The Dress Shop of Dreams (12 page)

“Yes, well, yes,” Walt says, sounding reluctant, “I suppose she is.”

“That’s nice,” Cora says, hoping to sound as if she means it. And suddenly she’s feeling awkward, standing alone in the street with a man she’s seen most of the days of her life but has never really known that well. It’s strange, because now she wants to stand with him and talk long into the night.

Walt glances at his watch.

“Oh, sorry,” Cora steps back slightly, embarrassed, “you’ve got somewhere to go, I’m holding you up.”

“No, not at all,” Walt says, “it’s just work.”

Cora frowns. “Isn’t the bookshop shut?”

“Yes, of course.” Walt flushes. “But no, it’s not that. I work at a radio station, just the local BBC, I read the book at bedtime.”

“You do?” Cora asks. “How wonderful.”

Walt shrugs, feigning nonchalance. His heart is still beating too fast and he’s starting to sweat. Why on earth did he just say that? He’s never told anyone before. Only his boss, Milly and a handful of others know his secret. He certainly never advertises the fact. Not to anyone, let alone Cora.

“What are you reading tonight?”

Walt wishes he could give a different answer, wishes he didn’t have to admit it.
“Sense and Sensibility,”
he mumbles. “But I don’t pick the books, I—” But Cora isn’t scornful, as he’d feared; instead she seems intrigued.

“I’ve never read it,” Cora says, “so perhaps I should listen.”

“No.” The word snaps out of his mouth and she seems surprised. Walt quickly tries to undo his harshness. “I mean, I don’t think you’d like it, it’s a bit silly, a bit soppy … I used to read nonfiction, my first was
The Life & Times of Marie Curie
but not anymore, my boss …” Walt loses his words.

Cora is looking at him so closely, listening so intently that it quite unnerves him, undoing his words so they spool out into the air and drift away. He tells himself that it’s nothing. He’s not in love with her. He’s just nervous. He’s just socially inept. That’s all.

“Oh,” Cora says. “Yes, I love anything about Marie Curie.” After that, she doesn’t know what else to say. So instead Cora just looks at him.

Walt glances away, back at his watch, then at his shoes.

“I suppose I’d better go,” he says, “I’ll see you …” He starts to walk away but turns back after a few steps. “But please don’t listen to me tonight, please.”

“Okay,” Cora promises, “I won’t.”

Although she knows, even as she says it, that she will. How could she not?

“My darling girl!”

Etta is waiting on the other side of the door when Cora steps inside the shop. She pulls Cora to her chest and hugs her tight. “That Old Black Magic” seeps into the air. Cora tucks her head into her grandmother’s shoulder, trying not to cry with love and relief.

“How did you know I was coming?” Cora asks as they part, glancing at the floor and quickly wiping away her tears. “I didn’t call.”

“Don’t ask silly questions.” Etta ushers her through the shop, brushing aside dresses that have crept in too close, reaching out for their mistress. “You need tea and cake.”

“I’m not hungry,” Cora says, following Etta upstairs.

“Oh, my dear.” Etta laughs, the sound humming around her. “When is cake ever for hunger? It’s for flavor and, in this case, comfort.”

Behind her grandmother, Cora smiles.

They walk into the kitchen and Etta flicks on the kettle. On the counter sits a large chocolate cake, icing shining and dotted with cherries. The room is filled with the thick scent of chocolate.

“It’s beautiful,” Cora says. “You’re the best grandma a girl could hope for.”

“Hardly.” Etta sets out two plates and begins cutting the cake. “Anyway, it’s not that cherry pie you love so much, but it will have to do.” She presents Cora with a big slice. “Now sit, eat and tell me everything else.”

Chapter Twelve

W
hen Cora wakes the next morning she’s in the same position at the kitchen table, head bent into the pillow of her bony elbows. She pulls herself up slowly, wincing at the pain in her neck, and yawns. It’s only when she glances up at the clock, and sees the radio on the shelf above the cooker, that she remembers Walt and
Sense and Sensibility
. It’s too late now. Bubbles of disappointment pop in her chest and Cora sighs, far more upset than she should be. She fidgets in her seat, rubbing the back of her neck. A restless feeling has settled over her. She tries to shrug it off like a blanket but it’s in the air, thick and sticky, settling on her skin.

Cora stands, pulling herself up through molasses. It’s time to go back to work. What else can she do right now, after all? She needs a plan, certainly, but can’t just sit around doing nothing until she thinks of one. She hasn’t been back to her flat for days,
has almost forgotten what it looks like, probably because it’s plain, white and utterly nondescript. Cora sighs again. She hasn’t the heart to go home just yet. She remembers sitting on the pavement in Oxford, being overcome with a sudden sense of determination and purpose. She needs to
do
something now, something positive, proactive, to give her at least the illusion of control.

Thirty minutes later, unwashed, unfed and still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, Cora arrives at the biology department and hurries to her tiny office, hoping not to bump into her boss. He won’t ask her what she’s been doing, he’ll just fill her in on the latest developments in their research. Usually this would be something worth listening to, especially since she’s dedicated her life to trying to realize her parents’ dream. A week ago Cora still cared about doing it more than anything else. But now other feelings, other concerns, seem to be gradually superseding that desire.

Five hours later she’s halfway through a particularly dry scientific paper, the top one on a pile Dr. Baxter had left on her desk (along with a note that hopes she’s feeling better), and has a headache. It’s nearly four o’clock in the afternoon and she hasn’t eaten since too many slices of cherry chocolate cake last night. Pressing the fingers of one hand to her temples, and picking up her bag with the other, Cora squeezes out of her office, glances out to check the coast is clear, then hurries down the hall to the vending machine. As she’s pulling two packets of salt-and-vinegar crisps out of the drawer, Cora hears voices behind her and curses silently.

“Cora!” Dr. Baxter calls out as she stands. “How are you feeling? Much better now, I hope.”

Cora nods, not correcting his assumption. Her supervisor has someone with him, but he ignores his colleague to focus on his assistant.

“Anyhow, it’s great to see you back.”

“Thanks,” Cora says, “it’s good to be back.” And she means it. Excepting the slightly tedious marking of papers, Cora loves her job and admires Dr. Baxter enormously. And not only is he brilliant, he’s also tall and broad-shouldered, with graying black hair. He’s excessively handsome for a scientist, Cora thinks, and looks not unlike Clark Gable in all those films Etta loves so much, which is fitting since, being born and raised in the Midwest, he sounds a little like him as well. Cora knows that half the student body harbors a secret crush on her boss. Perhaps she’d have one, too, if she were inclined to feel such things. Perhaps not. She’s always thought of Colin Baxter as more of a father figure.

“Are you free for the meeting next week?” Dr. Baxter asks. “I know it’s a chore, but it’s with the financial department, so sadly can’t be avoided.”

Cora nods. “Of course.” She isn’t sure whether to question him in front of his colleague, but she can see a slight shimmer of concern on Dr. Baxter’s face and needs to know what’s going on.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yep, of course, no problem,” he says. “Our funding’s up for renewal next month, but I’m expecting everything to continue without a hitch.”

Cora nods again. “Great,” she says. And if he’d looked her in the eye when he’d spoken, she’d probably have believed him.

At the sound of the bell Etta, reluctantly putting down a tiny white cotton dress she’d been holding against her cheek, steps
away from her sewing table to greet her new customer in the shop. “All Shook Up” plays as Etta walks across the carpet. Her new customer, a young woman with a mass of brown curls and a bright smile, bounds over.

“Hi, I’m Cheryl. My friend, well, my boss … she told me about your shop.” She lowers her voice. “How it’s, well, sort of special. And I need a bit of magic in my life right now.”

“Oh?”

Cheryl nods. She reaches out to the closest rack of dresses and, almost without looking, plucks out a dark red ball gown and holds it out in front of her. “I’ll take this one.”

Gently, Etta takes the dress from her and replaces it among its fellows on the rack, where the ball gown seems to ruffle its silk folds like feathers rearranging themselves as it settles back in.

“That’s not the way it works,” she says. “You must take your time. You have to wait for the dress to choose you.”

“But there’s this guy I like,” Cheryl says, not seeming to hear, “and I want him to fall in love with me. I thought that was the sort of thing you could help me with, isn’t it?”

Etta smiles. “Not exactly. My dresses aren’t just in the business of making women’s wishes come true, though that often happens.”

Cheryl looks a little crestfallen.

“But,” Etta continues, “if you’ve lost a piece of yourself, wearing your dress will help you find it. My dresses can open your heart to love, if that’s what you need. But I’m afraid they can’t make anyone fall in love with you.”

“Oh.” Cheryl sighs. “That sucks.”

“You may think so now, but—” Etta glances about the shop, then walks across the room and takes a turquoise dress of raw
silk out of the window. “—when you’ve tried this one on, you might feel a little differently …”

“Really?” Cheryl asks. Her big brown eyes widen with hope. “Well, it certainly is a beautiful color.” She reaches for the dress, then slips her fingers over the silk, mesmerized.

“Try it on,” Etta suggests. “The changing room is just next to the counter.”

Cheryl nods, walking along in something of a daze, clutching the large puff of crumpled silk to her chest.

When she steps out of the changing room, the daze has deepened.

“I don’t, I didn’t … I didn’t expect …” Cheryl trails off.

“What, my dear?” Etta asks softly.

“I never expected to feel like this again.”

Standing at the edge of the changing room, Etta leans forward to catch the quiet words.

“Like what?” Etta asks again, even though she knows the answer.

“As if I’m five years old,” Cheryl says, “and the whole world is all mine and I can do absolutely anything I want to do.”

Etta smiles. “And what is it you want to do, my dear?”

Cheryl grins. She smooths her hand slowly along one of the multiple folds of the magnificent turquoise gown.

“I want to be a poet,” Cheryl says, “and a painter.”

Etta nods. “Then that, my dear, is what you must do.”

Later that night Etta is again sitting at her sewing table. She has a plan. She won’t tell Cora, just in case it doesn’t work. Etta has always been superstitious, suspecting that spells are more effective when kept secret from the intended recipient. This is why
she never tells her customers about the dresses, together with the fact that they probably wouldn’t believe her even if she did.

Since speaking with her granddaughter six nights ago, Etta has thought of nothing else but how to help Cora solve the mystery of her parents’ deaths. And she’s now convinced that the key lies in knowing what Maggie was going to tell her the day before she died. Unfortunately, of course, that seems impossible, especially given that Etta’s never had much luck with ghosts. After her daughter died she’d spent endless hours with candles and icons and incantations, desperate to summon her daughter’s spirit, to bring her little girl back. But eventually, when nothing happened after months of trying—not the flicker of a light switch or a wisp of breath on her neck—she gave up.

Etta knows better than to try that again now. It’s too exhausting for one thing, it’ll take too long for another and, most important, it’ll probably still not work. Instead she’s going to stick to what she knows best: clothes.

Although most of Maggie’s possessions were burnt in the fire, Etta still has a few things from when her daughter was young: her favorite patchwork teddy bear, her first drawing (of a tree with purple apples) and a box of baby clothes. A few hours ago Etta went up to the attic and brought down three little lace dresses of white, black and blue. Now she sits at her sewing machine unstitching their seams and carefully laying out the pieces. Hours pass, jazz hums through the shop, but the door is locked. When she’s done, the table is a blanket of lace.

Cora never wears dresses, so it’s no use making her one. But sometimes she deigns to try a T-shirt or two. So this is what Etta will make for her now. It’s already long past midnight, but she won’t sleep or stop until it’s done, because the air is always
thicker with magic, faith and possibility at night. And Etta needs as much of all that as she can get.

At sunrise three very special T-shirts lie on Etta’s sewing table: one white, one black, one blue. Each has a tiny red star hidden in a seam. They are made of cotton but edged with strips of silk and lace, and all that remains of her daughter’s dresses is a scattering of sleeves and hems on the floor.

Cora had planned to go home at some point. She hadn’t meant to stay in her office all day and all night. But when she looks up at the clock again it’s nearly ten o’clock. About to stand up, she suddenly thinks of Walt and his books. It’s true, Cora has never really been interested in fiction, especially not romantic fiction, but she’s curious and has a digital radio, occasionally utilized for listening to scientific topics on Radio 4, so why not? Having no idea what frequency to tune in to BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Cora reaches for the radio and starts fiddling with the dial. Snatches of music blast out as she turns. It’s more than a minute before she finally hears his voice and stops.