The Dress Shop on King Street

by Ashley Clark

  Eliza ruffled her daughter’s hair. “If it’s all right, I’d like to get squared away in a guest room if you’ve got one. I can manage the luggage on my own.”

  “Of course,” Millie said, Eliza’s words still replaying in her mind. “I know.”

  What did she know? What did she know?

  “We would be happy to get all that sorted out. And don’t bother with a rental fee,” Franklin added. “After all, you’re family.” Silence. “Isn’t that right, Millie?”

  The sound of her own name brought her out of her thoughts. Millie nodded emphatically. Probably a bit too emphatically.

  “Absolutely.” Millie frowned. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Where is your uncle now?”

  Eliza looked to Franklin, raising her chin ever so slightly. “That’s a good question.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Fairhope, 1948

  Millie settled into the settee by the window opposite the radio and straightened the full skirt of her dress as she glanced toward Eliza on the other side of the sofa.

  Eliza smiled. The gentle but defined strokes of her eye makeup were reminiscent of flappers, and Millie supposed that was probably because Eliza was one, once upon a time. The corners of Eliza’s eyes rose with the grin of someone who knows more than they’re letting on.

  Franklin was putting on a puppet show for the little girl, using two old socks with pinned-on fabric for their faces. It was all Millie could do not to blurt out to Eliza, “Just what do you know about my hat?”

  The fact she had lasted the past quarter hour without saying a word was a testament to her willpower. But now that answers were imminent, her mind spun. The answers seemed to be coming too fast.

  What if Eliza knew something she shouldn’t about Millie’s heritage? Millie’s family? What if Millie had been recognized and her past had been compromised as a consequence? Or what if her future suffered much the same fate? What of Franklin?

  Millie took a deep breath, willing her thoughts to slow down.

  Eliza gracefully slid closer to the center of the velvet settee. Millie did the same. Eliza removed her gloves and rested one hand on Millie’s knee, meeting Millie’s eyes with her own unwavering gaze. Millie didn’t so much as blink. What did Eliza see?

  “You’re wondering how I know about the hat.”

  Millie nodded, swallowing the knot in her throat as a nightly news program murmured from the radio.

  “Anybody ever tell you the story?” Eliza asked, her lips rising like a mother in the midst of reading a Little Golden Book, pausing appropriately for each illustration.

  Millie fidgeted with the taffeta of her dress. How much did Eliza know? How much did Millie dare tell?

  “Only bits and pieces,” Millie said. “Odds and ends, as it were.” Like the little scraps of fabric one can either choose to trash or hold onto, waiting for a new project that may better suit them.

  Millie knew a lot about that process.

  “I see.” Eliza patted Millie’s knee decidedly. “Well, let’s start at the beginning then, shall we?”

  Millie’s heart began to quicken. Was Eliza about to tell Millie her story? The one she’d run from? The one she’d been hiding?

  Eliza straightened a ring with an intricate leaf-patterned band on her left hand. Millie watched the ring circle ’round and ’round and wondered at the leaf pattern, of her own roots, and what Eliza might know of them.

  “Millie, I’m a watercolorist. I’ve painted many scenes from Charleston as well as many persons, and I did a series on Gullah tradition quite some time ago. I once painted a woman—a beautiful woman who told me a story about her ancestors getting tragically separated in the days of slavery, and how she and her brother and sister were doing all they could to preserve what they knew of that history for the next generation. She seemed to be madly in love with the most charming Italian man, and they had a baby.” Eliza hesitated. “Cute as a button.”

  Millie shook her head as tears began to stream down. No. No, it couldn’t be true. For so long, she’d lived as if that part of her story, her history, was gone, she’d begun to believe it herself. At least then, she wouldn’t have to think about the people who killed her father and the people who would’ve hurt her too if he hadn’t stepped in when he did.

  Eliza waited until Millie dried the tears and met her eyes once more. “This little child absolutely adored my hat. I mean to tell you, I have never seen the likes of it before. I let her play with it.” Eliza shrugged one shoulder up closer to her chin and offered a grin so charming it might as well have been a magazine photograph. The memory frozen in time—the past barreling into the present, when the long-ago moment could finally be told. Shared, even.

  Millie’s eyelashes pulled together with each blink, her mascara sticky with tears. She ran the edge of her finger along her eyes to collect the streaks of black trying to run down.

  “I imagine you know the rest of the story.”

  “The little girl refused to give it back,” Millie whispered, smiling. Yes, that’s what her mama always told her—“Ever since you was a baby, Millie, when you got a hold of something, you never did let up. No reason to start now.”

  “That painting of your mother was one of my best works because I didn’t have to look far for her story. She came to bring me a sweetgrass basket as a thank-you for your hat, and the next thing I knew, I was painting her.” Eliza’s gaze moved around the room, from the freshly swept floors to the fireplace and the new lamps and the odds and ends Millie had laid around. A doily here, a glass figurine there. Vases of flowers in as many nooks and crannies as she could fit them. Satisfied they were alone, still Eliza lowered her voice as she leaned her head closer. “Millie, how did you end up here?”

  The words, so simple and yet piercing, stunned Millie.

  How did I?

  In all the secret keeping, the black-and-white clarity of her heritage had begun to grey so that she couldn’t pull apart any longer what half of her belonged where.

  “I wanted to own a dress shop.” It was the only thing she could think to say.

  Eliza lifted her chin as realization slowly dawned.

  “The man you saw, my father, was killed not too long thereafter because he and my mama were together. My parents were married in the eyes of God, ’course, but some folks see only the law. Those men raged and raged that Blacks and whites shouldn’t love one another, and their blood shouldn’t be mixed. The men came after me for playing with their children, and in the process of his telling Mama to hide me, they took him. Hurt him real bad, and he died. Our story changed after that, mine and Mama’s. She grew more cautious to keep me safe. Can’t say I blame her after what happened with Daddy. We were both scared as we’d ever been.”

  Millie tried to hide her trembling hands under the skirt of her dress. “Mama told me to pass as white for my dream. She always believed I could catch the moon if I wanted. But now that I’m a bit older, I do have to wonder if the passing part was her tryin’ to keep me safe so much as anything else. I guess she figured if I could pick just one heritage, I wouldn’t have these two parts pushing and pulling inside of me, and people on the outside wouldn’t be pushing and pulling with their threats, either. One heritage, one future.”

  Eliza’s slender fingers slid along the velvet of the sofa. “Only there are two parts of your heritage.” She reached out to straighten Millie’s cloche. “Millie, what does that say about your future?”

  What did it, indeed?

  Two hours later, when they’d finished every crumb of their pie, Eliza sat at the bench of the boardinghouse’s piano. She was going to start a new life in New Orleans, she said, far away from whatever chased them in Charleston. Her fingers seemed to fly across the keys and beyond as the jazz tune echoed deep within the room, deeper still within Millie’s soul.

  Melancholic, the words from Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem” settled as a refrain within Millie, as she pulled a needle and thread from the sewing box she
kept beside the settee. She thought of her own dream deferred. All the places it sent her, all the places the dream itself might go.

  One stitch at a time as Eliza played, Millie told the story of Rose and Ashley and the little satchel with great provision. Preserving their history for the present and for the future.

  She signed the satchel with the initials for Millie Middleton, the name her mother offered to keep her safe—a simple way to honor the stories of the women who’d come before. Women whose names would otherwise be forgotten by history.

  With every stitch, with every letter, she tugged the needle through the fabric and bound the two together. She told the story of two histories, two ancestries, united.

  And though Eliza had only been at the boardinghouse a few hours, Millie was thankful to have known her however briefly—a preservationist in every sense of the word.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Charleston, Modern Day

  Funny how the house that initially seemed so broken now seemed so lovely. Cozy. Old bookshelves housed new titles, and current photographs sat propped on the mantel beside yellowing maps of the city.

  Peter glanced at his watch. “Will you excuse me a minute? I need to give my dog his eye drops, pathetic as that probably sounds.”

  “No problem.” Harper smiled.

  Peter stepped into the other room.

  As she was admiring the thick baseboards and elaborate windows, Harper heard a bark from the kitchen. The next thing she knew, Peter was yelling, “Rutledge, stand down.” Some blur was charging toward her. Out of instinct, Harper held out her arms to soften the blow—but to her surprise, the animal jumped into them.

  Rutledge, as it turned out, was an overly zealous beagle mix intent on making a new friend. Harper held the dog in her arms and laughed.

  “You named your dog Rutledge?”

  “He was one of the writers of the Constitution. The man Rutledge, that is. The canine version is just as feisty as the colonist. I’m really sorry. He’s pretty dramatic.” Peter squeezed one drop into each of the dog’s eyes. “He gets dry eye—you know, like people do—if I don’t do this twice a day.”

  Harper thought it was sweet he was willing to do something like that for his pet.

  Peter’s phone rang from his pocket. He set the eye drop bottle down on one of the bookshelves, then answered the call. “Yes, ma’am. We’re done with our tour, so the timing works just fine.” He paused, clearly letting her speak. “Yes, I’m sorry. I know you don’t like being called ‘ma’am.’” He shook his head at Harper, smiling. “Okay. Sounds good. We’ll be there shortly.”

  Peter pocketed his phone. “Millie said she’s done resting and wants to see the store. Maybe we can get this contract going. You up for it?”

  “Absolutely.” Except for the contract part.

  A few minutes later, Harper followed Peter down the sidewalk toward the dress shop, imagining the history of each building they passed. Without his stories, she never would’ve considered how deep the history ran. Peter had inspired a whole new way of thinking. She’d never look at earthquake bolts or cobblestones quite the same way.

  And though she’d probably never see him again after all this was done, his passion for history had changed something inside of her.

  For the better.

  Peter flipped on the lights, illuminating a room so old it could definitely be euphemized as historical. The door and windows showed a pleasant view of the antiques side of King Street, but the empty space had clearly been forgotten. Neglected, even.

  “What do you think?” Peter asked.

  “Hmm.” Millie’s fingers trailed over the old walls. She tapped her low orthopedic heel and looked up, holding her hat in place. For a moment, Harper saw her as a much younger woman, even a girl, back when this place was in its prime and maybe so was Millie.

  “Would you believe I’ve never been inside? Only peered through the window and made up stories in my head about the brides who were shopping. I used to love imagining that sort of thing. Well, until I met Franklin. Then there was no need to pretend.” Millie continued looking up at the slatted ceiling, as if the whole roof might open at any moment and give a glimpse of heaven.

  “Why did you never go inside, Millie?” Peter asked.

  Her gaze met and held his own. “I was but a girl when I lived here,” she muttered.

  Peter nodded and slipped his hands into his khakis.

  Millie sighed. Her hips swung lightly to a rhythm Harper couldn’t hear as Millie sashayed across the room as if she already owned the place. Maybe in some ways, she did. Long windows at the front of the shop let muted light stream in over the wood floor. The look on her face, the surrender to that beautiful moment, was striking.

  “This room would be lovely for my bridal shop, Peter,” Millie said, finally answering his question. She reached out and touched the shoulder seam along his sweater.

  To Harper, this room was empty. Full of dust and the relics of decades long gone. But maybe to Millie, it was something more. Harper couldn’t fault the woman for pretending their plans to open the store were real ones, just for a little while.

  Peter smiled.

  Harper’s heart ached for him. Ached for the gentle respect he showed Millie. Ached knowing how badly he wanted to know his family secrets. Ached for the fact that she knew them.

  Peter Perkins was clearly invested in the dreams of others, which in her book showed the quietest kind of strength.

  Harper took a step forward, and a creaky board gave her pause. Ironic, really. She’d run from her life in Savannah straight into a dress store. Just weeks ago, a store like this was everything Harper wanted.

  But that was before failure sent her on a wounded and frantic journey toward another dream. Now, it was just a façade. Oz at the end of the yellow brick road.

  As Harper looked around the store, she saw something in the corner she’d missed before. “Is that a rack of dresses?” she asked.

  Peter shrugged. “A handful I’ve found here and there inside the properties I’ve acquired. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I’ve kept them in storage until now.” He rubbed his beard mindlessly with his right hand. “I thought you two might want them. Sell them, display them—whatever you want.”

  Harper caught an excited giggle before it escaped her throat. Vintage dresses made her giddy. Even if they didn’t belong to her, even if they were all part of the smoke screen this storefront represented.

  They still had a story to tell.

  Peter watched her and Millie with his blue-green eyes, framed by those tortoiseshell glasses he had on earlier. “Well, they’re all up for grabs except for one. There’s a wedding dress I was hoping you could give me some information about, being the dress experts you two are. It once belonged to my mom.”

  Harper tried not to all-out skip over to the rack. She always had loved these types of dresses. Millie followed closely on her heels.

  But then something happened.

  Millie stopped.

  She stared straight ahead, her gaze fixed on the first dress of the rack. And then, like a magnet, the dress drew her closer.

  The blush peach, silk dress was layered with cream lace over the bodice and hemline. Most arresting was the stunning cape that Harper imagined to be from the 1940s.

  They just didn’t make dresses like that anymore.

  Actually, they didn’t make dresses like it back then, either.

  It was exquisite. One of a kind.

  Harper stood in awe. This might be the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. And she’d seen a lot.

  Millie took several steps forward. “I’ll be,” she said. “In this place, of all places.”

  She reached for the gown, and her fingers trailed the dainty lace until they reached a special button at the back neckline of the dress.

  The button was faded blue, with the imprint of a butterfly.

  Something borrowed, perhaps?

  Something blue?

  “Al
most too delicate to be worn,” Harper said of the button.

  “What good are beautiful buttons if they aren’t worn?” Millie’s hands began to tremble as she gently touched the fabric. “We will live fragile lives, my dear Harper, if we avoid that which is delicate for fear it might break at the seams.”

  Harper frowned. She thought of her own dress and the negative feedback she’d received. Maybe she and Millie had more in common than she’d realized. Maybe they even shared a lost dream?

  The spell broke. It must have been too much for Millie to process. The store, the memories . . . She dropped her hand from the dress and straightened her shoulders.

  When she turned to them, she looked strong—for anyone, much less someone her age. But the red sting at the corners of her eyes was not lost on Harper.

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” Millie said, shaking her head. “I don’t think I can give you any details except to say this dress is in splendid shape for its age. Whoever sewed it did a remarkable job.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Fairhope, 1949

  Millie came out of the bathroom with her dress zipped just past her bra line, and held both sides up with her hands. “Franklin?” she called into the bedroom. “Can you finish zipping me?”

  She’d made several boatneck dresses in keeping with the trend, but each one required daily assistance zipping them up and then zipping them down. Franklin was always a perfect gentleman with his zipping duty, and Millie had come to look forward to these moments of closeness that bookmarked each day, beginning to end.

  These past two years of marriage had been unconventional, sure. Yet they’d also been deeper and more satisfying than Millie had ever expected. Truth is, she had come to love him.

  So much so, that she still held him at a distance when he winked at her one time too many or she noticed his gaze from across the room linger upon her. She wanted to gaze back—oh, how she wanted to. But that would mean taking steps toward trusting this man, and she just didn’t have the luxury of trusting anyone.