The Dress Shop of Dreams (29 page)

Henry reaches out and touches Cora’s arm. She leans in toward him.

“No hope needed,” Henry says. “I’m sure of it.”

“Really?”

Henry nods. “Really.”

Cora looks up to meet his gaze. “You know, you are, hands down, one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met.”

When Henry laughs, his eyes suddenly wet, and Cora doesn’t glance away, she realizes that what he said about courage and fear was absolutely true.

They are together, that much is clear to Walt. Why else would they be whispering to each other after midnight? Walt might have hoped it was a first date, but the words and the familiarity between them suggest otherwise. Could this man be proposing? Asking Cora to be his wife? Walt shudders at the thought. But when the man dips his head forward to rest it against Cora’s shoulder, and when she pulls him into a hug, the shadows of Walt’s fears solidify and his heart sinks. Unable to bear the sight of their kiss, Walt turns his key in the lock and pushes open the door. He almost made a horrible mistake, letting go of Milly just to tell Cora he loves her. He’d have broken Milly’s heart and his, too. So, as he steps into his beloved bookshop, Walt vows once
and for all to finally let Cora go and be with a woman who actually loves him back.

It is nearly dawn by the time Henry reaches Oxford. He wants to be back near Francesca in case he can help her, in case she needs his support. He’s still in shock. Now he understands so much more about the last five years, why she hid from him, why they’d been to so many parties, why she hadn’t fought for full custody. He’s been replaying their last conversation over and over again since he last saw his ex-wife, but is still slightly unable to believe it’s true.

“How long?” he’d asked her. “How long have you been an—?”

“Before I met you. A long time before.”

“Is that why you’re going back to Tuscany?”

Francesca nodded.

“Why?”

“I thought it would be easier out there, to be sober. I’ve tried so many times here and I’ve always failed. But there, with my family, without work.”

“Is that why they gave you a sabbatical?”

Francesca sighed. “They gave me a sabbatical because one of my students reported me.”

“What? Why?”

“I was drunk during a tutorial.”

She waited after that, as if inviting Henry to chastise her, but he’d said nothing.

“Of course they wanted to fire me,” she went on. “And God knows I deserve it, a million times over. But they can’t. So instead they told me to take a year off and come back when I’m sober, God willing.”

For a long time she didn’t look at him and when she did she
saw the look of shock and sorrow on his face. He hadn’t been able to hide it. A thousand memories had come flooding back to him: Francesca drunk at all those parties and Henry telling himself it must be an Italian thing, his wife drinking a carafe of red wine at dinner followed by a few nightcaps, the time he found two bottles of grappa behind a bookcase in her study, all those clues he’d never allowed himself to piece together for fear of the consequences. And he was a detective, for goodness’ sake. It was shameful.

“I knew it,” Francesca said. “I knew you couldn’t keep loving me no matter what. That’s why I sent you away. You always idealized me so much, you thought I was so perfect. You didn’t know I drank while I was looking after Mattie, that I dropped him off the bed once when I’d had two bottles of wine. You thought I was always so effervescent and sparkling but that was only after three cocktails and then last night I—”

“Stop.” Henry put a finger to her lips. “I’m not sad because of you, I’m sad because of me.”

“I don’t—”

“I should have seen it, I should have known,” Henry said. “No wonder you felt unloved, you were suffering so much and your own husband didn’t notice.”

Francesca stifled a sob.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think,” she said, “I think you may just be the kindest man in the world.”

It’s six o’clock in the morning when she calls him. Henry isn’t asleep and he picks up the phone before it even has a chance to ring twice. He’s outside her house and standing on her doorstep twenty minutes later. She hasn’t said outright that she’s not
going to Italy anymore, but he knows she won’t, she doesn’t need to now. She’s confessed the dreadful thing to him and now he can help her. Whatever it takes, he will do it, they will do it together.

“Thanks for coming,” Francesca says as she opens the door. “I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to be alone. I’ve got my first meeting this morning. And—”

Henry nods. “I’ll make breakfast,” he says, stepping inside. “What do you fancy?”

“Coffee.” Francesca smiles. “And your company.”

Upstairs Mateo wakes and calls for his mama. His calls drift down the staircase and into the hallway as they walk toward the kitchen. Francesca turns but Henry reaches for her arm.

“I’ll get him,” he says. “We’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

Francesca gives him a weak smile. “Thank you.”

As he hurries up the flight of stairs, Henry allows himself—if only for a moment—to pretend that he still lives in this house with the two people he loves most in the world. And he hopes, with each step, that he’s closer to that wish coming true.

“You made the right choice,” Etta says.

“I knew you’d say that,” Cora says, “saint that you are. Personally I’d prefer to see him dying of malaria or cholera or something similarly torturous. But I suppose I’ll get over it.”

At the word
saint
, Etta sits up. She still has to break the news of Sebastian and, in the echo of all that Cora has just told her, Etta isn’t sure that her granddaughter will be able to take any more shocking news for at least another few years.

“He did save your life.”

“There wouldn’t have been a fire if he hadn’t been there stealing my parents’ research.”

“But he’s going to give up the Nobel Prize?” Etta asks. “And he’s going to name Maggie and Robert as—”

Cora nods. “He gave me his word, he would. So, instead of prison, I suppose I’ll have to settle for public humiliation instead.”

Etta smiles.

“I’ve got something else to tell you,” Cora says, finally ready to forget all the pain of the last twenty-four hours, at least for a while. Now she wants to wipe out death with love.

“Oh?” Etta asks, desperately hoping it’s good news.

They are sitting in Etta’s sewing room, a half-finished dress of moss green satin on the table between them. Cora absently runs her finger over a hem of 179 stitches, then bends down to pick up the bag at her feet and pull out Walt’s notebook. She hands it to Etta.

“What is it?” Etta asks, staring at the symbols adorning the pages. “I don’t understand.”

“I found it in your dressing room a few days ago. It belongs to Walt, see.” Cora points out his name on the cover. “It’s in code. I deciphered it.”

Etta closes the notebook. “Sweetheart, you shouldn’t have done that. It’s a private diary, not a mathematical puzzle.”

“I know,” Cora says, “I know, I just couldn’t help it. But don’t worry, I won’t break any confidences by telling you what it says.”

Etta smiles. “Tease.”

Cora gazes down at the table, her fingers on the edge of the satin. For this confession she can’t look her grandma in the eye.

“I love him,” Cora whispers at last.

Etta leans forward. “Sorry? What did you say?”

Cora gives a little smile. “You heard me.”

Etta grins. “Touché.”

“And when I return his notebook, I’m going to tell him.”

“Well, in that case, I think he’ll forgive the fact that you read it.”

“Do you think he loves me back?”

“Oh, my dear girl, of course he does.” Etta laughs. “You know, for someone so exceedingly clever, sometimes you can be incredibly stupid.”

“Shut up.” Cora’s smile reaches her fingertips. And, all of a sudden, Etta realizes that this is the perfect time to tell her granddaughter the great secret, while she’s distracted by expectant happiness. Cora stands.

“Wait,” Etta says. “Before you go, I’ve got something else to tell you.”

Walt and Milly sit on a picnic blanket spread out on the floor of the Nineteenth-Century Literature section of Blue Water Books. They’ve finished the ham sandwiches Milly brought and are now slowly but steadily munching their way through the cherry tart Walt made an hour ago.

“Great pie,” Milly says, though she’d meant to say something else.

“Thanks.”

“Will you read something for me?” Milly asks, brushing away a crumb from her lip, though this isn’t what she’d meant to say either. The confession is proving harder to admit than she’d thought.

“Sure.” Walt nods, pushing the image of Cora and that man out of his mind as he stands. “What do you want?”

“Close your eyes and pick something.”

Walt steps toward the shelf, closes his eyes, reaches up and wiggles a book into his hand. As he sits down again, he reads the spine.
“The Age of Innocence.”

“Wonderful,” Milly says, grateful for the distraction. “One of my favorites.”

Walt glances down at the book again. “Really? But it’s not by Jane Austen.”

Milly laughs. “I do read more than just Jane, you know. Anything with romance and sexy men, and I’m game. Though, as heroes go, Newland Archer isn’t much of one, I’ll grant you.”

Walt sits down beside her. “Exactly how many times have you read this book?” he asks, giving her a sideways grin. He will learn to love these books, Walt tells himself, he will.

“I nearly know it all by heart,” Milly admits.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Milly raises an eyebrow. “Okay, test me. Open a page at random and read.”

“All right, boss.” Walt holds the book between his palms then slides a finger between the pages and lets them fall open. He looks down and inhales:

“ ‘That is, if the doctors will let me go … but I’m afraid they won’t. For you see, Newland, I’ve been sure since this morning of something I’ve been so longing and hoping for—’ ”

Walt breaks off. “Okay, what comes next?”

“Your voice when you read, I can’t get over how beautiful it sounds,” Milly says, though her own voice sounds strangely flat as she speaks. “You always make me feel so …”

“Enough of the flattery, you’re stalling,” Walt says. “What’s the next line?”

“Her color burned deeper, but she held his gaze,”
Milly says, soft and steady.
“ ‘No; I wasn’t sure then—but I told her I was. And you see I was right!’ she exclaimed, her blue eyes wet with victory.”

Walt looks down at the book, flicking the pages. He frowns. “No, that’s not it. That’s the last line of the chapter. Word perfect, I’ll give you that, but not the right line, so I’ll have to deduct points for …” He looks up at Milly, suddenly sensing how quiet she is, aware only now of the shift in the air between them.

“What’s wrong, Mill?”

“She knows he’s in love with another woman, so she traps him by—”

“By what?”

“The usual way they did in those days.”

“Oh.”

Can we have a baby?
is what she means to say. But when she opens her mouth something else comes out.

“Walt?” Milly says softly. “Will you marry me?”

Utterly dumbfounded, Walt just stares at her, openmouthed. He had absolutely not seen this coming. He’s not ready. He can’t do it. He’s in love with someone else. But such is the heartbreaking hope in her eyes and such is the conviction that Cora will never, ever love him that, before he quite realizes what he’s doing, Walt begins nodding. And when Milly’s face lights up as if she’s just won the lottery, he’s glad for this at least.

Cora runs the length of the alleyway separating Etta’s dress shop from Walt’s bookshop. She holds his notebook tight in her hands and its words in her mouth, sucking them like sweets—the facts to back up her feelings, scientific (sort of) proof to show she and Walt should be together. Etta’s momentous revelation
about her unknown grandfather, a priest no less, is still shaking through her head but, incredible and crazy though it is, even the fact of a new family member is submerged by the weight of thoughts of Walt and what she’s about to do.

When Cora opens the door and steps into the bookshop she’s out of breath. He’s not standing at the counter. Cora glances around the shop, at the bookshelves she can see from the entrance. When she can’t see him a wave of nerves floods her body and Cora focuses on the shelf closest to her, counting to calm herself. 278 books divided over 6 shelves, an average of 46.33 recurring on each shelf.

Thirty-three is Cora’s favorite number and its appearance reassures her. It’s an auspicious sign. She will find Walt, give him back his notebook, show him what it says, and they will be in each other’s arms before another moment passes. At this thought, Cora realizes how long it’s been since she’s been in anyone’s arms and the sad fact spurs her on. She hurries toward her favorite section: Scientific Biographies. If he’s standing close to a biography of Gerty Cori then that will be it, their fate will be sealed. She’ll run up and hug him without saying a single word.

As she passes the Nineteenth-Century Literature section Cora stops and doubles back. The first thing she sees is Walt, down on one knee, perhaps picking up a book fallen from the shelf. Cora’s heart bangs against her chest. And then she sees the woman, the one she saw before eating cherry pie, on the floor next to Walt and smiling, her face radiant with shock and joy. The woman gets onto one knee and takes his hand in hers.

“You will?” she asks. “Really?”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I will.”

For a moment Cora is rooted to the spot watching. When the woman falls onto Walt, hugging him, laughing and exclaiming “yes” over and over again, Cora turns to sneak back across the floor without a sound, now no longer feeling her heart in her chest at all.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

^“
I
’m not sure I want a white dress. I don’t think it’s appropriate for a second wedding,” Milly says. “What do you think of cornflower blue?”

Etta nods, trying to hold her tongue and suppress her shock.