The Dress Shop of Dreams (24 page)

“Thank you,” Etta says, smoothing her hand over the skirt of a ball gown, a waterfall of silk the color of the Pacific Ocean on a sparkling summer day. “What was it that chap said? ‘
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful
.’ ”

“William Morris.”

“Right, him. Well, I try to combine the two, of course, but things don’t always work out the way one plans.”

Walt regards Etta wondering exactly what she means by this. There is a lilt in her tone that suggests she’s not simply talking in generalities but means something specific that he might be expected to understand. He wants to ask, but it has been so long since they’ve spoken properly that Walt is slightly embarrassed to presume such intimacy so quickly.

“So, what can I do for you?” Etta asks. “I’m guessing you haven’t come to buy a dress.”

Walt smiles. “No, I don’t suppose you do any in my size. Though maybe I should give one a try, one of those sparkling pink numbers might at least take attention away from my nose. No one would be staring at my snout if I was dressed like Ginger Rogers, would they?”

Etta laughs and winks at him. “No, I suppose not. Though I think you have a particularly handsome nose, so perhaps they would.” She has always rather adored this young man, always
believed absolutely that he and her darling granddaughter would marry and have a million babies. Sadly, despite all her efforts to this end, things aren’t looking as if they will work out the way she wanted.

“I’ve—well, my girlfriend has lost a book, a notebook, and I’m looking for it. I’ve been in virtually every shop in town and she told me she came here that day.”

“Oh?”

“She bought a dress here,” Walt explains. “It was two weeks ago, on a Tuesday. Her name’s Milly. I hoped—”

“Ah, yes, I remember.”

Walt brightens. “You do? Excellent. Did you find it?”

Etta shakes her head. “I’m sorry. She came in looking for it herself, but I told her then I hadn’t found it.”

Walt’s face falls and his shoulders slump forward, even his ears seem to droop. “Bugger,” he says softly. “She didn’t tell me. You were my last hope.”

Etta reaches out and rests her fingers lightly on the sleeve of his woolen coat. “In my experience even inanimate objects have a will of their own, and they won’t be found until they want to be, until they’re good and ready,” she says. “When your notebook wants to come to you, it will.”

Walt starts to scowl at this particularly unhelpful piece of information then remembers his manners. “I hope you’re right,” he says. “It means more to me than … anything I own.”

“Well then, I’m sure it feels the same way about you,” Etta says, “and I’m sure it’ll come back, don’t you worry about that.” Walt gives Etta a sideways glance, wondering whether she’s making fun of him. Despite her little smile, she doesn’t seem to be. “Okay, well, thanks.” He turns to go but Etta still has her hand on his sleeve.

“Wait,” she says, “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“I listen to you reading on the radio,” Etta says. “I must have heard every book since you started. You bring me a lot of joy.”

Walt frowns. “I’m glad, but—”

“I’ve known you all your life, Walt. How could I not know?”

Walt lets out a sigh.

“Don’t worry.” Etta smiles. “I’m not going to drape myself all over you. I only wanted to say that you have a wonderful gift, the ability to fill people with a sense of possibility, make us believe in everything, most of all in ourselves.”

“Do I?”

“Oh, yes,” Etta says. “Most people think this world we live in is mundane, but you remind us that it’s magical. You wrap reality in the wonder and joy of fiction, until it infuses us and becomes true.”

“Well, I …” Walt falters.

Etta smiles. “You’re one of life’s magicians. You simply haven’t realized it yet.”

Walt contemplates her words. He’d dismiss this notion, coming from anyone else—from any of his fan letters, even from Milly or Cora—but he’s looked up to Etta since he was a boy so he pays her the compliment of considering what she says.

“I’ve never thought about it like that,” he admits. “I know people are moved by my voice, when I read, but I’ve never experienced it, I’ve never heard—”

“Of course you haven’t,” Etta says. “Unfortunately most magicians are immune to their own magic. We see behind the veil, we live inside the nuts and bolts, the element of surprise is lost on us. But we can help each other. Last night, when you were reading
Cyrano de Bergerac
I started thinking again about something, a secret I’ve been keeping for a long time. Now I’ve decided at last to tell him, and Cora, as I should have done years ago. That’s thanks to you.”

Etta sees the look of sorrowful longing that passes over Walt’s face at the mention of her granddaughter’s name.

“Why Cora?” he asks. “What secret have you been keeping from Cora?”

Etta takes a deep breath. “Her grandfather. He’s … It’s complicated, but he’s a priest now, at the Catholic church on Regent Street—at least he was, nearly fifty years ago—I actually have no idea if …”

“Sebastian?” Walt asks. “Is he Sebastian?”

Etta’s heart quickens at the sound of his name. She nods, unable to speak.

“He’s there,” Walt says. “I, um, I talk to him quite a lot.”

In her surprise, Etta finds her voice again. “You’re Catholic?”

Walt glances at his feet. “Not exactly, no. But he’s a really good listener.”

Etta smiles. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, he is.”

A little sigh of relief escapes Etta’s lungs. She’d always believed that Sebastian was still alive and still in the same church. She’d counted on it, she’d imagined him for so long, felt his presence all the way across town. She’d have been stunned to learn he’d moved or—God forbid—died. But it’s a relief nevertheless to have her faith confirmed.

Etta looks at Walt, waiting for him to catch her gaze and hold it. “You need to talk to Cora,” she says. “You need to tell her how you feel.”

“W-what?” Walt splutters. He gazes down at the floor, the tips of his ears turning red. “I can’t. I tried. I couldn’t—”

“You can,” Etta says, “and I can help you. Follow me.”

With an alacrity that belies her age, Etta scurries across the velvet carpet and into her sewing room. Walt follows considerably more slowly, dragging his feet until he reaches the doorway.

“I won’t wear a dress, no matter what you—”

Etta giggles. She slides open a drawer, rummages through a rainbow of fabric swatches then pulls out a piece of maroon-colored velvet, an off-cut from the hem of Cora’s dress. Then Etta takes her needle and thread and sews six quick stiches in the shape of a star at the corner.

“Here you go,” Etta says, handing the velvet to Walt.

He examines the cloth. “I don’t understand.”

“Just keep it in your pocket. And make sure you’ve got it when you talk to Cora. It’ll give you courage.”

“No, I can’t,” Walt protests, “I can’t—”

But even as he’s speaking he can feel a surge of courage rise in his chest, making him stand slightly taller. Cautiously, Walt rubs the velvet between his fingers as he wonders at what he might be about to do. What about Milly? How would it be fair to her? Surprisingly, as he holds the fabric tight, Walt feels the answer to a question he hasn’t asked tug at his heart and whisper in his head.
Faith
, it says.
Have a little faith
.

Cora sits in the passenger seat of Henry’s car. He speeds around a bend and she grips the handle of the door, trying not to gasp. A traffic light ahead turns red and they slow, having just screeched past 14 cars, 21 pedestrians and 3 dogs. Cora exhales, fingers still tightly clasped, and stares at her feet, silently praying to St. Christopher that they reach their destination in one piece.

“Sorry.” Henry glances over at the rigid figure next to him. “I’ll go slower.”

“It’s okay,” Cora says. “I’m fine.”

“There’s one thing you might want to know about me,” Henry says, “since we’re working on this together. I can tell a liar at a hundred paces.”

Cora glances over at him. “You can?”

Henry nods. “Not just in a cop way,” he says. “I don’t just have a feeling in my gut, I don’t just suspect, I
know
.”

“Really?” Cora says. “So, just then, you—?”

“Well, it didn’t take much of a sixth sense to see that you weren’t fine. Your white knuckles were a bit of a giveaway.” Henry smiles and nods at the door handle around which Cora’s fingers are still wrapped.

She rests both hands in her lap as the car glides along the road. They are heading to the house of Nick Fielding to pay him an impromptu visit. They had been sitting in the café when, gulping down her second espresso, Cora found herself telling Henry everything: about her parents, Walt, Etta, losing her job and the dreams she had for her life.

“Do you find people often confess their entire life stories to you?” Cora asks.

“Not as often as I’d like. I tend to find that hardened criminals and corrupt police officers are usually tougher nuts to crack than scientists. But yes, I suppose I have a way about me that encourages people’s confidences.” Henry thinks of his ex-wife. “Except in some cases.”

“Oh,” Cora says. “I see.”

“You’re in love with that guy, Walt, right?”

Cora sits up straighter, hands now clasped together, knuckles
quickly turning white. “I didn’t say that. What makes you say so?”

Henry shrugs. “Some things are just obvious.”

Cora glances out of the window as they turn into a street of terraced houses. “Maybe,” she admits. “But it wasn’t to me.”

“Yes, well,” Henry says, “that’s usually the way, isn’t it? We can’t see what’s closest to us. I have no idea what’s going on with my ex-wife. I think once the heart is tangled up in something we lose all sense of perspective.”

Cora nods. With a half smile she thinks of Walt and wonders again how, given that she knows and understands some of the most complex subjects conjured up by man and nature, she could have failed to see something so simple. Henry has already revealed his own painful tale, a generous offering to reciprocate the flood of personal information she’d poured out on the table. Somewhere during her third espresso Cora had told him about visiting the coroner, and the fact that her parents had never drunk alcohol, so it was impossible that they’d been drunk that night and set the fire themselves. At this point Henry had almost leaped up from the table, and dragged her out of the café and into his car.

“Are you really sure I should come with you?” Cora asks as they pull up outside Nick Fielding’s house and Henry starts reversing into a rather tight parking space.

“Yes,” Henry says. “You’re going to tell him what you told me, while I watch him for clues. He’s a bit of a bastard, so he’s not going to tell us anything, not out loud at least, but that doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?” Cora asks as they push open the car doors and step onto the street. “Why not?”

“Because he’ll give himself away anyway, then we’ll know what to do next.”

Dylan chews the tip of his pen. He’s been writing and rewriting the same sentence for more than an hour but just can’t find the best way to say what he needs to. He knew this time would come sooner or later. His conscience would catch up with him and he’d have to put a stop to the crazy thing he’d started. He should have done it days ago, weeks ago, he never should have let it get this far. He never should have written to her in the first place. But, of course, once he’d begun it became harder and harder to stop. With each letter he fell a little more in love with Milly, and Dylan found that letting go of love wasn’t an easy thing at all.

Dylan has every one of Milly’s letters, eighteen in total, stored away in a dark oak box lined with green velvet and locked in the bottom drawer of his desk. He rarely takes them out to reread, since he learned them by heart on the day they first arrived, and he can’t risk anyone finding them, but he certainly can’t burn the letters, and having the pages, inscribed with her handwriting, close to him brings Dylan comfort. He will always have them, at least, even if he won’t have her.

Dylan puts his pen to the paper again. In truth he knows that he’s finding this final letter so hard to write not because he doesn’t know what to say but because he doesn’t want to say it. He’s never been in love before, never imagined what it would feel like to want another person more than anything else in life, so much so that you’d be willing to compromise everything in order to be with them, if only on the page. And Dylan desperately wants to keep going, to exchange written words with Milly until the day he dies. But he can’t, unless he tells her who he
really is. But, if he does that, she’ll probably tell him to go to hell anyway, as well she should.

Yesterday Dylan, who tells his father everything, finally confessed his crime. He waited for a lucid moment one night and began reading Ralph the letters. The sun was rising by the time Dylan finished and both men were wiping tears from their eyes.

“I’m sorry, son,” Ralph said at last, “but you must stop.”

“I know.”

“Write to her one last time,” his father suggested, “to say good-bye.”

“Yes.” Dylan nodded. “I will.”

“Good boy.” Ralph patted his son’s knee. “You’re a good boy. Now, what are we having for lunch?”

At dawn Dylan had absolutely promised his dad he’d stop writing to Milly but, ultimately, it was listening to Walt last night that finally pushed Dylan into forgoing the whims of his heart and doing the right thing. As part of a compilation of plays, Walt read the last act from
Cyrano de Bergerac
and, at ten minutes to midnight, his voice had stuck a knife into Dylan and sliced him clean through:

“How obvious it is now—the gift you gave him. All those letters, they were you … All those beautiful powerful words, they were you!… The voice from the shadows, that was you … You always loved me!”

The burgeoning guilt, the feeling Dylan had been successfully suppressing for the past few weeks, suddenly rose in a wave and crashed down upon him. It wasn’t just for Walt, but for Milly, too. They deserved a chance to be happy together, without Dylan standing in their way with his own selfish love and his letters. So now Dylan takes one deep breath, summons
up the words in his throat and starts to speak them softly as his pen scratches across the page.