The Wedding Dress (33 page)

Hundreds of congregants, and she had to bump into Tim Rose. Usually one or two of the other Roses as well. She’d made every effort—short of being late for church—to miss them.

Yet, that’s exactly what she did. Missed them.

Today, the Sunday after her supposed wedding day, Charlotte hurried toward the sanctuary, bleary-eyed, bone weary from wedding month, but grateful to be on her feet and moving.

She’d dressed seven brides yesterday, June 23rd, burying any threat of her soul remembering it was supposed to be
her
wedding day.

The ten a.m. sun burned high and hot from a wispy blue sky. Summer was sitting down hard on its first Sunday, stirring up the crickets’ mournful serenade about the humidity.

Charlotte skipped up the portico steps when a familiar voice caused her to pause. “Where to for breakfast?” She looked back to see David passing by on the sidewalk, leaving the first service, with Jack and younger brothers Chase and Rudy. The rest of the Roses, Katherine with their two children and Mr. and Mrs. Rose, huddled in the middle of the parking lot.

Charlotte leaned against the guardrail. What did she want for breakfast?
That
. To stand in the middle of a family huddle. Or to walk up to the family, stick her head in the middle, and ask, “What’s the plan?” No invitation required. No rejection expected.

Tim crossed the parking lot in a light, limping jog, his shirttail flapping over his jeans, his hair breezing past his jaw and shining in the sun.

A Rose by any other name . . .

He stopped just shy of the huddle and turned toward the church, squinting toward her. Her middle fluttered with the swirl of summer leaves.

“Hey.” He stepped over to her. “How are you?”

“Tired . . . tired but good. You?” She smiled because he carried this aura of
it’s all oka
y about him. He was both confident and vulnerable. A combo she wasn’t sure her heart could endure. “You look healthier than the last time I saw you.”

“I feel better than the last time you saw me.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps, hands at his waist. “So, yesterday was—”

“Busy-busy. Dix and I had seven weddings. Didn’t get home until midnight. I fell asleep in my clothes.”
Don’t give him a chance to say it
. That today she hatn>“Buwould’ve been his wife.

“You look good.” His intonation made her feel warm and admired.

“I don’t have big bags under my eyes?”

“Not at all. Charlotte, I’m sorry about the hospital.”

“What about the hospital? You mean Kim?”

“The kiss. And yeah, Kim.”

The kiss? He was sorry about the sweet, tender, passionate kiss? The one that sashayed across her mind without permission whenever her day found a moment of silence?

“Listen, I’d better get inside. I can hear the music.” Charlotte backed up the steps toward the sanctuary.

“You want to come to breakfast with us?” He motioned over his shoulder at the clan.

More than anything
. “No, no, I can’t. Better go hang out with Jesus and His friends for a bit.”

“You sure?” He squinted at her, his brow in a deep furrow. “We can wait until your service is out.”

“Really? No, I couldn’t ask you to do that, Tim. That hungry huddle over there will turn into an angry mob if you ask them to wait.”

He stepped forward. “Then I’ll wait.” He waited, breathing deep, his woodsy scent collecting in the air pocket between them.

“It’s okay. I’m going to worship, then go home and crash.”

“All right then. Guess I can’t keep a girl from her Lord.” He watched her for a long moment, then, “Oh, hey, how’s it going with the dress? What happened with Hillary?”

“Pretty amazing.” Charlotte smiled. The ends of her hair waved on the breeze at him. “She did marry Joel in the dress. When he was killed she sealed up the trunk. She also had a picture of her parents with the people they bought the house from and that led us to Mary Grace Talbot, who wore the dress in 1939.”

“Wow.
Amazing
is an accurate word.”

“Hillary helps at the shop all the time now. Just shows up—”

“Tim, you coming?” David called from the huddle. “Hey, Charlotte.”

She raised her hand to wave. “Hey, David.”

“Yeah, in a minute,” Tim hollered over his shoulder.

“Listen, you go with your family. I’ll see you, Tim.”

“Can I call you?”

“No, Tim, please.” Charlotte stared toward the western slope of the church grounds, hand on the sanctuary door.

“Charlotte, just so you know, friend Tim misses you.”

“Yeah, but at the moment friend Tim and fiancé Tim still look an awful lot alike to me.”

Chapter Twenty-One

 
Tim

 
O
ne last time, Tim reviewed his plans for today’s restoration pitch. The Rose Firm got the nod last minute and he wanted to bring his A-game.

Tim paused on a picture of a chain gang, black men in leg irons, conscripted by the convict-leasing program. He liked to add sculptures of remembrance to his restoration projects. Who worked and lived here before? How did they dress? What did they look like? How can we learn from history? Not repeat the mistakes?

He’d worked with his favorite bronze artist for a memorial plan to go with the restoration of a Saltonstall mine office. His memorial sculpture would commemorate the end of the convict-leasing program in 1928.

Rehearsing his conclusion, “Freedom, at all stages and by all means, must be celebrated,” Tim surfed through his research material for the picture of the women who worked to end the program. He would hold it up and suggest an etching or bronze plaque with their image to be posted by the sculpture.

As he returned the picture to the stack, he reached for his water bottle, took a swig, and stared at the woman in the center. Emily Ludlow.

She stood out to him for some reason. Like he knew her. He certainly welcomed her passion and fire for justice.

The black-and-white image was tattered around the edges. It had been borrowed from Cleo Favorite and the Ludlow estate by his assistant, Javier. He’d promised to return it as soon as he made the presentation.

“Booyah to you, Mrs. L., for fighting injustice. When it wasn’t popular.” He swigged his water again and leaned in for a closer look. He’d been a kid when she died but all through elementary school, his teachers taught civic lessons based on Mrs. Emily Ludlow and her husband, Daniel.

Something about her expression, her celebratory smile, her eyes. Tim snatchsizy"reseed it closer and leaned toward the light.

Expressive eyes. Bow lips. Tall and commanding. Looked as if she could lasso the moon and ride it over the horizon. She looked familiar.

Tim glanced at the time. One o’clock. He needed to get his head out of this swirl, grab some lunch, and make sure the slides were good to go for his four o’clock meeting with the downtown restoration commission.

“Tim.” Javier stuck his head through the door. “Someone to see you. Monte Fillmore?” He shrugged, making a face. “He said you’d know what it was about.”

“He’s here? Yeah, send him in.” Tim crossed the room and greeted Monte with a firm handshake. “Please, have a seat.” He offered one of the chairs around a small conference table. “Can I get you a cup of coffee? Bottled water?”

“Thank you, no, I’m fine. Don’t reckon you expected to see me.” Monte stood at the fifth-floor window and peered out over the city, a shoe box tucked under his arm. “Nice setup you got here. Good view.” His strong tone reminded Tim of leaders and mentors he’d encountered in his life journey. “Used to have an office off 22nd North myself. Owned my own insurance agency for forty years.”

“I remember your radio jingle. The tune kind of stuck in a guy’s head.”

The man laughed, a spark igniting his crinkled eyes. “Yeah, well, that was my silent partner’s idea.”

“Silent partner?”

He sat up with a huff. “My wife. She wrote that little ditty you heard. Listen, after you called, it got me to thinking.” He shoved the Nine West shoe box over to Tim. “When we broke down Mom’s house, we found this in the back of her bedroom closet. It’s nothing much, just trinkets from Phoebe Malone’s office. Guess Mom was saving it for Charlotte and I meant to take it to her, but in the busyness of her funeral, dealing with her will and accounts, keeping my own family and business afloat, I never got around to it. The contents didn’t seem all that important. Mostly newspaper clippings and a few photos. I left the box on the kitchen counter for months until my wife went to bake Christmas cookies and moved it. Then we kept shoving it further and further out of sight. I thought I’d run into Charlotte one day and remember, but never did. Then you called.”

Tim lifted the lid from the box. Yellow, crackling newspaper clippings floated free. He took them out one by one, scanning the headlines.

Ludlow Foundation Offers Its First Entrepreneur Grant

Emily Ludlow Celebrates Ninety

Professor Colby Ludlow Honored at UAB Banquet

Emily Ludlow, Dead at Ninety-One

Ludlow Estate to Establish Foundation for Business and Education

“Interesting mix. Wonder why Phoebe collected Ludlow articles? Was she related?”

“Not sure, but my wife’s family came from the Canton line, Emily’s family before she became a Ludlow. She doesn’t know of any family with the Malone name. So we don’t think Phoebe and Charlotte are part of the Ludlow-Canton tree.”

Tim stacked the clippings, shoved aside pens and pencils, and found a picture of Phoebe and Charlotte. A chill ran through his chest.

Beautiful Phoebe with her long, thick, winged hair. Beautiful Charlotte, with a gapped-tooth smile, expressive eyes, and bow lips.

He looked up. The chill in his middle warming. Expanding. Tim flipped over the picture.
Our First Day in Birmingham
.

“Phoebe was rather eclectic. An artist. An engineer. Smart as a whip. I used to debate her politics once in a while, but it gave Mom high blood pressure, so we stopped. No flies on the woman, though.”

“They don’t dare land on her daughter either.”

“Sorry I don’t have more to give you. A name or a reason. Mom once said to me Charlotte’s father was a nonfactor.”

“Easy to say if you’re not Charlotte.” Tim studied the picture. Beneath their faces were a thousand conversations he longed to hear.

There was one more picture at the bottom of the box. A photo of a college-age Phoebe with a group of . . . friends? Fellow students?

Tim read the back.
Silver Lake Summer Project ’81. FSU. Professor Ludlow’s Geniuses
.

“Ludlow? Did you see this photo, Monte?”

Tim studied the image with Monte peering over his shoulder. In the center of the group was a handsome man with a cocky stance. The four-by-six picture made details hard to detect, but the man looked to be in his forties, corduroy blazer, long layered hair.

“When was this taken?” Monte said. “I see Phoebe, but I’m not familiar with the Ludlow in the picture.”

“It was taken in ’81.” Tim sprang from his chair and grabbed the research folder.

“What’d you see, Tim?” Monte angled the picture toward the light of the window.

“I see a spitting image. Tell me what you see.” Tim lined up the group picture of Emily with the group picture of the professor. “The professor here.” He tapped the man’s face. “And Emily Ludlow here.”

“Well, I’ll be. There’s a bit of a family resemblance as well as the same name. You think Colby Ludlow was related to Emily?”

“Yep. And I think Phoebe Malone might have been in love with him. Just a wild guess.” Tim collected his notes and research and closed his laptop, jamming it into the case, his blood racing. The familiar look of Emily’s eyes in the picture. He’d seen that expression a hundred times. On Charlotte.

If he hurried, he could run up the mountain, check out the Ludlow estate for more clues, and be back in time for his meeting. “Monte, thank you. But I need to go. I appreciate you coming down.” He grabbed his phone. His keys.

“Call if you find out anything,” Monte said, following Tim out the door.

“I will. I will. You’ve been a big help.” Tim knocked on David’s door as he passed his office. “David, I’ll see you at the meeting. Call my cell if you need me.”

“Tim, where are you going? Did you go over the slides?”

“Yeah, no, but I will. See you at the meeting.” Tim punched the elevator button, cutting a side glance to Monte, who was holding down a big grin. “So, what’s so funny?”

“You,” he said. “And pretty much all young men in love.”

“Love? I’m just trying to help a friend.” Tim stepped onto the elevator with Monte.

“Help a friend?” Monte punched the first-floor button. “That’s what you kids are calling it these days? In my day, it was called love. Heart-thwapping love.”

Emily
Mother set a beautiful Christmas table, with ivory china and hand-cut crystal and her own mother’s silverware, buffed and polished to mirrored perfection.

The creamy linen threads of the tablecloth hosted the lamplight and the glow of the candles. On the crimson table runner, she’d placed crisp, fragrant fir boughs.