The Second Chance Boutique

by Louisa Leaman

  Her curiosity is piqued. She never tries on her wedding dresses. Call it superstition, the never covet rule, but this one…she cannot resist. The urge consumes her. In the soft light, shadows flickering on the walls, she slips off her jeans and top and steps inside the white gown’s voluptuous well. She pauses a moment, feels its sensuous mass all around her, then lifts it over her hips, reaches behind, and tightens the corset ribbons enough to feel its form, how it moves, how it supports, how it gives. The cut is sublime. The V at the back creates the most perfect bloom of skin, bone, and muscle she has ever seen. The shape around the décolletage makes even her small chest seem sensuous and feminine. The cinched waist and draped train form such a picturesque silhouette, the effect is transformative. She has entered the realm of the ethereal bride. Should she? Could she go there again? A twist to the left, a glide to the right, back arched, arm dipped, a glance over the shoulder…

  A shadow flickers.

  Someone has seen her.

  “Mick?”

  But instead of Mick’s familiar features, her eyes meet with Rafael’s. Across the room, their gazes interlock—a standoff, a showdown, yet somehow, she feels it, a union. She gasps, caught by the intensity, struck by emotions she doesn’t understand. He hovers in the doorway, face half-hidden in darkness. He seems as startled as she is, his otherwise crisp demeanor tousled with surprise.

  “I—I heard someone calling out,” he says eventually, words rippling into the silence.

  Fran feels the heat in her cheeks, her breath heavy as her ribs expand inside the dress’s stiff bodice.

  “That was me,” she whispers. “I—I was looking for my friend, but…I got distracted—”

  “Yes, I can see that,” says Rafael.

  Fran cannot tell his state of mind. His mouth is a frown, but his eyes seem to sparkle. She presses her hands to the dress. “I found this in the wardrobe. It’s very, very beautiful.”

  “And it fits you…perfectly.”

  Her heart thuds. Should she say more? Should she explain herself? Is he shocked? Offended? Intrigued? “I guess it must have been your mother’s.”

  “Yes.”

  She pitches forward, hands outstretched in a peace gesture. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, knowing how emotional a family wedding dress can be—all those memories and resonances tied inside. “I didn’t mean for you to—”

  “No matter,” he mutters, stiffening, turning away as though to avoid further discussion. “If you think you can find a use for it, please…take it.”

  Then he walks away, leaving Fran alone with the dress, alone to stand and wonder.

  Mick is still in the kitchen, sorting old cutlery. He has a habit of overabsorbing himself with unnecessary details, which makes him a careful but slow worker. Fran presents him with the dress.

  “You’re not going to believe this. It’s House of Garrett-Alexia.”

  Mick gives a vaguely approving nod.

  “They were legendary! They specialized in richly embellished evening gowns during the ’50s. They were among the most sought-after couturiers of their day. They clothed royalty, not to mention every movie, theater, and music star. And then, at the peak of their success, everything collapsed. There was a fallout, some kind of argument. They suddenly stopped designing, and that was the end of their reign. No more dresses made. Quality of design combined with extreme rarity, Mick, means anything with a Garrett-Alexia label is highly collectible. I’ve seen evening dresses crop up at auctions—they create an instant frenzy because they’re so unusual, but a wedding dress?” She gathers the train in her hands, tries to absorb its energy. “Honestly, I don’t know if there’s anything out there like it.”

  Fran stares and thinks. “What do I do?”

  “Take it,” says Mick, as though there is no other option. “Patch it up, get it valued, and sell it to the best bride.”

  A complex chain of ifs and buts takes over. “But I can’t just walk out with it—”

  Mick balks. “Why are we here then? I mean, we came looking for a wedding dress. We found a wedding dress. Result. And let’s not forget, our dear, charming friend said, I quote, ‘take it all.’ Fair square.”

  Fran dithers. She is tempted, so tempted, but wedding dresses—like love itself—are a test to her moral compass, too precious, too important to mess with. She stiffens, shakes her head.

  “I can’t. It feels wrong. A dress like this, it’s—it’s family history. Not to mention fashion history.”

  “Do you really think that man will care? He doesn’t strike me as a fashion history buff, or for that matter someone who gives a damn about his old ma’s backstory—”

  “No, but…” Fran pictures his face, his gaze upon her. Something about the way he looked at her—as though, in that moment, his thoughts were more charged, more potent than he was prepared to let on.

  “Do what feels right for you,” says Mick. “I’ll finish loading the van with my haul, give you some time. Meet you out front, dress or no dress.”

  Alone, Fran walks a circuit of the room, clasping the dress to her body, dragging the train behind. It would have taken the assistance of several bridesmaids and pageboys for the original wearer to move with any grace—a procession of extravagance, bursting with glamour and status. Clearly there is more to Alessandra than a love of gardening and mug trees. Every detail of the gown is exquisite, from the pearl inlay to the fine lace sleeves and the cinched waist. Weeks of work, possibly months, everything hand stitched, everything perfect. The one Fran has always dreamed of. How could she let it go?

  Hastily, she stows the dress back in the holdall, stuffing and pushing and squishing to get its bulk contained. With a determined sweep, she hoists the holdall over one shoulder and creeps into the corridor. She passes the rows of empty, silent rooms, the echoing ceilings and dusty windows. She is almost at the front hall when she catches sight of Rafael again. He is standing alone, arms folded, staring into a cold inglenook fireplace. There is an air of melancholy about him now that makes her nervous to speak. A creaking floorboard gets his attention. He looks toward her, the blacks of his eyes catching the light, then the holdall.

  “I think,” she says, “you should consider this more carefully.” She opens the holdall to him, tugs out the silk, tries to smile, but her offering is met with immediate disdain.

  He barely lowers his gaze, almost as though he won’t deign to acknowledge what is in front of him. “I’m happy for you take it,” he says crisply.

  “But—”

  “Well, I’m not going to wear it, am I?”

  “No, but I feel like I ought to tell you…” Fran cannot help herself. The excitement fizzles within her, so much that her hands start to tremble. She digs into the holdall, pulls out more fabric, presents beaded hummingbirds and embroidered lilies. “This is a very extraordinary dress.”

  No reaction. If craftsmanship and sentiment don’t move him, maybe money might.

  “And I believe it could be very valuable. I research and sell vintage wedding dresses.”

  Rafael sighs and huffs, looks impatiently to the ceiling, the sinews of his jaw bulging with tension. But Fran persists.

  “Trust me, this dress is special. It’s House of Garrett-Alexia, which is very rare couture in case you’re not… Well…anyway…the point is, there are brides all around the world who’d love to get their hands on a dress like this. I could sell it no problem, but my method of working is…particular.”

  Finally, his curiosity prickling, Rafael graces her with a side glance.

  “I find brilliant dresses,” she explains, “then match them to brides. It’s niche work, but I’ve been rather successful. The thing is, in order to make good matches, I need to understand my dresses as much as I understand my brides. You see, the best dresses—and I believe this could be one of them—don’t just bring their beauty to the occasion; they bring
their energy, their truth. And I think this one,” she suggests, eyes alight, leaning forward with enthusiasm, “is capable of something close to magic. The ultimate life-changing statement dress. It needs life. It needs love.”

  “Love it then,” says Rafael, turning back to the fireplace.

  Right. Okay. She should be happy. The dress for her, aboveboard, without any subterfuge, but the way he speaks, it doesn’t feel like generosity. It’s a patronizing slight and the fact that he could be so disregarding about something so magnificent…

  “You don’t appreciate what this represents, do you?” She snaps, her passion overcooking.

  “Forgive me,” he says. “I forget how we must always cherish outdated, moth-eaten matrimonial regalia…because the other alternative”—he suddenly grabs the holdall, the fabric spilling out, cascading onto the floor—“is dumping it in the trash.”

  “What?”

  With Fran at his heels, fury in his eyes, Rafael snatches the bundle and hurries it out of the front door, into the sunshine, to where a dirty yellow rubbish bin is being loaded with garbage bags. Despite Fran’s pleas, he lobs the holdall and dress over his shoulder, into the mire. Fran cannot speak. She is too stunned, too offended by this cruel, erratic action. Without a care, Rafael brushes his hands, turns, and walks back to the house. When he is out of sight, she dives to rescue the dress. If anything can reassure her that it should now rightfully and respectfully become hers, this is it. Moments later, however, she is disturbed by the sound of screeching breaks. A battered blue Corvette swerves into the drive, stops suddenly at the front porch. A young woman tumbles out of the passenger door, a gravity-defying nest of dreadlocks piled on top of her head and an armory of piercings along her eyebrow and ear.

  “Hi,” she says cheerfully, eyeing Fran, who has one leg in the dumpster and one leg out. “You here for the clear-up?”

  She thrusts out a hand, a friendly shake. Reluctantly Fran relinquishes her grip on her corner of the wedding dress and obliges.

  “Nice threads,” says the woman, nodding toward Fran’s 1970s kimono, which she has taken to wearing with an old pair of Levi’s. “So where’s the prodigal son?”

  “You mean Rafael?”

  “The very one. He inside? Oh wait, here he comes—”

  From the doorway Rafael appears, feet marching quick, face stern. He pays no attention to Fran but goes straight to the woman.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, his tone scolding.

  “Nothing,” she cries. “Just having a conversation, all right? Being polite. Calm yourself down.”

  The pair start arguing, right in front of Fran. She sees the dress twinkling from inside the dumpster, but they are distracting, locked into their mutual fury, bodies tense, voices loud. She has no desire to get caught between some uncomfortable family domestic. Mick starts beeping his horn. He is in her periphery, waving to her from the van. She looks at the dress again, then at the arguing pair, then back at Mick.

  Let’s go, he mouths as he starts the engine.

  Fran is urged to grab the dress, but just as she moves forward, the argument erupts into full-on yelling.

  “Get yourself together for once in your life!” Rafael bellows.

  The anger in his face is almost tangible. The veins at his temples throb, as his cheeks suck tight around his clenched jaw and his eyes narrow to slits. He looks wild, dangerous, a cornered wolf.

  “Fuck off!” the woman shouts in return, spitting the words. “Stop telling me what to do! You know what you are? You’re a nasty, selfish, pigheaded womanizer who nobody likes!”

  It is too much, too difficult. Fran has no choice. She backs away and returns to the van, to the security of the passenger seat.

  “Should we do something?” she whispers.

  Mick shrugs, then opens his door. “Hey,” he calls, never one for confrontation. “There’s no need for hostility, sir!”

  Rafael ignores him and marches the woman toward the house. She shouts and swears. Neither of them looks back.

  “Ah jeez,” says Mick. “Let’s leave them to it. Old money, old problems.”

  “Tell me about it,” says Fran. “I mean, that’s one cold, emotionless example of human nature. Honestly, Mick, is it any wonder I’ve given up on the chance of finding love in the twenty-first century? Modern men are fuckwits.”

  “Ahem.”

  “No good. You bat for the other team. Plus your imagination spends a peculiarly large amount of time in 1892.”

  “True.”

  They laugh a little, breathe the relief of their escape, but as they speed through the forest, the canopy of beech trees blanketing them, Fran is hit by a sudden and overwhelming sense of despair. The thrill of the dress, the mass of it somehow weightless in its glory, she’d had it in her arms, such a fortune of love, the answer to all of the problems in the world.

  And now it is left in a heap in a dumpster.

  chapter 2

  Rafael Colt breathes slowly as he pulls on his velvet dinner jacket and adjusts his cuff links. He craves a sense of stillness, something that has been lacking since six o’clock that morning. He is minutes away from stepping onstage and delivering the biggest speech of his year. The venue, the grand glass atrium of the Royal Opera House, is full to capacity—a celebratory gathering of London’s great and good, there to network and pose and claim their own invaluable connection to the prestigious family name. The Colt Foundation annual black-tie ball has steadily established itself as one of the top events of the London social calendar. Saturated with old wealth, smart, refined, and unfathomably stuffy, Rafael dreads its annual arrival. As chairman of the foundation, however, he understands he has to break out of his private persona and play the hero. He knows what’s at stake, the difference his money makes to those who need it.

  The guests—a curious blend of charity leaders, corporate kings, and London’s richest—are waiting for him, fingers poised around thin-stemmed champagne flutes, eager to offer their whitened smiles and gushing praise. Hasn’t the foundation had a brilliant year? Marvelous. Superb. He knows he’ll be loved, aggrandized, flirted with, gossiped about, damn near sainted. Year after year, it’s the same. In fact, on this occasion, he’s made a little game in his head, a checklist of inevitables: General Marvin, his late father’s aged golf buddy, will collar him for a lengthy discussion about the state of the Edinburgh links. Dame Felicity Pollinger, in disgusting fur, will force him to dance, then whisper vile things in his ear. Three trays of canapés will be upturned. Two accountancy firms will argue during the raffle and Hannah Atherton-Rhys will cry. A point for each hit, and if he gets every point, well, whatever—as in life, no reward, just a little self-amusement now and again.

  “You have one minute, Mr. Colt,” says Mimi, his loyal assistant, handing him his speech.

  He doesn’t look through it. The words are firmly fixed in his head. Every time he tries to focus, however, intrusive images rush in and take over: those empty rooms, that cold fireplace, his mother’s gardening gloves, the dress…the wedding dress, brought to him in a bundle by a stranger, by Francesca Delaney. He sees her now, swanlike in his mother’s gown, her perfect pale skin, the shine in her eyes, the little bump in her nose and the bow of her lips, those lips with so much to say about the hell of weddings. Overexcitable. Wedding fanatic. Two traits he cannot abide. Why, why is she pestering his thoughts so much?

  “Five seconds,” says Mimi in her perfunctory way, hand outstretched for the countdown.

  Out of all the assistants he has had, Mimi is the best, which is why he has paid double to hold her for another year, keeping her from her studies but nonetheless well paid. She arrived in London two years ago, an overseas student from a wealthy Canadian family. She is—or has been—studying European culture. She loves opera and tea. She is smart, methodical, cold as ice, possibly a little ruthless, and an expert verbal minimali
st. Her phrases are never longer than they need to be. He likes that. No chitchat. They don’t pretend to be friends, yet they manage to spend most of their waking hours meshed together in acceptably professional silence.

  “Three seconds, two, one, go.”

  Rafael takes the deepest breath he can, then pushes the whispers of his mind back inside. An explosion of flashbulbs and applause fills the hall. Through the dazzle, the white-haired master of ceremonies takes his arm and artfully guides him toward the microphone stand. Hush fills the room. Just say the words, he tells himself, play the part. Look dignified. Make everyone feel good. Say the words and be done with it.

  “Good evening. It is with great joy that I’m able to say that the Colt Foundation has had its best year yet.”

  A burst of applause as the shock of his voice, normally so soft, is now mega-amplified, bouncing off the iron pillars and the barrel-vaulted glass ceiling. He lurches for the next line.

  “We have given a record amount of money to a record amount of causes, which means more support where it is most needed.”

  Another round of applause.

  “Through our grant program, we have been able to educate thousands of disadvantaged children and young people, rolling out our Colt Community Learning Schemes in the north, southeast, and now southwest of England. We have financed an ambitious program of building works, providing state-of-the-art schools within the country’s poorest communities and given thousands in grants to public health concerns.”

  This triggers a massive round of applause. He feels the glory wash over him, soak him, drench him, then drain away into the gutter. He is many things and not all of them good, but he isn’t deluded. If they knew the truth, he thinks, they would know when to cull their adulation. Through the glare of the stage lights, he senses their darkened faces, bodies wrapped in silk and satin and diamonds and gold, staring up at him, hanging on for the next rousing statement. He straightens his speech notes.

  “In 1955,” he says, forcing the words out, “my grandfather Lord Samuel Anders Colt had an idea. He decided that the wealth bequeathed to him should be used to enhance the lives of others. Over the past five decades, my late father and myself have striven to grow the seed of his vision and make the foundation what it is today. But we haven’t done it alone. It has been through the efforts of all of you, our tireless employees and supporters. So if there is any more applause to be had, it’s for you.”