The Secret Wedding Dress (7 page)

“Rianne, honey,” she murmured. “Something you’ll learn about men—it’s a rare one who can work up any enthusiasm for a dress. Unless,” she added with a wink at Joel, “we’re talking about the skimpy outfits worn by pro-football cheerleaders.”

“You wouldn’t be tarring all of us with the same brush, would you?” Joel drawled, refusing to be intimidated.

“Definitely.” Sylvie’s
eyebrow spiked up.

“I suppose I’m guilty as charged,” Joel said. “But I’m striving to become a more enlightened male,” he said, grabbing his daughter’s hand. “Let’s go see those dresses, shall we, snooks?”

When he moved past Sylvie, she couldn’t resist one last verbal jab. “Granted, it’s not only cheerleader apparel that catches men’s eyes. I forgot about the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit edition, and Victoria’s Secret catalogues.”

Rianne tugged her father into the sewing room door, prattling nonstop. Joel stopped at the threshold.

Sylvie hung back, really not expecting him to comment. At first he remained silent, then she heard him utter a long, low whistle. “I may not know a damn thing about women’s fashion,” he said, “but I know a professional job when I see one. Mind if I ask why you bury your talent in a backwater like this? You could make a mint in Atlanta—or New York, for that matter.”

He couldn’t have hurt her more.

“If it’s a matter of contacts,” he said offhandedly, “I may have a few.”

“It’s not…I don’t need contacts,” Sylvie said quickly, trying to usher them out of room so she could shut the door. After all, she’d had a contact and the relationship had ended with her career in shambles.

“If working in Atlanta is so fabulous, why did you move to Briarwood?” she asked coolly.

“My reasons are personal.” Joel stiffened, leaving a decided chill hanging between them.

“Exactly.” Sylvie pursed her lips. “As you said a minute ago, it’s getting late.” She looked pointedly at her watch. “Don’t let me keep you from more important things,” she said, opening her front door.

“Bye, Sylvie,” Rianne called over one shoulder as her father urged her gently down the hall and out the door. “Can I come back another day and watch you sew those pretty dresses?”

Sylvie
didn’t have it in her to crush any child’s hopeful expression. Not even if that girl’s father happened to have stumbled on to something she felt so sensitive about. “Sure, Rianne. You’re welcome to come here whenever you want. Bring your Barbie doll. I’ll make her a new dress. Or you can pick a pattern and we’ll sew one for you.”

“Really?” Rianne’s thin voice rose.

“That’s not necessary,” Joel snapped. “Thanks all the same, but I can dress my daughter fine all by myself.” The door slammed.

Sylvie detoured into the kitchen to pack the cookies for Sunday.

Later, she cried over a glass of white wine as she sat on her bed and stared at the covered wedding gown. She couldn’t help it. She did envy the loving relationships her sisters had, envied Dory her kids, and Carline’s burgeoning belly. Even Kay had David now, a really wonderful man.

It seemed now that she’d been terribly wrong when she’d assured herself last week that she’d gotten over double-crossing Desmond Emerson. He’d so carelessly and easily killed her dreams. What was worse, she sat alone weeping in her wine, was knowing that Des and his new wife, her own former assistant, suffered not one shred of remorse.

Joel sat
brooding over a cup of coffee in his kitchen. He doodled around the edges of a half-finished list of things he needed to do. His breakfast consisted of three oatmeal raisin cookies and black coffee. Fortunately for him, Rianne had slept in. He didn’t want her developing his bad eating habits. Although Mary Shea used to say she put healthier ingredients in her cookies than most manufacturers used in their breakfast cereals. At times she used to alter her oatmeal recipe, adding in grated apple or cranberries and nuts. The newspaper’s health columnist got after him one day over the disgusting meals he showed Poppy and Rose eating. The woman said a lot of young people read his strip, and that Joel should show a little responsibility. So he had Poppy going on a health-food kick for a time. Even used one of the columnist’s lines, having Poppy tell Rose that there was more nutrition in the cardboard box than the sugar-coated cereal inside.

Remembering the furor that touched off in the paper’s advertising department, Joel smiled. It was his first inkling of how powerful his work had become. He’d been summoned to a meeting with his editor, the editor in chief and ten suits from the ad division. The men shouted at each other and at him, all of them talking as if his characters were real people who’d committed a cardinal sin. Oh, it’d been sweet. He’d ended up getting a bonus, plus a fat raise. But he had to promise
that Poppy and Rose wouldn’t step on the toes of the paper’s multi-million-dollar advertisers again.

“Daddy,” a plaintive voice warbled down from upstairs. “Where are you?”

Jumping up, Joel quickly brushed cookie crumbs off the table into his hand, and dumped them in the garbage disposal on his way to the foot of the stairs. “I’m in the kitchen having coffee. What do you need, Rianne?”

“Nothing. I looked in your bedroom, and office, and I couldn’t find you.” She padded to the landing in her bunny slippers and long nightie, rubbing her eyes. A yawning cat twined about her legs. “The ‘partment didn’t have so many rooms.”

Joel felt a stab of guilt for taking her away from all that was familiar. “Do you miss Atlanta so much, baby?” Rianne usually acted grown-up beyond her years. Except for early mornings or when she was ill. Running up the stairs to meet her, Joel held out his arms, and she stumbled forward and let him swing her aloft.

“I like it here ’kay. But I thought there’d be kids to play with.” She pushed tangled blond hair out of her eyes. “Yesterday was fun. I loved making cookies with Sylvie. Daddy, why don’t you like her? She makes me laugh. I
like
her.”

“I don’t dislike her….” he began, and realized he had no explanation for what had erupted between him and his neighbor yesterday.

“Come on, kid. Let’s go fix you toast, juice and peaches.”

“Are the peaches sour?”

“Nope. Sweet. I ate a whole one after you went to bed last night, and it was yummy.”

“Sylvie had some in her fridge. She said they were good, too.”

Joel set Rianne down to choose a seat. He rummaged until he found whole-wheat bread. As he shoved two slices in the toaster, his attention was again drawn to his neighbor. Joel thought he’d paid Sylvie’s obvious sewing talent a compliment, but then he’d glanced at her, and her big, dark eyes were
brimming with pain—as if he’d injured her with his comment. After that, she’d sounded shrewish. And her remark about sewing Rianne a pretty dress had hit him wrong, as if he let his daughter wear rags. It was too similar to a row he’d had with Lynn a few days before he decided to move to Briarwood.

His ex hadn’t been back in Atlanta long, a month maybe, collecting her accolades and preening in the spotlight of her new TV job. Up to then, she hadn’t contacted him or asked to see Rianne. Suddenly, out of left field, she phoned him at the paper and insisted he bring Rianne to a celebration of sorts—a party they were having for her at the station.

Rianne’s toast popped up just as Joel finished slicing her peach. He buttered both slices, cut them corner to corner and turned the buttered sides together. He remembered with a start that it was how the woman who’d left him this house had served her toast. Iva followed rituals, and rituals created a sense of continuity. Yet she allowed Joel the freedom to be himself. A lack of that kind of tolerance lay behind the growing rift between him and his ex-wife.

Joel had notified the sitter that he’d collect Rianne early for the party. She’d worn clean jeans, sneakers and her favorite Dora Explorer T-shirt to kindergarten. Joel saw no reason to swing past their house for a change. On arriving at the sitter’s, he’d taken a minute to wash chocolate milk off Rianne’s face and comb her hair. He hadn’t noticed the small chocolate stain that pretty much blended with a flower in Dora’s hand. Probably no one else would have, either, if his so-perfect ex hadn’t made a major production of it. Lynn claimed that Joel had purposely let Rianne come to the station looking like an urchin to humiliate her. She further announced, for all to hear, that he was unfit to raise their daughter. And ended by suggesting that her parents, who lived at a ritzy country club in Florida, might sue for custody.
Like they’d done such a bang-up job raising Lynn.

Granted, when he’d met Lynn, Joel had been attracted by her perfection. Her face. Her figure. Her clothes. That had led
to his buying a ring, and culminated in a huge wedding. It wasn’t until the honeymoon began to fade in memory that Joel saw what it took to maintain twenty-four-hour-a-day perfection. Their first Christmas with Lynn’s parents in their five-million-dollar mansion further revealed the source of his new wife’s need to
have
the best,
look
the best,
be
the best. Lynn, her parents, a sister and an overachieving brother all spent an entire week trying to remake Joel in their image. It had been a rude awakening to discover that the woman he thought he loved, and hoped to live with for fifty years or more, hadn’t married him for what he was but for his potential. As it turned out, he didn’t have enough potential to suit Lynn, after all.

That day at her la-di-dah party, she made it plain that Rianne didn’t measure up, either. Joel had seen red, and said stuff he shouldn’t have. He’d grown up with parents who fought over everything, and he’d sworn he wouldn’t fight in front of his child. But he had, and it’d been for Rianne. Who could look into the face of his beautiful child and not think her perfect as she was?

Rianne bit into her toast, and Joel fed Fluffy, then poured himself another steaming cup of coffee. “What I want most in all the world, Rianne, is for you to be happy.”

She lifted her eyes as her dad slid into a chair across from her. “So…it’s okay if I go see Sylvie? And it’s okay if I let her make me a dress? I want a frilly dress, like the blue one with the shiny ribbons and lace.”

“This desire to have a girly dress is something new. Generally when we shop for your clothes, you pick jeans and tops with your favorite cartoon characters.”

Her blue eyes clouded, and she blinked as if warding off tears. “Maybe Mommy will like me better if we send her a picture of me in a dress.” A tear did slid between her lashes, catching on the curve of her cheek.

Joel’s hand wobbled so much as he lowered his mug, he spilled his coffee. Lord, was it possible Rianne had tapped into his thoughts? Sliding to his knees, Joel wouldn’t allow her
to turn aside. He gently brushed away the tear. “I swear, sweetheart, it’s me Mommy doesn’t like. Not you.
Never
you. You know how messy I let my room get. I don’t scrub the shower. Sometimes I wear holey jeans or the same shirt for three days. That’s why Mommy got fed up and left.”

“But…she left me, too. I make my bed and put on a clean shirt every day. At school, only one girl ’sides me didn’t have a mommy. Why, Daddy?”

Joel felt sweat bead on his brow. Maybe it’d been a mistake to send her to an expensive private kindergarten; at the initial interview even the principal had mentioned most of their students came from two-parent households. Friends warned him he’d face this conversation one day. He actually thought he’d be better prepared.

“You were only a baby when Mommy and I found out we were both happier people if we didn’t live together. I can do my work here at home, but she had important stuff that took her far away. Out of the country. I’ll call and ask her for some tapes.” How could he tell Rianne that Lynn had chosen those years as a correspondent in preparation for her current job?

Rianne slowly nodded. “Okay. But I think being mommies and daddies is ‘portant. When I grow up, I’m gonna make cookies ev’ry day with my kids. And I’m gonna work at home like you do, Daddy.”

Joel hugged her tight, knowing he probably ought to explain that not every parent had the luxury he enjoyed of working at home. He’d save that for another father-daughter talk. Joel stood, and let her go back to her breakfast, all the while thinking he should dig through his boxes for a cookbook and find a cookie recipe.

He jotted a note on an already long list. “We still have a lot of unpacked boxes, but what do you say we play hooky and I take you fishing this afternoon? This morning I thought we’d sign you up for first grade, and then have lunch at a café in town.”

Rianne pondered his proposal as she ate the last peach half. “I
never fished except at the school carnival. What if I can’t? What if I don’t catch any?”

“There’s nothing to fishing. When we were at the hardware store ordering the door locks I installed yesterday, I noticed they sell fishing rods. It isn’t necessary to catch any fish. The fun is sitting on the dock bobbing your fly in the water.”

“Flies! Yuck!”

“They’re fake. And I’ll bait your hook. Does that sound better?”

“I ’spose. Can I ask Sylvie to go with us?”

Joel almost blurted out that even Sylvie’s own grandfather used to confide that women and fishing didn’t mix. But what kind of message did that send to his daughter? “Sure,” he muttered reluctantly. “After we get back you can invite her.” With luck, she’d be busy or gone by then.

R
IANNE’S PREVIOUS SCHOOL
had been the penthouse suite of a posh high-rise. This school was built of clapboard and stood in the middle of centuries-old towering trees. Joel assumed they were sugar maple and hickory, because a sign along the road said they’d entered Hickory-Maple Gorge. There were hints of red and gold in the leaves, a sure sign that autumn was around the corner. Joel had only ever visited his great-aunt during the summers, but she’d had shown him pictures of the vast wilderness known as the Great Smoky Mountains.

Kicking through crisp leaves to reach the entrance to the rustic school filled Joel with heightened anticipation. He envisioned taking Rianne on weekend excursions to explore this beautiful countryside.

Inside the office they were greeted by a pleasingly round woman. Her name tag read Mrs. Pearson, and in smaller letters under the title
School Secretary,
it said, Ellie.

“Mr. Mercer,” she exclaimed before Joel introduced himself or produced Rianne’s records. Her knowing his name gave Joel pause, as did her next words.

“I
wondered when you’d get around to registering Rianne…isn’t it? Moved into Iva’s place over a week ago. Took your time getting here. Does that mean we’re the tardy type?”

“Uh…no,” he said, pulling a thick, cream-colored envelope out of his back pocket. Meeting her unwavering eyes, Joel slid the packet across the polished counter. The room smelled of paper, aging wood and furniture wax. It wasn’t pungent, but very different from Rianne’s kindergarten, with its modern decor. He shifted his gaze downward when he felt Rianne clutch his leg. “Say hello to Mrs. Pearson.”

“‘Lo.”

“Mercy,” the secretary exclaimed. “Her kindergarten curriculum reads like nothing I’ve ever seen. Cultural Studies? Reading? Beginning French?” Peering over the counter, Mrs. Pearson gave Rianne a thorough once-over, then frowned at the child’s father.

“Atlanta is a progressive, multicultural city,” he murmured.

Her response to that was simply to pass him a clipboard of forms. “Fill these out on both sides. I’ll need to run copies of her vaccination record, if you remembered to bring one. If not, she won’t be fully registered for school until you provide us with an original.”

Joel produced that from his shirt pocket, feeling as if he needed to gain the approval of this tart-voiced woman.

“Saints be praised. A sensible dad. I’ll fire up the copier and give this back for Dr. Randall’s records. I expect you’ll be taking Rianne to him. Doc Randall is the only pediatrician currently practicing in Briarwood.”

Rianne tugged on her dad’s pant leg. “Will I get to meet my teacher and see my classroom?”

Hearing her query, Mrs. Pearson turned from the copier. “Angie Wallace is due to get the next first-grader. Students were parceled out between her and Donna Martin at the end of last year. Teachers aren’t officially back until a week from next Monday. If you’re Baptist, ask at church on Sunday. Somebody
will introduce you to Angie. If you’re Methodist, Presbyterian or other, you’re out of luck till school opens. I’ll lock the office and give you a tour of the classrooms as soon as you finish with those forms,” she said, dealing Joel a pointed stare.

“Yes, ma’am. Snooks, have a seat, please. Daddy needs to concentrate.” He was grateful she complied without her usual
why.
Maybe Miss Ellie wouldn’t consider him a total bumbler. Joel was glad he’d been through this drill once before and knew how tedious it was. If not for an open window behind the secretary’s desk, which allowed in the chirp of an occasional bird, the silence in the room would have frayed his nerves.

“There, I think that’s everything,” he finally announced, pocketing his cheat sheet before spinning the clipboard around.

Ellie rose from her desk, pen in hand. She separated out the first page and touched the tip of her pen to each completed line, one after another. “Nice printing,” she noted dryly. “You wouldn’t be a teacher, would you?”

“No.” Joel let it drop at that.

“I see you’re self-employed. What do you do?”