The Wedding Dress (25 page)

ingered t"3">Tim took the top off his box. “I never said we weren’t right for each other. I think we fit pretty good. I just—”

“Tim, we came here to find out who Joel Miller married. Let’s just do that.” Charlotte went back to the invoices. As if she could read the handwriting through her watering eyes.

In contemplative silence they worked through the boxes. Then the crackle of thin paper suddenly ceased from Tim’s box.

“Hello, pot-o-gold.” He held up an invoice to the hot, hazy light fitting through the small windows.

“You found it? Really?” Charlotte stooped to see over his shoulder. His cologne seeped through the oxford threads of his shirt as she rested her palm on the familiar muscled curve of his arm.

She let her hand fall away. Breaking up had ended her time with Tim, but not the longings of her heart.

“Here we go,” Tim said, looking up at her, his eyes full of comfort. Charlotte dug her fingers into her knees. If she wasn’t careful, she’d trip and fall in love. “Bride. Hillary Saltonstall. Groom. Joel Miller. They ordered a coconut cake with lots of icing. Look,
lots
is underlined three times.” Tim tapped the paper, his smile a white beam. “Pick up the morning of the wedding. September 8, 1968.” He stood, slinging his arm around her and kissing her forehead. “We found our bride.”

Then he realized what he’d done and released her with a sheepish, “Sorry,” and offered Charlotte the invoice.

“No . . . no worries.” She rubbed the fiery burn of his lips from her skin. But nothing could remove it from her heart. Stop. Focus. Think. The dress.
This is about the dress
. “Joel Miller, Hillary Saltonstall. Here’s a note at the bottom. ‘Rush order, groom leaving for Viet Nam.’”

That
moved her heart away from Tim. Joel Miller rushed to his wedding before going off to war.

“When did you say he died?” Tim asked.

“April ’69.”

“Six months later.” His eyes remained fixed on the invoice as if it could somehow show him the past. “Do you think they actually got married? You said the dress didn’t look worn.”

“Or altered.” Charlotte took the invoice from Tim. “It’s possible for a gown to fit from one bride to the next without alterations, but it’s highly improbable. Something has to be changed. The hem. The bodice. Something. Unless the dress wasn’t really made in 1912 and the auctioneer just made up a story to trick me into buying it.” She was shaking. While she was further down the trail of discovering the heritage of the dress, she felt miles away from the truth.

But in her hand she held a piece of a man’s life that history and time had forgotten. Except “Your Wife,” who’d posted on Joel’s wall. Except God. “Do you think Mrs. Pettis will let me have this? At least borrow it?”

Tim fit the lid on the box and returned it to the shelf. “Why not? It’s the reason we came.”

At the stairs, Charlotte picked up her jacket and draped it over her arm. “On the wall where I found Joel’s name, it said his body was never recovered.”

“Bet that would be hard on a new bride.” Tim walked over to her and brushed her hair off her shoulders, then quickly stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Ready?”

“Ready.” It was getting hotter and hotter in that old attic.

Chapter Fifteen

   
S
aturday just before noon, Charlotte pulled into Hillary Saltonstall’s Crestline driveway. It curved like a concrete river past the front of her terra-cotta brick home and cut through the plush, manicured lawn. Shading oaks and elms canopied the house and cooled away the noonday sun and the rising May heat.

Charlotte stepped out of her car, her low-heeled pumps tapping on the driveway. She removed her suit jacket, tossing it into the passenger seat.

The clear-blue-day breeze shifted the light and rearranged her emotions. On the drive over she’d mentally worked out a pragmatic interview with Hillary, planning how to forge into the woman’s past. Which enabled Charlotte to ignore the fact that she herself was driving into her own past—her old Crestline neighborhood.

To get to this place and time, she’d called every Saltonstall in the Birmingham phone book until she found Hillary’s elderly aunt, who graciously listened to Charlotte’s story and after a few questions, passed along Hillary’s phone number.

The fact that Hillary lived in Charlotte’s childhood neighborhood where she played with her friends and rode her bike, the fact that Hillary might have waved at Mama as their cars passed in the street didn’t register on Charlotte’s emotional scale. Until now.

She walked to the edge of the drive and stood at the apex where Baker Street met Monarch. Seven houses on the right sat a little white house with redbrick trim, a concrete porch, and a wood-slat swing.

Charlotte strained her senses to hear, to see, to smell the essence of that house. But all that came to her were a few faded snapshots.

The upstairs, the alcove room that once had been pink with yellow daisies growing up from brown “dirt” baseboards.

Mama, standing in the driveway, dressed in her tight jeans and midriff top, hollering for Charlotte to hurry home, supper was on.

Charlotte squinted into the waving noon light. Seven houses down, only the walls remembered Mama’s voice.

Glancing back at Hillary’s, the wind coiling her hair about her face, she wondered how long Hillary had lived here. Had young Charlotte ever encountered Mrs. Joel Miller, the grieving war widow?

Only Hillary was a Warner now. Not a Saltonstall. Nor a Miller.

Taking her phone from her bag, Charlotte dialed Dix. But the call went straight to voice mail. Dixie had a consultation with a new client this afternoon so she must be getting ready. Charlotte hung up without leaving a message, stared at her phone, then dialed Tim.

“Hey.” Hesitant. Expectant. Revving motorcycle engines in the background.

“Where are you?” Charlotte scooped her hair away from her face.

“At the track. Where are you?”

“Standing at the curb of Baker and Monarch.”

“So you called her?” Tim’s voice grew louder as the background engine rumble faded.

“She lives seven houses down from where I grew up. The house where I lived when Mama died.”

He whistled. “Did you know that going over?” The creamy tenor of his voice sank through Charlotte like sweet caramel.

“Didn’t really think of it until now. It’s weird being here, Tim. I haven’t been here since Mama died.”

A thick, muffled knock resonated from his end of the phone. “Hey, Charlotte, can you hold for a second?” She heard rustling, then, “I’m on the phone, man.”

The muted, distant conversation revealed Tim needed to get off and head to the track. His heat was coming up.

“Char, I’m sorry, but I need to go in a second. So—it’s weird?”

“In a way, like Mama should be here. In that little white house with the bricks. But she’s not. What’s worse is I can’t remember much of anything about living here.”

“She’s been gone a long time, Charlotte. You were a girl who lost her mother. Now you’re a woman, making your way in life and succeeding.”

“Bu3">Now yout a girl should never get over needing her mother.”

“Who said that? Charlotte, every day people get over their mothers and fathers, siblings, friends leaving and dying. Getting over things is part of life.”

“It’s different with death. I’ve lost my memories of her, Tim. I wonder if what I remember about her is just some picture or ideal I’ve made up. I’m trying to see something clearly from my past and I just can’t. There’s no sense of her.”

“Maybe that’s a blessing.” The heavy clap of the truck door closing warned Charlotte the call would end soon.

“But memories are all I have. For all practical purposes,
they
are my family.”

“You’ll make new memories. Have a new family . . . someday.” His words tumbled a bit. Friend Tim wrestling with fiancé Tim.

“Hey, you need to get going and so do I. Thanks for answering.”

“Yeah, Charlotte . . . any . . . anytime.”

“Have fun. Be safe, okay? Now that you’re my friend and not my fiancé, I don’t mind telling you I hate your passion for racing those bikes over dirt tracks. It’s so dangerous.”

He laughed and the tenor of it boosted her courage. “Now you tell me. So you were going to let fiancé Tim risk his neck but tell husband Tim, ‘No way, bubba’?”

“I hadn’t gotten that far. But, yeah, probably. Something like that.”

“You should’ve told me.” The humor in his voice sobered. “Those are things a girl should tell her guy.”

“When would I have done that? We met, we talked, we kissed, we were engaged.”

“Don’t look now, Charlotte, but I think you’re making my point about postponing our wedding.”

“I’m hanging up now. But, Tim, be careful.” The sun’s yellow hue paled as a gray cloud drifted by and marred the blue sky.

“Good luck with Hillary. Just be yourself. She’ll love you.”

Charlotte tapped End and tucked her phone into her purse. When she turned around, a tall, slender woman with salt-and-pepper hair was watching her from the edge of the lawn.

“Are you Charlotte?”

“Yes, and you’re Mrs. Warner?” Charlotte moved to shake her hand, surprised by the sheen of tears ieen

“Please, call me Hillary.” She wore jeans and a blouse and white canvas sneakers. Her short hair blew free in the wind and curled about her face. Kindness radiated from her brown eyes. “Can I ask what’s so interesting down the street?”

Memories
. “I lived in the white house down on the right—the one with the bricks—when I was a girl.” The sun’s golden rays fought back the drifting rain cloud.

“Did you, now?” Hillary stepped into the street, leaning to see around the trees and a passing car. “Greg and I moved in twenty years ago, and there were a lot of children running around these streets, riding bikes. They’re all gone now. In fact”—she pressed her fingertips against her lips—“there was a skinny dark-haired girl who used to ride a purple bike around the neighborhood. She peddled
zip-zoop
.” Hillary smacked and slid her palms. “I used to tell my husband if we had a girl—”

“I had a purple bike,” Charlotte said. “And long dark hair.”

“Down to your waist. Never could keep it in a ponytail.” Hillary peered at her.

“Never.”

“Well, now”—her gaze narrowed—“so that was you. How do—”

“Small world.” Charlotte’s pulse raced.

“I told Greg, if we ever have a baby, I’d want her to be a girl like that one. On the purple bike.”

Charlotte warmed at the idea. “I remember in the summer the smell of barbecue coming from your backyard. And at Christmas, your house had the prettiest decorations and the most lights.”

“My husband loved to cook out on the grill. I wasn’t much of a cook myself, so it was a win-win. But Christmas, that was all me.” Hillary motioned toward the house and started walking. “Your mother died, didn’t she?”

“When I was twelve. In a car accident.”

Hillary stopped in the shade of the front walk. “I’m sorry. What about your father?”

“Never knew him. Still don’t. I went to live with Mama’s friend Gert.”

“I had no idea.” Hillary hesitated, staring out over the lawn. “I had no . . . idea.” She peered at Charlotte for a long moment, then turned for the house. “I baked cinnamon muffins.”

The inside of the house matched the outside. Neat, inviting, homey. The carpet was new and thick, the furniture modern. The air was tinged with the scent ithize="3">

“Sit here,” she said, patting the top of a burgundy rocker. The matching one sat on the other side of the end table. Both faced the windows and the yard. A bird book and pair of binoculars sat on the table.

Charlotte tucked her purse beside her in the chair. She’d seen this room many times from the outside. So Hillary had watched her ride her bike. It was her last big gift from Mama. A year later Charlotte was an orphan living with Gert—who backed over Charlotte’s bike the week she moved in.

“Here we go.” Hillary set a white plate with steaming muffins on the table. “What’s your pleasure? Milk, coffee, tea, water, Coke. No diet. Drink the real stuff ’round here.”

“Milk, please.” Sounded good. Charlotte squeezed her arms against her sides, warmed by Hillary’s frank but tender demeanor.

Over glasses of milk and cinnamon muffins, the women chitchatted, getting to know each other. Hillary had been a nurse in the navy, then at St. Vincent’s.

Charlotte owned a bridal boutique.

Hillary had married Greg when she was in her forties. He was a retired naval officer who worked as a civilian contractor.

Charlotte was thirty and still single.

They both loved sunny, hot days. Dogs. And Michael Bublé.

“Are you successful?” Hillary leaned on the chair’s arm. “Your shop, I mean.”

“Five years and counting. I’m in the black most of the time. Tawny Boswell recently bought her wedding dress from us.”

“Tawny Boswell. Miss Alabama? Well, well.”

Charlotte smiled. Hillary didn’t seem the kind to know about beauty queens.

“I can tell by your face you’re surprised I know about Miss Alabama.” Hillary rocked back in her chair, bringing her coffee mug to her lips. “I was a Miss Teen Alabama finalist in 1962.”