabella sniffed. “I know you didn’t,” she said in a soothing voice. “But there’s something about that girl that gets my dander up. It’s as if we’re not good enough for her. The other day I heard her getting all snippy with Jim at the Meat Mart because he didn’t have foie gras. Folks here want their pork for a good barbecue, their turkey for Thanksgiving, their ham for Easter and a decent chicken or rib eye the rest of the time. None of this foie gras. Not that I didn’t love it when I had it in France.” She sighed. “Yves Aubertin introduced me to the pleasures of a fine foie gras. And a rich, ripe St. Andre…And…” She stopped abruptly.
“And?” Brian prompted.
Arabella shook her finger at him playfully. “Never you mind!”
ARABELLA had offered Emma a room in her house—a large, rambling Victorian done up in yummy sherbet hues, with a deep front porch that always seemed to catch a fresh breeze. Sitting on the swing watching the world go by had been one of Emma’s favorite pastimes. Instead, Emma had opted for the one-bedroom apartment above Sweet Nothings. She’d become something of a night owl and didn’t want to disturb her aunt.
The apartment had escaped Arabella’s seventies renovation craze. Emma looked around at the charming living room with the built-in window seats, wall of bookshelves, polished wooden pieces and jewel-toned Oriental carpets. The apartment was small by most standards, but enormous by the standards Emma was used to—a hideously overpriced studio on Manhattan’s Lower East Side where the bathtub stood in the middle of the room, and in order to entertain guests, she had to cover it with a board and a cloth and disguise it as a table.
Tonight, Emma was glad to be alone. She kicked off her shoes, pulled a pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass. She curled up on the window seat and looked down at Washington Street below. She loved living right in the center of town. Shop owners were flipping their open signs to closed and shutting and locking their front doors. Emma thought she saw a shadow move behind the window at O’Connell’s Hardware Store, and she squinted trying to make out the shape. It looked like Brian, but she couldn’t be sure.
Not that it mattered. She was done with men—at least for the moment. Guy Richard had trampled her heart, leaving it broken and shopworn. She moved away from the window, and noticed that the message light on her cell phone was blinking. She dialed voice mail, but the message, from Guy’s assistant, Kate Hathaway, was brief—just that she’d call back later. Emma was relieved. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was talk about Guy.
EMMA felt a strange sense of proprietorship when she put her key in the lock of Sweet Nothings the next morning. Dappled morning sun lit the white brick façade that hadn’t changed much since the early 1900s when the building was erected. A glossy black-and-white striped awning with SWEET NOTHINGS penned in elegant script shaded the front door. Emma paused and plucked some dead leaves off the white geraniums that sat in twin plaster urns on either side of the entrance.
Someone was standing at the front door of The Toggery, the oldest store in Paris. It had been in its original location since 1917 and had been spared by the fires that had destroyed a number of other buildings around the square. The door opened, and the person disappeared inside. Shortly afterward, Emma saw lights go on, and the shade over the front window was rolled up. Downtown Paris was waking up for business.
She felt better than she had in a long time. She’d come up with a unique angle for her aunt’s failing business, Brian was ready to start the renovations she’d suggested and she’d had a good night’s sleep with the windows open, listening to the chirp of the crickets and feeling the soft breeze scented with honeysuckle and pine. It was a far cry from the city, where the night sounds consisted of a cacophony of taxi horns and people shouting, and where the air was fouled with car exhaust and bus fumes.
Emma was starting the coffee when she
heard the front door open and the jingle of Pierre’s leash.
“Hello! Good morning,” Arabella called out. “Pierre,” she turned her attention toward her dog, “Stop pulling on the leash like that.”
“Good morning.” Emma greeted her aunt and gave her a quick hug. She glanced down at Pierre, who was still straining at his collar, attempting to reach the front door. “What’s up with Pierre?”
Arabella sighed. “It’s that dachshund across the street. Bertha. A most unsuitable match for a French bulldog, but try telling Pierre that. It was love at first sight. I can’t imagine what he sees in her.”
Emma closed the front door, and Pierre finally sulked over toward his dog bed.
“I hardly slept a wink last night,” Arabella admitted as she tucked her handbag under the counter. “I’m so excited about all your ideas for Sweet Nothings.”
“I know,” Emma replied. “I’m very excited, too. I was thinking that we really need to organize a grand opening with a bang.”
“I finished some more repairs last night.” Arabella pulled a tissue-wrapped bundle out of a black-and-white Sweet Nothings shopping bag. She placed it on the counter and opened it. “Look at this.” Arabella held up a green silk tap-pant-and-bra set.
“They’re beautiful,” Emma breathed.
“The straps are actual silk ribbon and in perfect condition.”
“Is this…what did you call it…Point de Venise lace?” Emma asked.
Arabella shook her head. “This is Alençon. Its name comes from the town of Alençon in Normandy, France. A local needlewoman, attempting to duplicate Venetian lace, ended up creating her own pattern, which they named after the town.”
A knock sounded on the front door, and they both jumped. Pierre catapulted from his dog bed and approached the door, head down and a low growl emanating from his throat.
“That must be Brian—” Arabella began.
“That must be the armoire I ordered—” Emma said at the same time. “I’ll get it.”
Emma smoothed a hand over her hair, and Arabella gave her that little smile again. Emma dropped her hand to her side and strode toward the door.
She pulled it open half expecting to see a couple of burly men ready to hustle the white distressed armoire she’d ordered into the shop.
But it was Guy Richard.
Standing on the doorstep of Sweet Nothings, his Nikon slung over his shoulder, a bunch of slightly bedraggled flowers clutched in his hand and a very repentant look on his face.
“GUY!” Emma’s jaw dropped and her stomach flip-flopped at the sight of him standing on her doorstep. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve got something for you.” There was an earnest look in his eyes that Emma had never seen before.
“Flowers?” She gestured toward the wilting bouquet in his hands.
“Non.” He handed the flowers to her. “Something else. Can we go somewhere and talk?” He gestured toward the street with his shoulder.
Emma wasn’t sure she could move. She felt rooted to the spot, as if she had been planted there.
“Well, well, well. Who do we have here?” Arabella cooed as she glided toward Guy with her hand outstretched.
Guy turned toward Arabella and took hold of her hand, his lips hovering above it. “Enchanté, madame.”
Pierre tried to muscle between Arabella and Guy, his upper lip pulled back in a snarl.
Arabella fluttered her eyelashes in response. “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?”
“Aunt Arabella!” Emma hissed. “Do you know what that means? You just asked him if he’d like to sleep with you!”
Arabella put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear. Is that what that means?”
“We’re going to go get coffee,” Emma said firmly. “The Coffee Klatch should be open by now.”
“Nonsense.” Arabella said. “I can put on some coffee tout de suite.”
“Please,” Guy held out his hands. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“It’s no bother at all.”
Guy shot Emma a helpless look, but she knew better than to try to sidetrack her aunt. Once Arabella got going, she was like a locomotive steaming toward its destination.
Emma helped Arabella retrieve cups and saucers from a cabinet in the back room and carried them to the front of the shop. Shock had made Emma’s movements awkward and clumsy, and she clutched the porcelain tightly for fear she would drop something.
Guy was looking through Arabella’s stock of vintage lingerie and had taken out the peach peignoir set and laid it on the counter. He spun around when he heard Emma coming.
“These are so beautiful, cherie.” His camera was out of its case, and he was adjusting the lens. “Have you thought about making an online catalogue? Beautiful things like these would be bought up like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Emma set the tray down on the counter, relieved to note there was the barest rattle of crockery. “I hadn’t thought about that.” With an online presence, the shop wouldn’t be totally dependent on local customers for its revenue.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Emma said cautiously. “I don’t suppose it would cost that much to get started.”
“Non, not at all,” Guy reassured her. “Besides, now that I am here, I can take the photographs for you.”
“Really?” Emma felt her excitement build. “Arabella,” she called toward the back room. “Guy has had the most wonderful idea.”
“What’s that?” Arabella emerged, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
Emma explained Guy’s proposition to her.
“What a brilliant idea,” Arabella exclaimed.
“You can be my model,” Guy said to Emma, turning toward the negligee spread on the counter. “This looks like it should fit perfectly. And this color, with your complexion…” He kissed the tips of his fingers.
“No!” The word burst out of Emma. “We can put it on a mannequin to be photographed.”
Emma glanced at the negligee and peignoir set again. It was certainly a far cry from the old T-shirt she normally wore to bed. And there was no way she was going to allow pictures of herself in it to be displayed on the Internet. Arabella had offered to save it for her trousseau. Would she ever need a trousseau, she wondered. She’d told Guy they were finished, and she meant it. And the way she felt right now, it would be a long time before she was ready to risk the pain of a broken heart again. She’d rather sit alone in front of the television eating ice cream out of the carton.
Guy shrugged, a casual Gallic tossing of his shoulder.
Emma took the nightgown from him and started to replace it on the hanger. She didn’t notice the jingle of the front door opening. Brian strode into the room and stopped short when he saw her.
Emma dropped the negligee as if it had scalded her hands. Brian looked almost as flustered as she felt.
“Sorry if I’m interrupting…” He waved a hand in the air. “Something.”
“Not at all.” Guy smiled at him reassuringly, but Brian continued to study Guy rather like a scientist might study a parasite under a microscope.
“I don’t want to interrupt anything. I was going to start on those alcoves we talked about…”
“Pas de problème, no problem.” Guy answered quickly. He turned around and began fiddling with his camera lens.
Brian continued to stare, his mouth in a grim line, for several seconds before turning on his heel and heading toward the other end of the shop. After an uncomfortable silence, the whine of the saw filled Sweet Nothings.
Despite Guy’s sudden appearance, Emma and Arabella still had work to do. Whatever Guy wanted to discuss would have to wait until later. Fortunately, he had become immersed in taking photographs as Emma had suspected he would. They’d been working for a few hours and were about to break for lunch when they heard the door open and a feminine voice call out, “Yoo-hoo!”
Arabella rolled her eyes. “We should have locked the front door.”
“Where’s that go
rgeous Frenchman I heard you’ve been hiding, Arabella?”
“In here, Angel.”
“How—” Emma began.
“It’s a small town, and, as they say, news travels fast.”
Angelica “Angel” Roy was preceded into the room by a cloud of Opium. She was wearing polka-dot capri pants and a halter top, and she had her fire-engine-red hair teased and sprayed into a massive bouffant mixture on top of her head. Her nails were painted hot pink, and a tattoo of a cat was inked above her left ankle.
She stopped short when she caught sight of Guy.
“Close your mouth, you’re drooling,” Arabella said.
Angel ignored her and tottered purposefully toward Guy on her high-heeled sandals.
He took her outstretched hand and kissed it. “Enchanté, mademoiselle.”
Angel preened and patted her hair. “The same to you, I’m sure.” She looked around the shop, where stock was piled on the counters. “What are you all doing?”
“Renovating. My niece is here from New York to help.” Arabella gestured toward Emma.
Angel gave Emma the once-over. “I don’t know how long you’re staying, but if you need your hair cut or a mani and pedi, come on down to Angel Cuts. It’s just past A Good Yarn and right next to The Taffy Pull. If you get a hankering for something more than just eye candy,” she glanced at Guy from beneath her lashes, “they do some of the best fudge I’ve ever tasted. Made right on the spot.” She licked her lips suggestively.
Angel turned toward Guy. “You helping Miss Arabella with her renovations?”
Guy shook his head. “Not exactly, non. I am going to help photograph her catalogue.”
“Right here in the shop?”
“Maybe. But also outdoors, I think.”
“I know just the spot! You can take some snaps right next to the Eiffel Tower. It’d be perfect seeing as how this is Paris, Tennessee. Get it? Paris, Tennessee?”
Guy looked confused. “Mais La Tour Eiffel?”
“Exactly! Didn’t anyone tell you? We’ve got one of our very own right here in Paris. It’s over at Memorial Park and stands sixty feet tall!”