New Uses For Old Boyfriends (26 page)

Six weeks later

S
ummer Benson lifted up the layers of black and lavender tulle and let them fall back over her knees. “
Rowr.
I feel like I should be dancing the cancan in old-timey Paris.”

“Isn't that the goal of every bride on her big day?” Lila fluffed the sides of the skirt and sat down on the bed of the Jansens' guest room.

Summer and Dutch had set the date for a Saturday evening in late June. Well, to be precise,
Ingrid
set the date for a Saturday evening in June. Ingrid also chose the bouquets, the menu, and the invitations. Summer's only stipulation was that she would wear the black and lavender Bob Mackie gown—and Dutch would wear a lavender rose boutonniere.

Lila smiled at Ingrid, who was loitering in the doorway with a Virginia Woolf novel in one hand and
Bridal Guide
magazine in the other. “Please tell me you didn't skimp on the photographer, because you need this preserved for all eternity.”

Summer swept back her platinum hair, experimenting with
different styles. “Don't worry; your mom hooked us up with some fancy-pants fashion photographer who worked for
Vogue
back in the day, and he really seems to know what he's doing. And when I asked him how much it would cost, he just laughed and said he still owed your mother for sweet-talking the police out of pressing charges for some foolery that went down at CBGB back in the eighties.”

Lila smiled like the proud daughter she was. “Some people read celebrity tabloids for juicy drama; other people watch reality TV. I have my mother.”

“Do you miss her?” Summer asked.

“Every day. But she's much happier since she left for Europe, and she's got two vintage clothes dealers fighting over who will get to hire her.”

“So basically, she's putting all of us twenty- and thirty-somethings to shame.” Summer dropped her hands, bored of preening in the mirror. “Ingrid, do you want to pick out my hairstyle, too?”

“I'm on it.” Ingrid scribbled a few notes onto the back cover of
Bridal Guide
. “I'll ask Shannon next time I see her. She gave Mia a brow-shaping lesson, and they're meeting for pageant boot camp every single day, and guess what they're prepping for the talent portion?” Too impatient to field any guesses, Ingrid kept right on talking. “Mia's going to play the banjo and sing a song about the periodic table by some guy from the sixties called Tom Lehrer.”

“Never heard of him,” Lila said.

“Me, neither, but the song's hilarious and Shannon says it's really offbeat and retro and the judges will love it.”

“When's the big day?” Summer asked.

“Next Saturday.” Ingrid dropped the magazine and held up crossed fingers. “As soon as we're done with the wedding, I have to switch into pageant mode.”

“You need a hobby,” Summer said.

“I have one,” Ingrid shot back. “It's called running other
people's lives. Which reminds me: I heard a rumor that Jake Sorensen's back in town. I heard he was spotted by the boardwalk yesterday.”

“All those women at the Whinery aren't going to rebound by themselves, you know.” Summer glanced at her phone as her text alert beeped. “And of course he's coming to the wedding. I mean, it
is
the social event of the season.”

“Ugh. That reminds me: Why'd you invite Mimi Sinclair?” Ingrid demanded.

Lila gaped at Summer. “You invited Mimi Sinclair? Why?”

Summer didn't even look up from her phone. “Because an invite to the social event of the season comes at a price, and the price for Mimi Sinclair is forgetting that her old handbags ever existed.”

And suddenly, it all made sense. “Is that why she stopped calling me eight times a day like a bloodthirsty bill collector?” Lila asked. “Summer, you didn't have to do that.”

“Yeah, now we'll all have to suffer at the wedding.” Ingrid sulked.

“I figured that whatever money you have left could be better spent on, well, anything,” Summer said to Lila. Then she addressed Ingrid. “And this wedding was your idea, so try to focus on the positive.”

“Fine. If Jake Sorensen's coming, I'm going to make a few changes to the seating chart for the reception.” Ingrid looked giddy at the prospect. “Forget the head table; I'm sitting next to him.”

Summer put down her phone. “No.”

“What?!”

“I'm sorry—I misspoke. What I meant to say is,
hell no
.”

“So you're allowed to hang out with him, but I'm not?” Ingrid cried.

“Correct.”

“That's such a double standard.”

“My wedding, my rules. Deal with it.”

“Oh my God, you're doing it.” Ingrid gasped. “You're turning into a double-standard-having, curfew-setting, patriarchy-supporting evil stepmother.”

Summer nodded. “And
you
planned the whole wedding and picked out the centerpieces. Oh, the irony.”

“Don't worry,” Lila told Ingrid. “We'll find you a cute high school senior at the reception you can flirt with.”

“Don't patronize me.” Ingrid set her jaw, glared at both women, then flounced out of the room in a huff.

Lila managed to hold in her laughter until Ingrid was out of earshot. “You guys are going to be quite the blended family.”

“It'll be fine. I wouldn't even know what to do with a normal family and a white picket fence. Convention is for suckers.” Summer batted her eyes at her own reflection. “Damn, I make this dress look good.”

Lila had to agree. The gown fit Summer as if custom-made for her, and Lila couldn't be positive, but she thought Summer might have teared up a bit when she first tried it on last month. “It's just allergies,” she had insisted. “I'm allergic to tulle.”

But today, Summer was all smiles and moxie. “
Where
did you get this?”

Lila threw up her hands. “I already told you, I can't tell you.”

“And
how
did it manage to not burn to the ground when everything else in the boutique did?”

“If you continue with this line of questioning, I'm going to call Ingrid back in here and tell her to start looking for a string quartet.”

Summer side-eyed her. “You're bluffing. The wedding is less than thirty-six hours away.”

“You don't think Ingrid Jansen can rustle up a string quartet
in less than thirty-six hours? You'll look so beautiful walking down the aisle to Pachelbel's Canon in D.”

A look of real panic crossed Summer's face. “No further questions, Your Honor.” She waited patiently for Lila to unfasten the series of zippers and hook-and-eye closures at the back of the gown, but as the two of them worked together to lift the garment over her head, a small strand of black beads fell to the rug.

“No worries.” Lila picked up the beads, made a note of where they belonged on the skirt, and tucked them into her pocket. “I'll have the tailor sew this back on tonight.”

“Thank you.” Summer succumbed to her “tulle allergy” again. “Thank you for finding this dress for me. I know you've been swamped with selling the house and starting the new business, and for you to make time to get a bunch of beads sewn back on . . .”

“It's no problem,” Lila assured her, offering up the tissue box again as Summer changed back into her simple black sundress. “I'm just happy this dress has found an owner who really appreciates it.”

Lila carried the dress down the stairs and draped it across the backseat of her new car. She'd used part of the insurance money from the FUV to buy a gently used sedan, which offered ample storage space, a mere half dozen cup holders, and braking speeds and turn radii that didn't require a working knowledge of upper-level physics. She'd put the rest of the insurance settlement into her new business.

The rows of red, pink, and white rosebushes in the Jansens' backyard were in full bloom. Around the curve of the bay, Lila could see a hulking moving truck in the driveway of what had once been her home. The house had sold within forty-eight hours of listing, and now it would set the scene for another couple trying to build their dreams and start a family in the idyllic little town by the bay: Ben and Allison. Allison had apparently been sincere in her admiration of Daphne's decor, and they had made a generous bid to purchase most of the downstairs furniture as part of the deal.

Daphne had been thrilled to turn over her home to someone who would love it as much as she had. Lila was thrilled, too—slightly icked out, but mostly thrilled.

“I'm serious, Alders.” Summer followed her out to the car. Tear-spiked lashes belied the steely look in her blue eyes. “The last five minutes never happened.”

Lila waved good-bye as she opened the driver's side door. “Never happened.”

She backed the car out of the Jansens' driveway without incident, then dialed her cell phone and let the car's hands-free speaker system take over.

Malcolm answered with the two words that had become his standard greeting to Lila: “Status report?”

“Alive and well,” she said. “But I've got a time-sensitive sewing situation on my hands.”

“I thought you said you wouldn't be needing my services anymore.”

“This is the last time. Promise.”

“You say that every time.”

“Yeah, but this time I mean it!”

“Uh-huh.” His tone roughened. “Are you going to be wearing those black boots and the hot leather jacket?”

“Soon,” she promised. “Right now I have business to attend to. Meet me at the Naked Finger in half an hour.”

*   *   *

The Naked Finger was tucked away in the lower level of the Black Dog Bay Historical Society building, a tiny storefront that required passersby to take a flight of steps down from the sidewalk. The building's owner, Miss Hattie Huntington, had offered the use of the space for the summer after taking great pains to clarify that this gesture was made to ensure Lila's continued silence about the
Bob Mackie gown and
not
out of any misguided sense of community or goodwill.

Thanks to extensive cleaning, minor renovations, and the addition of a few glass display cases, what had once been a basement storage space now served as a cozy resale jewelry boutique done up in soothing tones of blue and cream. Lila had commissioned the same artist who'd painted the Whinery's whimsical logo to create a hanging wooden sign that could be easily spotted from the street. The shop wasn't big or fancy, but it was hers, and she was going to make it work.

She worried, of course, that she should be trying to generate more publicity, more press, more word of mouth to bring in customers, but she had also come to accept that some things couldn't be bought. Some things were just meant to be.

And despite the fact that the store wouldn't officially open for business until July 1, the people who needed her were already finding her. The owner of the Better Off Bed-and-Breakfast had called just this morning to arrange a consultation.

She heard rapping on the shop's glass front door. Her two o'clock appointment had arrived: a bedraggled-looking woman waiting with slumped shoulders and reddened eyes.

“Are you Lila?” the woman asked when Lila unlocked the door.

“I am.” She ushered the woman in and handed over the box of Kleenex she'd stationed next to the cash register.

The woman grabbed a fistful of tissues and swiped at her face. “You buy used engagement rings, right?”

“Well, I will, but the store doesn't technically open for business until—”

“Because I need to sell this.” The woman slapped a diamond solitaire down so hard, she chipped the glass counter. “It's either sell it or throw it in the ocean, and right now, I'd rather throw it in
the ocean, but the innkeeper said I should at least try to get some cash for it.”

Lila looked down at the ring, bright and sparkly even in the shadows, and weighed her words. “How long ago was your breakup?”

The woman blew her nose. “Wednesday night.”

Lila nodded, tucked the ring into a small padded envelope, and handed a pen to the woman. “Write your name and phone number on this.”

“Why?”

“Because you're in no position to negotiate right now.” She smiled sympathetically. “I have a mandatory cooling-off period for breakups less than a week old. When you're a little more rested and a little less devastated, we'll make a deal, but for now, I'll stash this in the safe and give you a receipt so you can claim it when you're ready.” Lila grabbed a pen and started the documentation process. “Tell Marla I said hi, and if she offers you cookies, take them. Her oatmeal chocolate chip recipe is to die for.”

The woman pushed the envelope across the counter to Lila. “I just want to be rid of this damn thing. Seriously, make me an offer.”

“In a few days.” Lila handed her a business card.