All Dressed Up (41 page)

“No, I want to
be there on my own.”

“So go now.”
Mom practically pushed her out the door, then pulled her back and
hugged her.

“Is there any
chance we could do it tomorrow?” Charlie said to Reverend Mac. “We
don’t care who’s there. Just family. If you have any kind of a
window in the schedule. It won’t take us long.”

“At five? The
four o’clock wedding should be done by then, and I have the
Saturday evening service at five-thirty.”

“Does that
mean you’ll skip Brooke and Scott’s ceremony, Charlie?” Lainie
asked.

“We may get
there a little late.” He reached out for Emma and she nestled into
his arm. Having finished her tea, Miss Frances asked where Sarah
was, and Terri said this was her leaving now, outside. She wanted
to take another look at the camp. They heard the car pull away.
Miss Frances nodded. “I’ll let her alone. It would be a dream come
true if one of our best dancers bought my camp.” She tottered out
to her vehicle, smiling and crying at the same time.

The sun shone
down on ballet camp.

“My ballet
camp,” Sarah said out loud, and the decision was made, as simple as
that. She wouldn’t call it ballet camp any more. It wouldn’t be
just a ballet camp. No one had ever called it by its proper name,
anyhow, which had been The Tarantovie Summer Academy of Dance. From
now on, it could simply be, ‘Diamond Lake Camp.’ She said that out
loud, too, and it sounded good.

She wandered
around, letting her plans and her emotions sweep back and forth any
way they wanted. Where could she set up a tennis court and a
climbing wall? How much land would she actually have? What did
these sad old canoes need doing to them to make them lake-worthy
again? If she cut the emphasis on dance, how much else did she have
room for? How many different dreams for the future would kids be
able to discover here?

You need more
than one dream in your life, she decided. Just one dream is a
little dangerous, because if you lose it, you think there’s no
place to go. She took a look at the past ten years, and discovered
that they made sense in a way she wouldn’t have thought a month
ago. She would have said she’d been lost, that her life had been
filled with stop-gap measures – Billy and teaching, being in love
with the wrong man, fighting a broken heart – but it had all begun
to knit together now, even the mistakes.

Even Luke.

She made a
pilgrimage to the Swan Lake costumes and screeched the hangers
along the rack, trying not to breathe. In the middle of the press
of satin and tulle she found four costumes that were almost
undamaged. Some chipped sequins and a few inches of frayed seam,
that was all. She took the best one out into the light, away from
the musty smell and yellowing stains.

The fitted
bodice was tiny. She would never fit into it, or kid herself enough
to try. But she held the costume against her body, kicked off her
shoes, took some soft, silently rhythmic ballet steps and had this
crazy, euphoric, unwordable realization that it all came from the
same place, all of it – all the good, big things like love and
giving and beauty, art, dance, God, courage, forgiveness,
challenges and setbacks, all of it.

She danced and
cried, then looked down and said to the pair of grass-stained feet
below the tulle, “Oh, get over yourself, Sarah Dean!” She put the
Swan Lake costume in the back of the car, found a notepad and a pen
in the glove compartment and started writing down her plans.

“You really
want to get married today?” Charlie asked lazily. He and Emma lay
on the floating dock, warming up after a swim. Droplets of water
dried on his back, which would soon begin to burn.

“Don’t
you?”

“I’m
challenging your lack of application to the idea, that’s all.
You’re just lying here in the sun as if you’ve never made a list or
a schedule in your life.”

“Sarah can do
the big Dean wedding someday. Me, I’m getting married in a bikini
and sunscreen.”

“You are the
most competitive person I’ve ever met. Even when you decide to do a
minimalist wedding, it has to be more minimalist than anyone
else’s.”

“Okay, I guess
I’ll wear the dress.”

“You weren’t
even speaking to the dress, at one stage.”

“We’ve
forgiven each other. We’re friends again. I think it has grown up a
little, learned a few hard lessons about life. Do you like the
dress?”

“You want the
truth?”

“Always.”

“I was so
steamed that day, I can’t remember a single thing about it.”

The creases in
the Bergdorf Goodman dress made by it having spent so long folded
in its lavender bag had almost dropped out since Sarah had hung it
in her closet a week ago. When the house was quiet – Mom, Dad and
Billy were all taking a nap, while Emma and Charlie had disappeared
in Charlie’s car somewhere after their swim – Sarah set up the
ironing board and pressed the fabric until it was perfect, the way
she’d learned to do years ago, when Mom had told her about her
ballet costumes, “You should be able to do this yourself.”

She held it up
on its hanger and it swung like a bell, so pretty and summery and
soft. “I love you,” she said to it. “I was a mess. I’m sorry I took
it out on you.”

She decided
she needed to say this to Emma, really. Why was she saying it to a
dress? So she said to the dress instead, “Let’s have a good time
tonight, the two of us, okay?”

The wind had
dropped to a cooling breeze by the time Sarah and Emma reached St
James in Sarah’s car, right on five. The wedding had grown a little
less minimalist as the day progressed. Hair for Emma at the same
salon as Brooke had led to hair for Sarah, also, and makeup for
both of them, and flowers consisting of two stiff little bouquets
made at the last minute from flowers rejected for the bouquets of
today’s other Adirondack brides.

Sarah didn’t
have the original bridesmaid gown because that had been packed
efficiently away in the basement in Saddle River four weeks ago by
the crazy bridezilla who didn’t seem real any more. Instead she
wore that little Bergdorf Goodman dress she’d been so off-hand and
secretive and strange about, and looked like a dancer, in Emma’s
eyes, for the first time in ten years – graceful and curvy and
pretty as a fairy queen, with sparkly eyes and rosy cheeks.

A little
anxious, though, apparently.

She stopped
Emma with a hand on her arm as she went to climb out of the car.
“Hey, don’t I need to come around to the passenger side to help
with the dress so it doesn’t catch, or something?”

“The dress
will be fine.” Emma made a second attempt at climbing out of the
car. The dress filled the whole space between the dash and the
passenger seat, which was pushed back as far as it would go. The
fabric had frothed over Sarah’s hand when she shifted into gear and
was piled so high in Emma’s lap that she could barely see. It felt
like a mix of satin glove and sea foam, and smelled of orange
blossom.

Again, Sarah
stopped her before she opened the door. “Are you disappointed it’s
happening like this, Em?”

“Are you
kidding?” She finally pushed the door open and climbed out. The
dress swished into place around her feet and she lifted it just a
little to keep it off the ground. A few fragrant pine needles
already clung to the line of re-sewn feathers and they didn’t
matter, they felt right.

“You
sure?”

“Am I sure?”
She laughed. “This is how sure I am.” She kicked one shoe back into
the car and then the other. “And this is how sure.” She reached up
into the stiff salon styling on the top of her head and began
pulling at pins and coiled waves until the whole thing tumbled down
over her shoulders. “Put your fingers in it for me, Sarah. Fluff it
out.”

Sarah had
started laughing, too. She attacked Emma’s fallen hair with both
hands until all the loops and pins were down. “This is crazy, but
you know what? It looks good.”

“Now the
flowers. Pull those apart, too. All I want is one good rose.”

“We’re going
to be late.” Sarah began to fiddle with the bouquet. “Mom and Dad
knew we were only a minute behind them on the way down. And there’s
Lainie’s car, and Charlie’s. They’ll wonder what’s happened. Mac
has the Saturday service in less than half an hour.”

“So pull it
apart fast. Save that pink one. And take off your shoes, too.”

“Oh, I’m happy
to ditch the shoes.” Sarah worked the rose free, handed it to Emma
and hooked a finger into the back of her cream heeled pump. Her
foot made a dry, sliding sound, and when it was free, she wriggled
her toes.

Emma fingered
the silky fine cotton fabric of the tea-length dress, glowing like
butter in the late afternoon sun. “What’s the deal with this dress,
anyhow?”

“Six months
ago, I thought I’d marry Luke, and wear it to my wedding.”

“Oh,
shoot…”

“But I was
wrong. It’s never been a wedding gown. It’s a party dress. I
realized it the day you had me poking in the trash at Charlie’s
apartment. I promised myself I’d wear it before the end of summer.
And thank heaven for Brooke’s wedding, because now I am.” She
grinned.

“No man to go
to the party with?”

“Planning to
dance with every decent man there.”

“Brooke said
there’ll be a couple of doctors...”

“Emma, there
are certain times in a woman’s life when she doesn’t need a
man.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a course
pre-requisite before you can enrolll in Womanhood 202. Being
without a man and feeling good about it. Right now, all this woman
needs is a big project and a great party dress.”

“And somewhere
to go.”

Sarah grinned
and twirled, making the fabric flare. Her bare toes ruffled the
pine needles underfoot. “Definitely somewhere to go… Wanna do this
now?”

They pretty
much chased each other into the church, where Charlie waited for
Emma at the altar. His eyes lit up dark and gleaming when he saw
her, her shoulders relaxed as if he hadn’t been breathing till now,
and he grinned when she lifted the hem of her gown and showed him
her bare feet. It wasn’t part of the ceremony to speak when she
reached him, but she did anyhow. “I’m so glad we’re doing it today,
this way, not the way it would have been before. So happy,
Charlie.”

“Me, too.” He
took her hands in his, and Mac began to speak the first words of
the service, with Lainie and Billy and Mom and Dad beaming at him
from the front row.

About the
Author

Best-selling
women’s fiction author Lilian Darcy has written over eighty novels
for Harlequin Medical Romance, Silhouette Romance and Special
Edition, as well as having written for Australian theatre and
television under another name.

Lilian’s career
highlights include numerous appearances on the Waldenbooks series
romance bestsellers list, four nominations for the Romance Writers
of America’s prestigious RITA™ Award, and translation into twenty
different languages.

To contact
Lilian or find out more about her and her books, visit
http://www.liliandarcy.com

http://twitter.com/liliandarcy

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilian-Darcy/137491552997519

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LilianDarcy

Acknowledgments

Sincere thanks
to everyone who was willing to read this manuscript and vet it for
publication. Trish Morey and Jane Porter gave invaluable feedback,
while Charlotte Cottier, Wendy Martin and Patrice Shaw provided
detailed and highly professional editing and proof-reading.

Thanks also to
my in-laws for letting me borrow the beautiful setting of their
lake-house for use in the story. Anyone who knows the Lake George
area will also recognize the gorgeous Sagamore Hotel, which I've
fictionalized as the Craigmore Hotel for the sole reason that
there's a throw-away reference to the hotel manager being reluctant
to give a refund on drinks, and I wanted to make it clear that this
is not an incident taken from real life.

As always,
thanks to my husband and children for all their support in so many
ways.

Cafe du
Jour

Excerpt

Karen, I
started writing this a few months ago, about seven weeks after the
accident, and I think it’s for you but I’m not sure. It may still
be another few months before you’re ready to see it. Forgive me if
it takes that long - if it takes me a while to trust that you could
handle it and understand it right. Forgive me if I tell you too
many things you already know, because there have been so many times
when I haven’t been sure if you did know them.

It’s not quite
a diary because sometimes I cheat. I go back and change and add,
like this part, pasted in. I’m trying to resist doing that, because
I think there is - there has to be - a journey here. From grey to
black and white, from addiction to love, from what’s fake to what’s
true. And if I cheat then the journey won’t be clear for either of
us.

I’m
inconsistent about it, though. I want to pour out some stuff now
before the story even gets started. There are three crimes involved
here, their threads weaving the wrong colours through my life as if
they’re from someone else’s length of fabric. In the end, though,
Karen, I’ve found that I just have to adopt the new colours into
the pattern, because I’ve realised they’re not going to go
away.

One of them
was the crime against you - the hit-and-run. We’re never going to
get an answer on that one. The police have said so. No answer on
who… I don’t want to say ruined… who crashed your life onto its new
course.