A Broken Kind of Beautiful (42 page)

Mrs. Ludd tapped Davis on the shoulder. “Where did you want to set up the packages you’re going to auction?”

Right. Auctioning wedding-related packages had been Ivy’s idea, an excellent one too. They’d likely make more money for the art program with the silent auction than the ticket sales, and that was saying something, as they’d already sold a lot of tickets. More than he ever expected. “Somewhere in the lobby?”

“It’s already full with the ticket booth and the food.”

Static blasted through the sanctuary. Davis cringed. Several models shrieked. One tripped on her shoe and fell on the stage. Big Bubba must have hit the wrong button on one of the microphones. Marilyn waved her hands for attention and pointed to the opposite end of the platform. Good grief, they needed Ivy.

“Man, Bubba, I thought you knew how to work that stuff,” Davis called.

The D.J. grimaced. “I know how to work new stuff. This equipment’s prehistoric.”

“It’s all we have.” So he’d better figure out how to use it without deafening their audience tomorrow. Davis scratched the back of his neck, wondering how he could create space when there was none left. Was there an extra room he was forgetting about? a place for Mrs. Ludd and all the others to showcase their auction items? “What about that small conference room off the lobby? Do you think that could be big enough?”

“I’ll go check it out.” Mrs. Ludd bustled away.

Davis made a beeline for Marilyn.

Two hours into the rehearsal and the models still looked lost. How hard could it be to walk across a stage in a wedding gown? Ivy showed them how to walk a week ago. They couldn’t have forgotten everything already. Marilyn turned away from the ladies, a brightness in her eyes that definitely wasn’t there in the waiting room of the hospital.

“How’s Ivy?” he asked.

“Okay, I think.” Marilyn looked him up and down. “Where did you go off to? One minute you were at the hospital and the next you were gone.”

“I guess I figured you had it covered.” He couldn’t meet her eyes when he said it.

Marilyn tucked her clipboard under her arm. “Davis, are you okay?”

“I can’t do pictures anymore.”

She raised her eyebrows. “The fashion show is tomorrow.”

“I know that. I mean once it’s over. I know you and Joan had hoped I’d do some more work once this campaign was over, but I can’t.” He had asked God for guidance regarding Joan’s offer, and God had answered loud and clear. He just wished God wouldn’t have used the woman he loved to give it.

“Do you mind if I ask why not?”

“C’mon, Marilyn, you know why. First Sara, now Ivy. She would have been at Hoppin’ John’s if not for me uninviting her to the party. Instead, she was getting her face wrecked by Doyle.” He shook away the memory of Ivy unconscious in his arms. It didn’t matter that he’d washed her blood from his hands. Every time he looked at his palms, it was still there. “Why should I get to do what I love when Sara and Ivy can’t do what they love?”

Mrs. Ludd bustled back inside and relayed some information to Marilyn. She flipped a page on her clipboard, wrote something down, then turned back to Davis. “Did you ever wonder why there’s an eight-year age gap between you and Sara?”

“What?”

“You and Sara, did you ever wonder about the age gap?”

Davis furrowed his brow. What did that have to do with anything?

“After you were born, your mom stopped trying to have kids.”

“Why?”

“Because I was her sister and I couldn’t have kids.” Marilyn took a deep breath. “When your mom got pregnant with you, I was over the moon. But I was also sad. James and I had been trying for almost two years at that point, and I still had no baby in my arms. So Rose calls me one day—you were a couple months old at the time—and she says she’s done. She wouldn’t have any more kids if I couldn’t.” Marilyn called out to Jordan, who was moving a table into the sanctuary, and waved her hand for him to move it back out. “I think you got your martyr gene from her.”

“Martyr gene?”

“Here was a woman who could have as many babies as she wanted, and she was going to stop because I couldn’t? It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. And it only made my inability to have kids worse.”

“Why?”

“Because I never asked her to stop having babies.”

He shifted his weight. “Well, she must have changed her mind at some point.”

“Thank the Lord, otherwise there’d be no Sara.”

Davis looked over at the sound booth, where his sister spoke with Big Bubba, most likely going over the music selection. He couldn’t fathom a world without her. “So what are you saying—I should take pictures?”

“That’s between you and God. All I’m saying is you should think long and hard before sacrificing something nobody is asking you to sacrifice. Now, could you take these ladies to the back and show them how things are going to work backstage? I’d like Sara to start running the music so the girls can time their walks better.”

Davis blinked several times. “Yeah. Sure.”

Marilyn pivoted on her heel and headed for Sara.

“Um, okay, ladies.” Davis climbed onto the stage. “Come with me.”

He led them to the back room, where they would change and get their hair done and makeup fixed. He pointed to eight separate clothing racks, feeling mechanical in his movements. “Each of you has your own. Arabella, this is yours. See these Polaroids?” A few days ago, after the fitting, he’d taken pictures of each model in the outfits they would wear for the show. Now the pictures were tacked to the racks. Another one of Ivy’s ideas. “They show exactly what you’re wearing and in what order. You’ll have somebody here tomorrow to help you get in and out of your clothes.”

Arabella gave him a thumbs-up.

“Why don’t the rest of you go through your rack and make sure everything is where it needs to be?”

The models dispersed.

Arabella motioned toward a deserted rack in the corner. “Who’s going to model Ivy’s dresses?”

The muscles across Davis’s chest pulled tight. Marilyn had saved the best dresses for Ivy. The likelihood of finding a five-foot-ten-inch, rail-thin model this late in the game was close to nil. “Nobody. Unless you have any ideas.”

“Put a veil over her face and have her walk.”

Davis frowned. “I don’t think she wants to see anybody right now.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Arabella patted his forearm. “It’s really too bad what happened, but I’m sure she’ll get back up again. You’ll see.”

It was the same thing people used to say about Sara after her accident. Davis never believed them. But despite his doubts, Sara had gotten back up.

Arabella stepped past him and began shuffling through her dresses.

With the models occupied, Davis made his way back onto the stage and spotted Sara laughing behind the sound booth with Jordan and Big Bubba. Marilyn’s words buzzed around his thoughts like a pesky mosquito.

Was he really playing a martyr?

He gripped the familiar strap around his neck. After what happened to Sara, Davis had assumed God wanted him to put away his camera. It was, after all, what had gotten Davis wrapped up in the fashion industry to begin with. But what if his assumption was exactly that—an assumption? What if Davis had gone and created a yoke for himself he was never meant to wear?

Jordan wrapped his arm around Sara’s waist and kissed her cheek.

All those people had been right. His sister had gotten back up.

Yet he’d languished on the ground for the last two years and, somewhere along the line, put his guilt on a pedestal. He turned it into an idol, focusing on his mistakes instead of God. Ivy pointed it out on the beach. Said he didn’t live like he was forgiven.

And she’d been right. That’s exactly how he’d been living.

He was done acting like his mistakes were too big for God. The past was the past. It was time to leave it behind once and for all.

Marilyn was anxious to get home. The rehearsal had been barely organized chaos. She had no idea how they’d pull it off tomorrow, but that didn’t matter nearly as much as getting home to Ivy. She was partly excited and partly terrified, worried that whatever nebulous bond had formed between them yesterday might have floated away in the night.

I’m not finished. Not even close
.

The whisper made tears well in Marilyn’s eyes as she stepped inside and petted Georgia. Why was hope such a scary thing? She put her keys on the counter and turned toward the stairs when a rustle sounded from the living room off the kitchen. Ivy twisted around, her arm draped over the back of the couch, a Robert Frost poetry book in hand.

Marilyn stopped, unsure what to say. Too much seemed to be riding on these first words. In the end, it was Ivy who broke the ice. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Marilyn said back.

“Thanks for the cinnamon roll.”

“You’re welcome.”

Ivy turned all the way around.

Marilyn stepped closer.

Georgia scampered to the couch and jumped up onto a cushion. “No Sara?” Ivy asked.

“She’s spending the afternoon with Jordan.”

“How was the rehearsal?”

Marilyn relaxed a little and smiled. “Disorganized.” Honestly, they were all lost. Ivy had her thumb in every aspect of the show, and without her, nothing seemed to work right.

Tell her
.

Marilyn frowned. If she told Ivy that, she might think Marilyn was trying to make her feel guilty for not being there. She might take it as pressure to do something she wasn’t ready for. And then whatever spell that had been cast upon them would officially lose its magic. Marilyn couldn’t risk it.

But the nudge came again, more forcefully this time. Marilyn fiddled with the silver chain of her necklace, came around the couch, and sat down.

Ivy brought the book into her lap. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

“I’m afraid we’re all sort of clueless without you, Ivy.”

The half of her face that wasn’t swollen and bruised turned pink.

“Any way you’d consider coming tomorrow and helping us out?”

Ivy’s attention darted to her lap.

Marilyn held her breath, waiting.

“I … I’m not sure I want anyone to see me.”

The softly spoken response had Marilyn exhaling. She couldn’t help but wonder if by
anyone
, Ivy was thinking most about Davis. “I don’t want you to think there’s any pressure. It’s just that you’ve worked so hard on this. It might be fun to see the fruits of that labor.”

“Yeah … it would.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a while. Marilyn petting Georgia’s head, Ivy fanning her thumb across the pages of her book.

“Marilyn?”

“Yes?”

Ivy looked up, tears welling in her eyes. “Thanks.”

It was just one word, and a common one at that. Spoken a million times a day throughout the world. But coming from Ivy, that one word meant everything. This wasn’t the end. After sixteen years, Marilyn was certain, this was just the beginning.

38

A model was late. Big Bubba couldn’t get a handle on the church’s sound system. And people stared and whispered.

“Poor girl.”

“Got attacked by some guy.”

“Bless her heart. The scarring will be bad.”

The whispers followed her through the sanctuary and around the lobby as she directed a makeup artist, a hair stylist, and seven overexcited models. Ivy did her best to ignore the whispers and take hold of her new mantra.

I am His … I am His …

It wasn’t easy.

Especially since everything seemed to be going wrong. Marilyn was busy with Arabella’s staff and setting up the food, and Mrs. Ludd only brought six bouquets when they needed seven. One of the models showed up late with a limp and a swollen ankle. They were already down one, thanks to her. What kind of show would it be sans two models? It’s not like the remaining six could all wear an extra dress. Not when each gown was tailored for a specific fit. Ivy worried the paying ticket holders wouldn’t get their money’s worth or, worse, the industry professionals would give Marilyn’s dresses bad reviews.

Her nerves tangled into knots. She forced herself to take steady, even breaths. Marilyn believed in her. She could do this. She walked to the back of the sanctuary toward the sound booth. “You got it figured out yet, Bubba?”