Five Brides (22 page)

Inga shot her a look. “What on earth for? Like Joan just said, we’re only having fun.”

“I’m with Evelyn,” Magda added.

“Of course you are.” Inga straightened her dress’s skirt over her crossed knees. “As for me, this may be more than just window-shopping. This may be my first real try-on.” She closed her eyes, aware of the instrumental music wafting from somewhere overhead. If her years sitting on Mrs. Dexter’s brutal piano bench had taught her anything at all, it was to recognize the finer pieces of music. This was . . . Chopin . . . Nocturne in E flat major?

She waited, listening. Yes. Most definitely Chopin.

She allowed it to relax her. To drown out the strain between herself and her sister and the fear emanating from Evelyn. She imagined herself in the dress, walking down the aisle in her father’s church—she’d give her parents that much. Frank, looking expectant and madly in love, dressed in a tux. No. A morning suit. She’d demand a late-morning wedding. The sooner they said “I do,” the sooner the honeymoon could begin. And where to? She’d always wanted to go to Niagara Falls.

Was that too cliché? What of it. That’s where they’d go. From one end of the country back to the other—Los Angeles, where life with Frank Martindale would finally begin. She sighed, opening her eyes as the name
Mrs. Frank Martindale
tiptoed through her thoughts.

“Well?” Betty stood on the nearby platform looking as radiant as Inga felt. The salesclerk fluffed the skirt behind her, and then
drew the train to its full length. Light from overhead cast a shimmer along the folds of satin and Chantilly lace.

“Oh, Betts,” Joan said, nearly breathless and pressing her hand against her chest. “Just look at you.”

Inga knew she had stopped breathing, but figured she needed to in order to allow her heart to catch up with her head. She had only imagined herself in the dress. But there she stood—Betty Estes—looking more radiant and more bride-like than Inga had considered possible.

“Tell me,” the salesclerk said, “what is the name of your fiancé?”

Betty blinked as if the magic of the moment had been broken. Her eyes shot to Evelyn’s, and Evelyn’s suddenly dropped to the floor.

“Evelyn,” she said, ignoring the woman looking up at her. “Why don’t you try the dress on next?”

The salesclerk led Evelyn and Betty into the dressing area—one large round room with its own carpeted center platform and a massive tri-fold gold-leaf mirror against one wall. From there, several changing rooms jutted behind heavy gold-and-cream drapes hanging in deep folds, ceiling to floor, one of the rooms flanked by drapes drawn back with thick gold tasseled rope. Beyond them, Evelyn spotted Betty’s clothes hanging from a hook.

“Miss Estes,” the clerk said, “if you will return to your dressing room . . .” She extended her hand toward the room. Betty did as instructed, releasing the drapes as she passed, allowing them to envelop her and the dress, leaving only the gown’s train behind. Within seconds, it too disappeared.

The clerk turned to Evelyn. “My name is Mrs. Marchman,” she informed her. “And you are?”

Evelyn quivered, in spite of her resolve to hold herself together. “Evelyn,” she barely whispered. “Evelyn Alexander.”

“This way, Miss Alexander.”

Evelyn followed Mrs. Marchman to another of the rooms, where the clerk threw back one panel of the curtains with a flourish. “If you will go ahead and remove your clothes, I’ll return momentarily with the dress.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Minutes later, as she stood with her arms crossed, shivering in her underthings—a pair of panties and a girdle, nylons, and a brassiere under a sleek white slip—Mrs. Marchman returned with the dress.

“I’m going to bring this over your head,” she said. “So you may want to remove your spectacles.”

Evelyn removed the glasses, folding the temples and laying them on a round corner table.

“Arms up,” Mrs. Marchman ordered.

Evelyn shot her arms over her head as though she’d been commanded by a drill sergeant. With a rustle of fabric, cool silk taffeta slipped down her arms, over her head, and came to rest on her hips. Mrs. Marchman then held the bodice out. “Arms in,” she said, and Evelyn slid her arms into tight lace sleeves that came to a V over the backs of her hands. She drew back her shoulders as the clerk walked behind her to adjust the sweetheart neckline. Then, starting below her hips, she buttoned the dress with skilled fingers, ending at the top of the illusion neckline.

“Come this way.” She pushed both drapes aside, tying them with the tasseled rope. “Stand on the platform, if you will.”

Evelyn lifted the gown’s heavy skirt and, keeping her gaze on her toes peeking out, mounted the platform and dropped the skirt. Then—and only then—did she dare glance into the mirror.

A blur of white in the center of an array of color met her. “I can’t . . . I can’t see,” she said. She turned her face back toward her dressing room. “My glasses.”

Mrs. Marchman sighed. “Don’t move. I’ll get them.”

Evelyn pressed her lips together, regret overpowering her. They were putting such added pressure on the woman to help five young women try on a dress without even making a sale.

“Here you are,” Mrs. Marchman said upon her return.

Evelyn slid the glasses onto her face, looked up, and gasped. “It’s quite—something. Isn’t it?”

“One of the loveliest I’ve ever seen.” Mrs. Marchman stepped back. “And Carson’s is known for its wedding gowns, as I’m sure you know.”

“Is it?” Evelyn asked without taking her eyes from her own reflection. She looked . . .
almost
. . . like a real bride. Like this was
her
fitting. All her own, and Mrs. Marchman stood next to her to make certain all her bridal needs were met.

“Do I detect a Southern accent, Miss Alexander?”

The question jarred Evelyn from her own reverie. She looked down at the clerk. “Yes, ma’am. I’m from Portal. Georgia.”

Mrs. Marchman smiled. “What in the world brought you all the way up from Georgia, if I might ask?”

Evelyn smiled briefly, then returned her gaze to the mirror. “A need for change, I suppose.” She shrugged. “You know, after the war and all.”

“And have you found it? The change?” She reached for a small bouquet of artificial flowers placed on a nearby table that Evelyn hadn’t noticed before. “Here,” she said, not waiting for the answer to her question. “For the full effect.”

Evelyn took the cluster of pink-and-white flowers. “Betty didn’t have these.”

“Miss Estes didn’t
need
them.” She crossed her arms. “In fact, I’m not so sure Miss Estes is in need of a wedding gown.” Evelyn jerked her head toward the clerk, who laughed lightly. “I see women who are madly in love all the time, Miss Alexander. So, I can spot when one is
not
.”

The observation brought a wave of comfort to Evelyn, and she sighed.
Betty isn’t in love.
She had no worries, then, that Betty might want George back.

“You, on the other hand . . .”

“Me?” Evelyn felt herself blush. She looked again to the mirror, staring past the glasses and the nearly unadorned face. She could imagine that, with the right upsweep of her hair and the right amount of makeup, she’d make a proper bride walking down the aisle to meet George Volbrecht. She closed her eyes and pictured him. Handsomely dressed. Awestruck by the way she looked in this exquisite dress. Eyes twinkling as he watched her march the aisle toward him, her father beside her, dressed in his Sunday best.

A frown found her and her eyes shot open. Even in his nicest dark-blue suit, Daddy wouldn’t hold a candle to the guests who’d sit on George’s side of the church. And what about her mother? Would she wear some homespun dress or would she allow Evelyn to help her shop for something special in Chicago?

Chicago? Yes, Chicago. Certainly not Portal. But if the wedding was to be held in Chicago, would her mother even come? Or would she remain behind, pining away for the son who would never return from the war and the life she could never again have? Or for Hank, the man her mama would adamantly declare Evelyn
should
have married. Because if she
had
married Hank, her mother would say, there’d be no need to worry about tuxes and Sunday suits or trips to Chicago.

But Evelyn knew, if she married Hank, there would never have been such a lovely wedding gown. The most she could hope for was something her mother stitched on the old Singer . . .

“Would you like to show your friends now?” Mrs. Marchman asked, drawing her away from her imaginings.

“What? Oh. Yes,” Evelyn whispered.

Mrs. Marchman held out her hand to assist Evelyn in stepping to the floor. “My guess is,” she said, “you’ve met a certain someone here in Chicago.”

Evelyn released a pent-up sigh and smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And from the look on your face, I’d say he must be something very special.” She paused at the opening to the sales floor and raised her chin as though the statement were more question than fact.

“Yes,” Evelyn said again. “Oh, yes.”

And yet,
she pondered,
still so far out of my league.

Joan tried on the dress after all the others. Not that she minded. After all, it was Betty’s moxie that had brought them in. And dear Evelyn’s anxiety wouldn’t have allowed her to be much more than third in the lineup. Then Inga had tried on the dress, declaring to them all that she’d most assuredly meet Frank Martindale at the altar in nothing shy of a gown like this one. And soon.

Magda had stood quietly as she modeled, but Joan had little trouble reading her thoughts. In spite of her resolve to be a modern woman of the fifties, Magda’s heart remained trapped between her family’s traditions and a moody writer named Harlan Procter. Out of all of them, Magda seemed the most tormented by the gown, and, for that, Joan’s heart ached a little for the flatmate she hardly knew.

“This way.” Mrs. Marchman now guided Joan through a set of draperies, and she entered into a smaller version of the round room, this one without mirrors, for which she felt grateful. “Go ahead and undress. I’ll be right back.”

Before they’d left for the city that morning, Joan had put on her first real purchase since moving to the States—a black bouclé suit she thought looked quite Katharine Hepburn-ish—and a simple sheath top beneath it. She pulled off the jacket and draped it over a provided hanger, followed by the skirt and top, leaving
her to stand on the platform in her slip and a pair of nylons. She almost laughed at the silliness of the escapade; before she could, Mrs. Marchman swooped in with the dress sprawled over her arm as she’d done earlier.

“Arms up,” she instructed in such a way as to make Joan wonder how many times a day she repeated the two simple words.

Minutes later, with the gown adjusted to Joan’s frame, the clerk pushed back the panels of the drapes. “This way to the platform area.”

Joan followed, stepped onto the platform, completely nonplussed by the adventure. After all, this was simply a day of fun, was it not? And she tried on gowns of equal beauty at David & DuRand each and every week. She’d grown accustomed to seeing herself clothed in elegance, whether she felt chic or not.

But when her eyes found her mirrored reflection, her heartbeat rolled with an avalanche of emotions. How was it possible that one frock of white lace, silk, and illusion—simply by being worn—could change a girl into a woman? And how could one dress change a poor miss from Leigh, Lancashire, into a princess fit for tea with Her Royal Highness, Elizabeth II?

Furthermore, how could it change a girl with a mind for business into a woman with thoughts of marriage?

“Hmm,” Mrs. Marchman said, reaching for a bouquet of flowers and then returning them to the table. “No, I think not.”

“What?”

“The flowers, dear. Not the dress. You look quite lovely, actually. As though the dress were made for you.” She shook her head. “Amazing, don’t you think, that all five of you are the same size? I understand from one of the Miss Christensons that you are all roommates.”

Joan smiled briefly. “We are. Yes.”

“Miss Alexander is from Georgia, she tells me. And you are from . . .”