All Dressed Up In Love: A March Wedding Story: A Year of Weddings Novella

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “Because God didn’t save him?” That would have ticked Greg off, but Tara’s quick shake of the head disagreed.

  “Dad was angry about everything, and mental health services were expensive so he wouldn’t go for help. He didn’t want to go to church with us, or be around happy people. He avoided everything we considered nice and normal, so it’s hard to blame God when my dad refused to even try to meet him halfway. I don’t think God forces his way into our hearts and souls.”

  She paused, thoughtful. “I think we invite him in, and my father was angry for so long that I think he forgot how to be happy. I decided I’d become an amazing lawyer. Strong. Smart. Dedicated. And when I say I’ll help people, I’ll do it. No matter what.”

  Her words hit home. Had Greg ever considered the fallout of his legal actions? The innocent people who were affected by the firm’s wheeling and dealing? Did his initiatives leave other children out in the cold, scrabbling to get by? Probably. Could he afford to get sentimental over work? No. Degrees of separation were crucial in corporate law. Business was business.

  Perfect! his conscience scoffed. Your father would be proud. So proud.

  “We survived,” Tara went on. “My mom is a wonderful person. She works two jobs, and she’s always been there for me and my younger brother. We’re the first to make it through college, much less law school. So my success is really her success.”

  Greg felt the same way about his own mother. She had groomed him for victory, but right now he didn’t feel all that victorious. A part of him felt like a little boy lost, wondering how to get home. A crazy thought, when he was on the cusp of something big. “My mom was like that too. They would have liked each other.”

  She nodded, started to say something, then stopped. He helped. “What’s on your mind? I can tell you’ve got something to say and you’re not sure if it’s your place to do it.”

  She hesitated, still frowning. “I do, but it might take a little while.”

  “Food?”

  She waved him off and looked embarrassed. “I wasn’t hinting for supper, Greg.”

  “Well, I was.” He made a quick left, then a right. “Tim had chicken wings, but I need something more substantial.”

  “But there’s another game.”

  He didn’t care.

  That realization should have unnerved him. It didn’t, because the prospect of spending time with Tara seemed better than a game. “Mexican?”

  “Love it more than life itself.”

  He grinned at her enthusiasm and pulled into a parking space down the road from a great little Tex-Mex place that looked like a dive but had the best food around. He rounded the car just in time to open her door.

  She looked up, surprised and pleased. “Thank you.”

  She smiled, and what he wanted to do was take her hand. Hold it. Walk with her hand clasped in his, just to see if last night’s reaction was a fluke.

  He didn’t.

  She was leaving for the valleys of northern Pennsylvania. He was destined for New York City. No sense starting something with so little time.

  When the counter clerk served up their food on a burnt-orange plastic tray, he wondered if he should have taken Tara to a more upscale place. She was country at heart, but didn’t a woman like Tara deserve the best?

  “Oh, be still, my wedding-loving heart.” She laughed when he brought the pile of food over to the table.

  “You set the table.” He glanced at the paper napkins and plastic silverware. “Well done.”

  “Doing my part.” She smiled at him, then at a young couple’s baby across the aisle.

  The little boy promptly burst into tears—loud, yowling tears that forced his mother to get up and walk the little guy around.

  “Your cheeks are red.”

  “I’ve just scared a baby, and I’m about to tell you that your bridal store needs help. And I’m not talking about another clerk on hand. Of course my face is red.”

  “The books have us in the black.” He raised his shoulders. “And whether or not we keep it open, the black is a good place to be.”

  “Should I disagree now and risk the removal of my food, or wait until I’ve eaten?” She stared at the food with longing, as if assessing the possibilities.

  “All right. Eat and talk. Your food is safe.”

  “Elena’s is one-of-a-kind, purposely.”

  He nodded. His mother had seen the value of the Old City shop at a time when the historic area of Philadelphia had fallen on hard times. She’d put together the payments to buy the store with the cool cash settlement Carlos paid out when he ended their marriage. From a dream broken came a dream fulfilled, which made closing the store harder than he ever imagined.

  “But . . .” She elongated the word with purpose. “It has no Internet presence, no Facebook page, no social media interaction at all, so it’s become fairly invisible.”

  “People spend way too much time on their computers and phones,” he grumbled. But hadn’t he told his mother the very same thing last year?

  “The store’s reputation got it listed in Philly’s Five Best for ten years in a row,” she continued. “It didn’t make the cut last year, and it won’t make it this year because we’re out of date with some of the top designers for our niche clientele.”

  “But Mom was always on the cutting edge,” he protested. “She and Kathy talked about that all the time.”

  Tara’s face told him that was no longer the case. “I called Kathy. She said that money got tight when two corporate bridals moved into town, one in Cherry Hill and one in King of Prussia.”

  His mother had never breathed a word to him. Why not? He could have helped, could have gotten her marketing advice from experts in business.

  “Your mother and Kathy closed ranks, keeping things more minimized than they had in the past. And then a wave of brides came in, tried dresses on, got sized, then ordered them off the Internet at a discount price.”

  “So the store takes the brunt of overhead cost for time, employees . . .”

  “And the online site gets the sale. Pretty much.”

  “How can you fight that kind of thing?” He stared at Tara as the decision to close the store loomed bigger. “It’s a tiny store surrounded by fire-breathing dragons. Who can win that battle?”

  “How did David beat Goliath? Faith, guts, and the will to survive.” She sat back as her food cooled, and she locked eyes with him. “But that’s what I need to ask you. Are you in this for the long haul? Because bringing things up to par to survive takes hands-on work, sales, and energy. If you’re not keeping the store, then it’s probably better to liquidate what you can, give the women who worked for your mother a severance, and sell the shop.”

  “You discovered all this in four hours of checking bridal gowns?” Suddenly her spiel sounded a little too convenient. How did a sharp young woman like Tara Simonetti, with admittedly no experience in bridal, come up with an entire dynamic for his mother’s three decades of hard work and dedication in one afternoon? Impossible.

  “Who are you really, Tara?” He leaned in, delving for answers. “Who do you work for? May’s? Filene’s? Because no way did you walk in off the street yesterday fresh from the sticks of Pennsyl-tucky and figure this out in a few hours.”

  He thought to shock her into the truth.

  Wrong.

  She burst out laughing and he sat up straighter, baffled and not one whit amused. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Oh, it is.” She took a sip of water, giggled, then sat back and wiped her mouth carefully. “If you could just see your face right now.”

  “Angry? Disappointed? Disillusioned? Take your pick.”

  “All three,” she assured him. “First, you’re being corporate lawyer silly, and it’s downright preposterous but kind of cute too. In a vintage TV show kind of way. Although I prefer my alpha males to have a clue. That keeps them from jumping to conclusions that have no basis in fact.”

  He started to sputter and she h
eld up a hand. “My turn.” She waited for his nod, then ticked off her fingers. “You’re too close to the situation to see it. You’ve suffered a keen loss, your heart isn’t in any of this, your workers are wonderful women, or at least they sound like it from everything I’ve heard, but they know more about the store’s bottom line than you do, and that’s because they don’t look at last year’s numbers. They look at this year’s appointments.”

  He hated that she made sense, but she did.

  “You can’t sell gowns to empty chairs, so if you’re going to keep this going, we have to tempt girls in, show them the goods and convince them that first-class service reduces the stress of their wedding day, then lock in the sale.”

  His head went instantly to major-league-style ad campaigns. “You’re talking some big expenditures,” he warned.

  She shook her head. “Not necessarily. I can arrange to have the website done by my friend Truly. She’s a whiz at graphic design, and she’d do it for the cost of her wedding gown from stock. She’s getting married next fall, and bartering is great for a bride on a budget.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “I can put us on Facebook. We can arrange trunk shows; we can call on former brides to model for us. Nothing like having brides dressed in Elena’s Bridal gowns to do impromptu appearances at area fairs and festivals. It’s not just about the gown, Greg; it’s the name recognition of quality and substance. Some folks will opt for cheap-as-they-can-get, then scramble to fix things when they go awry, but there’s another type of shopper out there. Women who know what they want, who like the security of a good store that stands behind its work and respects the American wallet. We can be that store again, but that’s really up to you.”

  She sat back, splayed her hands, and waited.

  She wasn’t pressuring him. She wasn’t begging him. She was laying the cards on the table and letting him make the choice that best suited their situation.

  And she’s not a shark from some other company. Come on, man, what were you thinking? Although it gave her a good laugh.

  It had, and he couldn’t believe he’d gone straight to that kind of suspicion. But considering the corporate pool he swam in, it shouldn’t be such a big surprise. “I need to think about this. Weigh the options.”

  “Understandable.” She went back to eating as if she hadn’t just laid two divergent paths before him. “I know being a numbers guy means you’ve checked out the books, the debits, credits, etc. But bridal is a year-ahead-of-the-game merchandising scheme. Last year means little if this year isn’t prepping for next year.”

  “The sensibility behind this astounds me, and I’m still wondering how you know so much.”

  “When you’ve been broke forever, you learn to examine deeply.” She faced him straight on, and the soft sheen of her golden eyes made him think of long, slow sunsets and tall, waving wheat fields. A nice combination, in his book. “And I’ve always had this little-girl wish to have my own place, dress brides, plan weddings. So on one side of the coin I ace my law exams because our town could use a stand-up person to make sure folks are well represented when they need help.”

  “And the flip side?”

  “I studied bridal in print, I watched every bridal reality show produced, perused bridal blogs, and drew my own conclusions about what makes a store successful. Your mother had the formula down pat until the rules of the game changed a few years ago.”

  Her reasoning made sense.

  His mother had been a smart, industrious bundle of energy, but she’d been old-school in many ways. He could see how Tara arrived at her conclusions. But now he had some serious thinking to do.

  Tara boxed the remainder of her meal in the Styrofoam carton the clerk provided and stood. “I have to get home. I need to prep for my business law clinic tomorrow.”

  “Of course.” He stood quickly. As she moved through the door, a new wave of wind-driven rain began to beat against the dark street. He touched her arm. “Let me get the car. Stay here where it’s warm and dry.”

  “Either that or—” She reached inside the neck of her coat and tugged the hood of her fleece over her head. “We race!” She sprinted down the sidewalk ahead of him and beat him to the car, but then had to wait as he fumbled for his keys to open the electronic locks.

  “You’re crazy.”

  She climbed inside, pulled the wet hood down, and adjusted her seatbelt. “Safe is good, but sometimes life just dares you to run in the rain.”

  Her words made him pause. When was the last time he ran in the rain?

  Undergrad. A lot of years back. He’d been a little foolish then, a little reckless. He’d had a few run-ins with bad choices, so when he decided on the straight and narrow path to the corporate top, he had hugged that path with a ferocity that didn’t look left or right. Tara’s take on facing storms was downright refreshing.

  She had her own way of handling things. She had the guts to dare the soaking Nor’easter with nothing more than a thin fleece hood. She talked frankly about his mother’s beloved store, and while he didn’t necessarily like what he heard, he was glad she’d confronted the situation. Kathy had kept the whole thing to herself as a promise to his mother. Now that he understood the dynamics, he could figure out the best way to go.

  He hoped.

  As Tara walked toward Old City Monday afternoon, her cell phone rang. She peered at the screen. Her mother. “This has to be a record,” she said. “You’re the third call I’ve gotten from Kenneville today.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Mr. Garbowski is wondering if he can sue Mrs. Fowler.”

  “Why would he do that? She’s such a nice old gal.”

  “She cut down her Norway maple, the only shade for his yard, and she didn’t have the decency to consult him first.”

  “Did you tell him to grow his own tree?”

  “I did. It seems he tried, but the shade from her tree killed any seedling he planted. Starved for sunlight, kind of like me right now.” She tucked her chin deeper into the collar of her coat as today’s wind and rain lashed the city.

  “I’m stunned. The only thing I can say is that everyone is so proud of your accomplishments that they’re jumping the gun.”

  “I reminded him that with hers gone, a new seedling should thrive, and not to be sue-happy.”

  “I can’t believe he interrupted your schooling for a call like that.” Her mother sighed. “Who else called?”

  “Mrs. Bushing is leaving Mr. Bushing and wondered if I’d be ready to represent her in a divorce by June. I kindly refused.”

  “They’ve been married forever. They can’t split up.”

  “Mom, you’re missing the point. I never intended to be a divorce attorney. Or to have neighbors suing neighbors over trees.”

  “Well, what else can you do here, honey? Kenneville’s small. It’s not like we’d have lawyers who specialize. This way you get a smattering of this and that. It keeps life interesting.”

  “Or downright crazy,” Tara told her. The thought of dealing with chronic complaints and grumpy neighbors hadn’t entered her mind when she took up her noble cause three years before. “I’m not out of school yet, and I can’t offer legal advice without actually being a lawyer. It’s frowned upon.”

  “Well, folks will take what you say with a grain of salt anyway,” Michelle Simonetti assured her, as if that was a good thing. “Half won’t listen and the other half will disagree. I called to tell you I sent money. I know this year’s tight, and I picked up an extra shift at the diner. I sent you a check that’s good to cash by Friday.”

  Tara’s heart went soft. “Mom, I’m fine. I got a great job at a bridal salon, and it works out perfectly because the hours are the opposite of my law clinics.”

  “You’re working and trying to finish law school?”

  “You’re working full-time at the bakery and waiting tables at night?” Tara replied, knowing her mother would get the point. She did.

  “I’m doing this s
o you and Ethan won’t have to do it,” Michelle retorted. But then she took a breath, and Tara couldn’t miss the pride in her voice. “Good for you, honey. I’m proud of you.”

  “Back atcha. I’ve got to go, I’m at work. I’ll talk to you soon and don’t send any more checks. I’m good here. I promise.”

  “All right.” Her mother couldn’t quite hide the relief in her voice, and Tara felt good giving her a reprieve. She tucked her phone away and walked into Elena’s. Greg had called a meeting of all the employees, and she’d spent the last six hours wondering what he’d do. Would he close the store? Stay open?

  Whatever he did, she prayed he could find peace of mind in the decision. The loss of his mother had blindsided him. To let the business she built slip away had to feel like losing her all over again, and Tara understood how difficult that would be.

  The sun broke through the thick clouds about the same time Tara walked through the door, and the combination made Greg feel better about just about everything.

  “Tara, sit here.” Maisy patted the seat on the bench she was sharing with Myra and Liz. Kathy smiled a broad welcome, and Donna shook Tara’s hand while motioning to the sleeping babies tucked in a nearby alcove. “I’m Donna, nice to meet you. My husband’s working, but I figured between all of us, we could watch the boys during the meeting.”

  Greg watched as Tara’s mouth formed a perfect circle, and then she did that “I love babies” girl thing, oohing and aahing as if they weren’t a fairly common event.

  Which they were, of course. The number of strollers and buggies and kid seats on bikes last fall said the majority of double-income-no-kids locals were falling into the “let’s have a baby” trap.

  But seeing Tara’s face and the sweet look of interest as Donna talked about the infant boys made Greg wonder what she’d look like with a baby in her arms.

  He switched off the mental path-less-traveled and pulled himself back to the business at hand. His life had been nothing but change for the last six months, and offered just as much in the near future, so entertaining thoughts of U-turns didn’t make the short list.