Our Bridal Shop

Chapter 10 - Freesia

Freesia sat on the floor in Charlotte's old bedroom, the materials to make a five-thousand-dollar bridal gown fanned around her. Most of the materials, thanks to expedited shipping. After she had spent the better part of the first precious day calling around to domestic manufacturers and getting nowhere, she rang up her old roommate, Sinead, who lived in Holland, and asked her to call an ex-boyfriend in Pamplona. For a trip to the local market, apparently the guy's price was a second-chance date with Sinead. Freesia was lucky Sinead owed her a favor.

Her fingertips skimmed the Spanish cotton-blend. The fabric was luxurious and gauzy, as Freesia had requested, but it lacked the hand-stitched knot pattern that made hers special. She didn't know those stitches; she would learn. Bell sleeves and a bodice framework already dressed the form in the sewing room. A tulipwood-inlaid platinum bangle and Tibetan-inspired amber and white onyx earrings from online boutiques offered the perfect balance of accessories. Freesia circled back to the one thing she hadn't been able to reconcile. Beads carved from the mahogany tree in Sarafina's yard. As rare as stitching a dress from four-leaf clovers.

She tugged the original dress into her lap, scissors in hand. Her hand flexed a few times to get a feel for the plastic grip, the slice of the blades, the courage within. They were just beads. Nothing when measured against her chance to become something meaningful to someone. She cut through the bodice's end thread and emptied the first row of beads into a coffee mug she had found in the kitchen that read World's Greatest Dad.

"He used to make root beer floats in that cup," Alex said from the doorway.

She wore a man's flannel shirt and a jersey tube skirt that skimmed the top of her bare feet. In one hand she held a carton of ice cream. In the other, a spoon.

"Always had his floats sitting up at the kitchen barstools while he watched the Braves games. Hated root beer by itself, but add vanilla bean ice cream? He could eat his body weight. One of the only things he'd eat toward the end."

Progress. When Freesia arrived, Alex had spoken possessively of her father. My dad. Now, Elias March was he. Freesia didn't want to risk this progress between them, but she had come for answers.

"How did he die?"

Alex eyed the bed as if she thought to sit then reconsidered.

"Cancer." She pressed the spoon against her chest. "He noticed the lump, right here, at his sternum. He didn't think much about it until he started having shortness of breath and the pressure built there. By the time they found the tumor, pressing against his lungs, he was stage four."

Freesia didn't know what to feel. Sadness seemed appropriate, though she had no real connection to the man past an intense wall of betrayal. But in the slow, forgotten trail of the spoon down Alex's body, the way she barely clasped it to keep it from falling, Freesia sampled grief as sure as if she had taken a nibble from the carton. Going down, cold.

"Thank you for telling me."

Alex nodded and entered the room. She browsed the bridesmaid dress sketches Freesia had fastened to the wall, the backward spoon held against her tongue. The longer she surveyed in silence, the faster Freesia's stomach turned.

"The bride didn't tell me her theme, so I took some liberties."

Alex lingered at one Freesia had labeled candy mosque.

"There's a mosque in Morocco with exquisite crown molding. In isolation, each section is nothing more than an arch with gold leaf painted on each side. Taken together, the arches look like candy ribbon with caramel inlay."

Alex removed the spoon from between her lips. "I've never seen anything like it on a dress." She moved down the line. "And this one?"

"My great-grandmother was a housemaid for a boarding school in North Carolina in the 40s. She told my mother stories about how the young women of privilege would sit on the porches to look out at the ocean and puff on their cigarettes and pretend their soldiers were coming back from the war. Said there was so much hope in that blue space, catching the breeze, that a black-and-white photo didn't do it justice. I thought a dress just might."

At the gray-blue column dress Freesia had sketched hours earlier, Alex said, "This one has a different feel. Dramatic."

"It's inspired by a children's story about a king who directed three artists to paint their vision of harmony. The first two painted blue skies, puffy clouds, a beautiful lake. The third painted an angry sky, jagged mountains, a frightening waterfall. But when the king looked closer, he saw a mother bird in her nest. The third artist's idea of harmony. Amidst chaos, the heart's calm."

Alex looked at Freesia then. Her gaze slipped, adrift on some thought, then recovered. "These designs should be seen. You're talented."

"Conception, maybe. Construction? Not so much."

"Construction can be learned, but this..." Alex had ditched her matter-of-fact tone for something roomy, reserved. "Makes me want to know the story behind each design."

"All women tell a story each time they dress. What you wear depends on what you want to say."

"What do I want to say right now?"

A verbal challenge to see how far they'd come. Alex's frown said mistrust, of herself and others. The way she fidgeted—spoon moving but never really eating—said she put a great deal of energy into her personal survival strategy. Of course, neither had the temporariness of garments. Freesia went with the safe bet.

"That you miss your husband because you're wearing his shirt."

A wry smile escaped her. "That's one story no woman wants to slip into."

She had let more go than she intended. Freesia saw it in the lines that creased her brows.

"Charlotte is your go-to resource. She learned from the best. Mama could sew anything—costumes, quilts, formals, you name it."

"I guess clothes weren't the only thing she had a hand in mending."

Freesia had often been accused of pushing, pushing, pushing until she reached her desired effect. Her life coach in Istanbul had called it connection repellent, though the exact words were likely lost in translation. Strong-willed was an important trait for setting feet in new soil, immersing yourself in cultures, picking up new languages. In this foreign land of sisterhood, Freesia pushed because no one else would. Not Charlotte. Certainly not Alex.

"I can't," said Alex. "I've tried. Gone over it and over it, trying to find a new angle. But I can't look at you and see anything other than what my daddy did to Mama, to us."

Disappointment penetrated Freesia's skin, made her ache all over.

"I'm so much more than one act." Freesia's words crackled and itched in her throat, her voice insufferable. She stood and swallowed. "And I look at you and see everything that's been denied me."

"There's nothing left, Freesia. Nothing but debt and the walls around us."

"You know nothing about me if you think I'm all about the money. Family, a history, an identity past that of a bastard child. Hell, even a last name— all those riches you so desperately want to escape." Everything inside screamed, but Freesia refused to give in. "So you can spare me what the world did to you. The world and I are on good terms. It gave me everything your daddy chose not to."

Alex's chin worked in tiny circles. She pressed her lips together, not a drop of sugar left on them. At least not for a bastard like Freesia.

She settled again to do her beadwork. At first grab, she toppled the mug. Mahogany heartwood beads dumped into the carpet fibers.

Alex made a move toward her.

Freesia held up a hand.

Her beads, her fight, her first real say, a necessity best accomplished alone.