The Wedding Shop (2 page)

H
ALEY

Summer 1996

Heart's Bend, Tennessee

T
he scent of rain laced the afternoon breeze as it shoved through summer-green trees, ramming ominous black clouds together like a craggy mountain ridge. Haley scanned the heavens as she dropped her bike on the edge of Gardenia Park, a swirled chocolate-vanilla cone in her hand.

“Gonna rain, Tammy. Hurry!” Haley glanced over her shoulder toward their “fort,” an abandoned building once known as The Wedding Shop.

The wind kicked up and a bass rumble thundered through the park. Haley shivered, curling her toes against her flip-flops.

“Tammy!”

“Hold your horses. He's making my dip cone.”

Haley liked Tammy, the prettiest girl in their class, from the moment she met her in first grade.

“Just get regular chocolate.” A thunderclap approved Haley's words, adding a lick of lightning for effect.

“But I like the dipped ones.”

“We're going to get wet.”

From the ice cream stand, Tammy shrugged, grinning, reaching for her cone as Carter Adams finally handed it through the window. Haley couldn't stand Carter. He was friends with her
oldest brother, Aaron, and every time he came over to the house he teased and picked on her until she screamed.

Then Mama would burst into the room. “Haley, for crying out loud, be quiet. What's with all the screaming?”

Did Aaron defend her? Or Carter confess he'd been teasing her? Noooo . . . That would be too much to ask. When she grew up, she was going to defend people. Help others. Stand up for the picked on.

A girl learned a lot about self-defense when she was the youngest of four brothers. She liked them all right, except when they were being
boys
.

“Where do you want to go?” Tammy sat down on a bench, motioning for Haley to join her, careful with her cone, catching the vanilla dripping through chocolate cracks with the tip of her tongue. “Your house? We can play Mario.”

“Naw, we did that already. Besides, one of my brothers is bound to be playing on it.” Haley glanced back at their fort, the old wedding shop. “What about your house?”

Haley preferred the neat, quiet calm of the Easons'. An only child, Tammy had the run of the place,
including
her own bathroom.

Her very own bathroom! Haley had to share with Seth, two years older, and Will, four years older. They had what Mama called a Jack and Jill bathroom. More like a Jack and Jack with no room for a Jill. One of these days Haley was going to defend others, yep, and have her own bathroom. And that's that.

“I think your brothers are nice.”

“Nice? Try living with them.” Haley wrinkled her nose. “They're loud and they smell. Bad too.”

More thunder rocked overhead, this time with a sprinkle of rain. From her bicycle basket, Tammy's beeper went off.

“That's Mama,” she said, working hard on her ice cream to keep it from dripping down the sides and soaking the napkin wrapped around the cone. She reached for her beeper. “It's a three.”

Ah, a three. Which meant “Be safe.” Usually Mrs. Eason sent a one, which meant “Get home.”

Darkness hovered over the large town-center park, over Heart's Bend's center square, as the wind blew sprinkles of rain. Lightning whipped through the black-and-blue sky.

Tammy shivered. “Better get someplace safe. Mama will ask me later.”

“Want to go to the fort?” Haley motioned over her shoulder toward the abandoned place.

As if on cue, the heavens burst open with buckets of rain. Tammy dropped her ice cream as she skedaddled for her bike, screaming, laughing as water poured from the clouds.

“Let's go!”

“Wait for me.” Haley gripped her cone as she hopped on her bike and pedaled down First Avenue for all her life. “Wooooooo!” She ducked against the spiking rain, the water cooling her hot, sticky skin.

Dashing across the avenue as the light turned red, she bounced up on the Blossom Street curb, dropped her bike in the shade of the old oak tree, and ran her hand under the dripping Spanish moss, racing Tammy for the back porch.

The clouds crashed together, declaring war, wielding their swords of light and showering Heart's Bend with their battle sweat as the girls tumbled onto the wide-board floor.

Haley jumped to her feet, hanging out of the door, her arm hooked around the weak screen doorframe. “Ha-ha-ha, you can't get us now!”

“Come on, let's go inside.” Tammy slipped through the shop's back door by jiggling the doorknob, weakening the lock.

Haley followed, pausing just inside, next to what Mama called a butler's pantry, shaking the rain from her stick-straight blonde hair. The shop's stillness settled on her, speaking something Haley couldn't understand but definitely felt. And like
every time before, Haley felt as though she'd walked into a place like home.

Daddy called it a sixth sense. Whatever that meant. But somehow Haley understood time and space and anything that might be beyond the world she could see. The notion excited her. And scared the living daylights out of her. Let's just be honest.

“Look, I can't get it off.” Laughing, Tammy flicked her hand in front of Haley's face, pieces of the cone's white paper napkin stuck to her sticky fingers.

Reaching up, Haley yanked the piece free, wadding it up in her pocket. She didn't want to trash the place—like everyone who'd tried to run a business here once it was no longer a wedding shop. A shame, a crying shame, how folks could disrespect a building and all it stood for.

Haley may be only ten, but she'd heard the stories of the shop's brides, of Miss Cora, and all the good she'd done. The place needed respect.

“Let's play bride.” Tammy ran up the wide, thick grand staircase. The carved and curved banister put Haley in mind of a great palace. That's what this shop was to Heart's Bend. A grand palace. For girls getting married. “You be the bride this time, Haley. Walk down the steps from up there—”

“The mezzanine.”

“Yeah, that place.” Tammy licked the chocolate from her fingers and wiped her hand on her shorts. “How do you know it's a mezzanine again?”

“I heard Mama say it when we watched some documentary.” Haley made a snoring sound. Mama was all about education, and just about everything in the Morgan family had to be “educational.” Even Christmas gifts. Praise be for Daddy who drew a line at Mama's educational obsession during the holidays.

See, Mama was a doctor and Daddy an engineer. They worked long hours and employed a maid-slash-cook, Hilda, and a nanny,
Tess. They were all right. Kind of cranky. Last time Haley asked either one of them to help her bake a cake, they tossed her out of the house.

“Go swim. Got that big ole pool out back and you kids all hang around inside. Crying shame, I tell you, a crying shame. In my day we'd have . . .”

Hilda's “her day” stories shot Haley and her brothers out of the house faster than a greased pig.

Anyway, that was routine around the Morgan house. Daddy and Mama were home for dinner every night, though, because Mama believed in families eating together. But they had to discuss something intelligent. Mama always reiterated, “There's nothing
more
important than education.”

Yeah? Except goal setting. That was Mama's other bugaboo. Everyone had to set goals come New Year's Eve. She made the family sit and write down what they wanted to accomplish. Even Daddy. So there was no way of ever getting out of it.

For the past three years, Haley wrote, “Get a puppy.” So far, she never got one. What was the point of a goal if her parents never helped her achieve it?

“Are you going to be the bride or not?” Tammy said. “I was the bride last time. It's my turn to be the shopkeeper.”

Haley jogged up the stairs. She preferred shopkeeper to bride. “Okay, but who am I going to marry?”

“Who do you want to marry?”

“No one. I told you, boys smell.”

Tammy made a face. “Pretend they don't. Now who?” She twisted the knob on the closet door under the dormer eaves. They liked to pretend the wedding dresses were inside.

But the door was locked. Like always.

Haley could only think of one boy at school who didn't annoy the heck out of her. She peered over at her friend through the light falling through the mezzanine windows. “Cole Danner?”

“Cole?” Tammy sighed, making a face and planting her hand on her hip. “He's mine.”

“I don't really want him. Geez. This is just pretend. He's the cutest boy in class and, as far as I can tell, stinks the least.”

“Okay, I guess it's all right since it's just pretend. But when we grow up, I got dibs.”

“On Cole? You can have him. I'm not getting married until I'm old, like thirty, maybe even forty.”

Tammy laughed. “But you have to be my maid of honor, promise?”

“Promise.” Of course she'd do anything for her bestie Tammy.

Overhead, the thunder rumbled. But the old wedding shop walls remained steady.

Haley's Grandma Morgan and her friend Mrs. Peabody bought their wedding dresses here. Mama was in medical school in Boston when she met Daddy, who was at MIT. They got married in a courthouse or she'd have bought her dress from Miss Cora too.

At least Haley liked to think so. Even at ten, she had a strong sense of tradition.

Daddy and Mama moved back to Heart's Bend when Haley was two, wanting to be near family, wanting out of the cold. And Mama started her own sports medicine clinic. She was pretty famous as far as Haley could tell. Athletes from all over came to see her.

“You need a veil.” Tammy claimed a discarded piece of newspaper, smoothed it out on the floor, and folded it over Haley's head.

Haley laughed, ducking away, the black-and-white veil slipping from her head. “If I come home with lice, Mama will have a cow.” She inched toward the third-floor stairs. “Let's explore up here. Maybe we can find something to use.”

But the third floor was cluttered, full of boxes and old computer equipment. Paint peeled from the walls, the floor was covered with rotting carpet, and the bathroom was torn apart.

Tammy shivered. “This creeps me out. Let's go back to the mezzanine.”

But Haley spied something peeking out from the edge of the carpet. She stooped, pinching the edge of a black-and-white photograph.

Tammy squatted next to her. “Hey, that's Miss Cora. I saw her picture in the paper.”

“I know. I remember.” Haley looked up at the dank quarters. “Do you think she lived here?”

“I hope not. It's gross.”

Haley stared at the haunting reflection in the woman's eyes, like she longed for something. A strange twist knotted up Haley's middle. Taut prickles ran down her arms. Her sixth sense again. Running into something she could feel but not see.

“Look, clothespins. And a piece of tulle. This can be your veil.” Standing next to a bookshelf, Tammy held up her treasures.

“Let's just pretend I have a dress and a veil.” Haley stared at the face in the picture. Miss Cora was not very pretty, but kind looking with old-fashioned hair, like in Granny's pictures, a curiosity in her expression. And sadness. She was definitely sad.

But she'd heard only happy things about Miss Cora. Did she like running a wedding shop? Did she have lots of brothers like Haley? That can make a girl sad. Or was she an only child, like Tammy?

“Hal, come on before Mama beeps me home.”

Thunder let loose a boom of agreement. Haley tucked the picture in her shorts pocket and hustled down the stairs.

“I changed my mind. You be the bride. I'll be the shop owner, Miss Cora.”

“Miss Cora?”

“Why not? It's pretend, right? Besides, if Cole's the groom, it's best you be the bride. You'll marry him before I ever will.”

Back on the mezzanine, Haley hurriedly moved into pretend
mode jogging down the stairs to the foyer. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Eason. Your daughter is putting on her veil right now.” She mimed opening the shop's front door because the real one was dead bolted. “Please, have a seat.”

Overhead, Tammy shuffled across the mezzanine, then hummed the wedding song as she descended the staircase, one slow step at a time. Haley breathed out, blowing her bangs from her forehead, the stale, hot air of the shop making her sweat, causing dust to stick to her skin.

“Isn't she beautiful, Mrs. Eason?” Haley jumped an imaginary line and pressed her hands to her cheeks to play the role of Tammy's mother. “Oh my stars, I'm going to cry. I'm going to cry.” She fanned her face with her fingers. “Darling, you are beautiful, so beautiful.”

Tammy modeled her newspaper veil, held out the skirt of her imaginary gown, and cooed how she couldn't “wait to marry Cole Danner.”