'Til Grits Do Us Part (37 page)

“You hafta give it all up. Your expectations of how a husband's gotta be. How he's gotta act, your demands and your selfishness, and all the bitterness you wanna store up against him when things don't go so hot. You kick it in the grave, cover it up with dirt, and don't look back.”

She dropped her voice to a husky low. “And then, my friend, that's when you'll learn to truly live.”

The dress wasn't quite…
. it
. We loved the billowy cut, but it made me feel like I'd fallen inside a wedding cake—so full and frothy I could hardly find my own feet. Different straps, I said. A-line skirt, said Becky. And less “stuff” on it (and under it).

So we left the shop empty-handed, stopping for lunch at a greasy Mexican restaurant with cilantro-loaded salsa. Next on our shop-a-thon: the Salvation Army, and after that, the Staunton Mall. And because of the mall's dearth of acceptable stores, I figured my chances of finding a decent dress were about the same either way.

Thrift stores are surprisingly good sources of scuffed coffee-table books on macramé from the '70s, dusty plastic houseplants, and dented suitcases with the locks broken off. Sweaters in ugly, pilled color bands with stains on the sleeves.

I ran my hand over the rack of party dresses, letting them fall apart one by hideous one: bright mustard-yellow and peach, with ugly cuts from thirty years ago. Dingy. Musty. Sweat-stained.

Until the white dress appeared, shining dimly in the dull overhead fluorescent light. I flipped back then pulled it off the hanger in surprise.

Wow. Pretty. I sucked in my breath.
Really
pretty. A surprisingly high-class brand with all the perfect seams in an unusual cut. An A-line skirt that tumbled to the floor, hem trimmed with intricate silver-kissed lace. Short, fluttery sleeves that reminded me of kimono sleeves. Just my size, or close enough that an alteration would fix it easily.

I sniffed nearly transparent layers of white, bracing myself for cigarette-smoke odor. But none lingered. Just the slight damp smell of being kept too long in someone's basement.

I turned the dress over, eyeing the touches of lace around the neckline and bodice. Smooth, simple lines.

“Becky!” I called. The dress draped pretty and fresh across my arm, a puddle of pearl-white, as if it had been waiting for me.
Fifteen dollars
. The cheapest dress I'd found new cost more than ten times that—and it was fringed like a cowgirl's.

“Did ya find somethin'?” Becky asked in surprise, wending her way through shelves of old books.

“Look at this!” I spun the dress around, listening to the tulle swish underneath. “Isn't it beautiful?”

And then we both saw it: a hideous mustard-yellow stain on the left side. Almost as big as my hand, right in the waist area. And we groaned together.

“It's real nice,” said Becky, lifting it up for a closer look. Shook her head. “But that stain ain't never gonna come out, prob'ly.”

She rubbed the garish splotch then turned the dress inside out and checked the back of the material. Shook her head again. “I'm so sorry.”

“Yeah.” I hung it sadly back on the hanger. “You think stain remover might work?”

“No way. It'll tear up the material.”

“It's just fifteen dollars.” I chewed my lip.

“You got fifteen dollars you wanna throw away? 'Cause that ain't comin' out. I can tell ya right now.”

My shoulders slumped.

“A weddin' dress needs to be white—real white. Can't have no spots or nothin'. Which is why it's hard to find one used.” Becky gave the dress a pat. “I prob'ly got a whole mess a stains on mine. That's jest the way a weddin' dress is.”

I hung it reluctantly on the rack, fluffing the skirt. “Bleach?”

“Shucks, no!” Becky's eyes popped in horror. “Not that kinda material. Didn't anybody ever teach ya how ta warsh clothes?”

I plodded out with Becky to her oven-hot car and sat deep in thought, air conditioner blowing full blast on my face. Trying to invent some way to save that dress. And just when she'd flipped on her signal to pull out into the road, I grabbed her arm.

“Go back, Becky! I've got an idea!”

“Fer what? That bookcase you was lookin' at?”

“No, the dress!”

“The weddin' dress? You gotta be kiddin.”

“Nope.”

Becky wrinkled up her brow and sat there, turn signal still blinking. “You crazy? What ya gonna do about that big ol' ugly stain? Git a blowtorch an' burn it off?” She scowled, grumpy from our spate of bad shopping luck.

“No! I've got a better idea.” I practically leaped out of my seat. “Go back or I'll get out here.”

Becky grudgingly turned off her signal and backed into the parking lot, and she parked while I hastily unclipped my seat belt.

“I'm warnin' ya.” She glared through her sunglasses. “Don't come cryin' ta me if ya bleach the daylights outta that dress an' it turns yella.”

“I'm not going to bleach it.” I threw open the car door then ran inside and grabbed the dress. Counted out fifteen dollars in cash and slapped it on the counter. Then I ordered Becky to hightail it over to Faye's as fast as she could.

And reached over the seat back to grab Priyasha's bag of bridal magazines.

“A what?” asked Faye Sprouse over her glasses, turning the dress over and smoothing the satin. Fingering the stain.

“An
obi
. Like on a kimono. Have you seen one?”

She wrinkled her brow, running a hand through her graying hair, curled in an attractive cut. A little longer and more modern than she used to wear it before Earl. “A…a what?”

“An obi. Like a belt.” I gestured. “It's wide and colorful, and it wraps around the waist and ties in the back. In a bow or some other complicated design.”

“And ya wanna put that on the dress?”

“Yes! Like this. Look.” I plopped a bridal catalog down on the table and opened it to a marked page. “See how this dress has a belt-thing around the waist? Well, what if I used a Japanese fabric—like red kimono silk? And had it tie in the back, in a nice bow—with those long sweeps down the back of the skirt?”

Becky's eyes widened. “It'd be Asian, all right.” She looked at the picture and held up the dress. “An' this real simple dress style is jest the right match, ain't it?”

“Exactly!” I grinned, giddy. “And it would cover the stain. Look.” I placed my hands over the waist area. “It looks perfect to me. Could you do that, Faye? I know you sew.”

“Well, I think so,” she said, turning the dress over again. Looking inside at the seams. “That'd be real simple, if you could find the fabric. Silk's prob'ly real expensive.”

“Oh, that's not a problem. I've probably got something I can use, or Kyoko does.” I held my breath. “So you could do it?”

Faye nodded. “You bet. In fact, if ya want, I could draw the ends of the silk out like a train. Maybe trail on the floor a bit.”

I looked at Faye in delight then at Becky. A slow smile spread over Becky's face, and she shook her head.

“The Fashion Nazi strikes again!” she hollered. “Fifteen doggone bucks, woman!” Then she jumped on my back and hugged me like a crazy woman while I staggered, trying not to drop her or careen sideways into Faye's kitchen table.

“I've got my wedding dress! I've got my wedding dress!” I shouted when Becky let go and I got my breath back. And I ran through the halls with the dress flying out like a white banner, Becky whooping behind me.

T
he only detail about the dress I hoped no one discovered was the silk fabric for the obi. It was a table runner. One of Kyoko's, which I fell in love with after she sent me photos. Red silk with a pink Japanese flower pattern delicately overlaid. Stunning, shining silk, with that gorgeous iridescent sheen.

“You're going to use a table runner for your dress?” Kyoko sputtered out of my cell phone over a haze of the summer-hot parking lot, still sweltering at three in the afternoon. I smelled rain in the distance. A dusty wind whisked from down Greenville Avenue, bringing scents of Hardee's hamburgers and burned-out grease from the mechanic who'd just penciled me in next week for a nearly due inspection.

After—ahem—I nosed around about Jim Bob. With zero results. The guy who jotted down my name with grease-stained fingers had never heard of him.

“Yep. The table runner'll work perfectly.” I tipped my sunglasses down off my hair and dug for the car keys, holding Christie's leash with one hand while she sniffed and strained at the chain. “Our vet visit this morning was free. And good news at the mechanic—the inspection's cheaper than I expected.”

“Why, what'd you do, sweet-talk them all? You sure do a number on police officers and redneck cousins, you know.”

“Give me a break. Our vet's a woman.”

“Well, I'd wager your mechanic's not. So anyway, how about that transmission? Is it working okay?”

“Perfectly. I didn't have to pay a cent, thanks to Mom's old warranty, remember. And…I'm driving Faye's old Escort just to be safe.” I jingled the unfamiliar keys for Kyoko's benefit.

On top of that, I'd done the unthinkable to disguise myself: for the first time in my life, I'd donned a pair of (gulp)
cowboy boots
. Real brown leather boots, borrowed from Becky Donaldson. A flowy green-and-cream-plaid dress. Sunglasses.

If the Escort didn't throw off Odysseus, the cowboy boots would. Since they were pretty much the last thing Shiloh P. Jacobs would ever wear in her right mind.

“Well, that's great about the transmission, Ro. A new one can set you back thousands of bucks. What'd you do, visit a temple or something? Buy another
omamori
?”

“I don't need good-luck charms.” Drops slid down my neck under my ponytail as I unlocked the passenger's side door. Then I rolled down the windows and let the car air out a bit. Christie jumped up into the towel-covered passenger's seat. “And I definitely don't need to visit any more temples. I threw enough coins away on that silly stuff when I lived in Japan, and it didn't do me a bit of good.”

“Maybe you didn't give enough money.”

“Maybe I didn't want to accept what life dished out.” I settled Christie carefully on the seat, clicking off her leash while she alternately licked my chin and smudged the freshly washed window glass with her nose, tail whapping me in the face. “Or take responsibility for my actions.”

“That, too.” Kyoko's reply came surprisingly soft. “You've changed, Ro. And I mean that in a good way. Except for the…um…table runner thing. That's just goofy. Back in Japan you would have called in sick rather than step out of the house sans Prada. Or whatever snooty brands you wore.”

I shuddered, thinking of my cowboy boots. If Kyoko heard about them, I was in big trouble.

“Well, life's thrown me a Salvation Army wedding dress.” I shut the passenger's side door and circled around to the left side, pushing my heat-straggly bangs to the side and out of my eyes. “As long as you don't mind parting with that table runner. It is silk, after all.”

“Of course not! We never used it. But how's it gonna look? I've never heard of a wedding dress with an obi in my life, Ro. And believe me, I've seen some weird wedding getups.”

“Yeah, like your aunt's gold bridesmaids' dresses. I've been thinking about those.”

“Don't tempt me, my dear,” said Kyoko dryly. “You have no idea what a thrill I'd get out of it.”

“I think we'll stick with mine.” I slammed my door and turned the air-conditioner vents toward Christie and me, adjusting my rearview mirror and backing out of the space.

“So, has Ashley actually bought our bridesmaids' dresses yet, Ro-chan? I mean, it's not August yet, but I'm Type A. I like things done in advance. And this is WAY past the ‘advanced' stage.”