The Right Wedding Gown

by Shirley Hailstock

  “He asked me out a few days later. I was alone, lonely, new to town and naive. I was ripe for him. He took me to a very upscale restaurant in Georgetown. We had no sooner been seated at our table when people started dropping by, saying hello. I thought he was an important man.”

  Samara stopped to look at her friend. “I suddenly imagined being on his arm at embassy parties and official Washington functions. You know, all the fantasies young women dream about before they move here and find they are as far from an embassy party as they are from home.”

  “You were naive.” Carmen laughed.

  “Yeah,” Samara agreed. “It’s the picture of Washington you get if you don’t live here. Many of my friends at home still think I live like that. And it doesn’t help to have a famous brother-in-law who actually does get invited to those functions.”

  “So what happened at the restaurant?” Carmen prompted.

  Samara sighed. “A woman came to our table. She was as beautiful as Justin is gorgeous. And Justin choked when she stopped in front of us. She extended her hand to me. Her smile was wide and genuine. I took her hand as I’d done more than once that night, expecting her to introduce herself. She did. She was Mrs. Justin Beckett.”

  “He’s married?” Carmen’s eyes opened wide. “I didn’t see a wedding band on his finger, but I knew that was coming.”

  “He’s divorced now, but at the time he was still married,” Samara explained.

  “They were still living together, not separated?” Carmen asked.

  “I don’t know. I left right after her pronouncement and I refused to see Justin again.”

  “Good for you.”

  Samara knew she had done the right thing, but she found it hard to forget Justin. It took a lot of willpower not to let her eyes follow him around whenever she saw him. And he appeared to be everywhere she looked. Several times, after his divorce, he’d asked her out and she had refused him for a long time. She’d been out with several men since him, but none of them caused the amount of excitement in her that Justin had.

  “Did you go out with him again?” Carmen asked. “After the divorce, I mean.”

  Carmen knew Samara’s prejudices. “I finally said yes to one of his invitations.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was actually Cinnamon’s fault.”

  “Your sister?”

  “She was here, looking for Mac. I suggested she call him, but she didn’t have a cell number. I called Justin to get it and as a condition I had to go out with him.”

  “He must really be hot for you.”

  Samara frowned. “Well, it’s one-sided.”

  “Meaning you’ve crossed him off the list of possible future husbands.”

  “Husbands? I am never going to marry.”

  “I’ve heard that song before, but why did Mr. Beckett get the ax?”

  “We’re just not compatible.”

  “Come on,” Carmen coaxed. “There’s more to it than that.”

  “Our second date, the first full one, went well. We spent a quiet evening in a small supper club in Georgetown. I chose the place, and there was no line of friends, colleagues or well-wishers drifting by to say hello.”

  Carmen nodded. “So it was the next one that changed your mind?”

  “I don’t know which one of our dates had been the worst. He was two hours late in showing up. I was breathing fire by then. I wanted to stay in my apartment, but he insisted we should go out. So we did.” Samara took a moment to breathe. Her heart beat faster. She still remembered the humiliation of that night. “Neither of us had eaten, so we decided to just go and get something to eat. No first-class restaurant, just a small Italian place on Connecticut Avenue. We ordered and I was calming down when she showed up.”

  “She?”

  “The wife. Now the ex-wife. The place was apparently somewhere they had frequented together. Justin was obviously surprised to see her. He nearly choked when he looked up and she was standing in front of our table. She asked to speak with him and the two left. Our meal came. I waited a while. Then I ate. Justin didn’t come back.”

  “He left with her?”

  “When I went outside his car was still in the lot, but he was nowhere to be seen.”

  “Do they have kids? Could there have been an accident?”

  “No kids and if they had any, she could have called his cell phone. He was surprised to see her, so I don’t think she knew he was there.”

  “What did he say when you saw him again?”

  “The next time I saw him was at Cinnamon’s wedding. And I tried my best to keep as far away from him as possible.”

  “He’s never explained?”

  “He tried, but what could he say? I had a cell phone. He could have called to say something came up. He could have called to say he was going to be two hours late. But he just let me wait, alone, in that restaurant that I didn’t want to go to in the first place.”

  “And for an ex-wife,” Carmen added. “That’s the part that gets your goat. I’d be pissed, too.”

  Samara wouldn’t address that. “They had been divorced for one year, yet she shows up and off he goes. I don’t need anyone like that around,” Samara said. “He can take his attentions to some other woman. Maybe his ex-wife.”

  Carmen sat back, apparently digesting the story Samara had just given her. Samara smarted with the pain and humiliation of Justin’s treatment. Yet he was still part of her makeup. As much as she tried, she couldn’t completely get him out of her mind.

  Ignoring his phone calls and apology attempts had kept Samara separated from him, but it hadn’t quailed her attraction. Sitting next to him for two hours at the auction had been torture. Each time she looked at him, she wanted to respond. To smile at him and watch the crinkle around his eyes as he returned it.

  “Why don’t we forget the Justin Becketts of the world?” Carmen suggested. “We can open a bottle of wine and see what treasures are in the trunk.”

  Samara agreed with her. She got the dry Chardonnay and two bowl-shaped wineglasses. As Carmen poured, Samara got a hammer and pried the locks open.

  She took the glass Carmen handed her and sipped the dry wine. “Showtime,” she said, sitting the glass on a low table in front of the sofa.

  Together they opened the lid. Samara gasped at what she saw, backing away from it as if it were alive. Carmen reached in and lifted it out.

  “It’s a wedding gown.” Samara’s voice was a breathy whisper.

  “What luck,” Carmen said. “It’s beautiful.” She held it up, admiring it.

  For a moment Samara couldn’t speak. She stared at the dress. It was old, yellowed with age, but completely restorable and all its lace was still intact. The dress was made of a rich satin fabric. Its bodice crossed in the front and laid delicately in folds as did the skirt. Lace ran upward from the bust to the neck. The waist couldn’t measure more than twenty inches and the only ornamentation other than the draped folds that fell to the floor was a huge bow in the back with several layered strips that ended in a long train. It was the most beautiful thing Samara had ever seen.

  “The lace is delicate and these tiny pearls must have been hand-sewn into the fabric,” Carmen commented. “I’d say it was from the 1890s. Maybe earlier. What else is in there?”

  Carmen laid the dress on the chair she’d been sitting on and looked into the trunk. The bottom was empty.

  “Only this veil.” She reached in and pulled it out. “Not even an invitation.”

  “Still,” Carmen said, “you’re lucky to find this. It’s probably worth a lot of money. Of course, you could save it for your own wedding,” Carmen sang in a teasing manner.

  Samara laughed. “If it’s waiting for me to put it on to walk down the aisle, it’ll dry rot.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes. “Samara, you shouldn’t be such a cynic.”

  “I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist.” She turned and saw the gown. “I’ll tell you what. You like antiques. I’ll make y
ou a present of the dress. You can wear it or display it.”

  Carmen picked up the gown and held it up to herself. She looked at Samara shaking her head. “I’m afraid it’s no go for me. And it looks like it’s the perfect fit for you.”

  Before Samara could stop her, Carmen had turned the dress around and placed it against her. Samara nearly overturned a chair jumping backward.

  “Samara, you say you don’t want to marry, then why worry about putting on the dress? You won’t suddenly be a bride, would you?”

  Samara hadn’t thought of it like that. She tried to make logic out of the statement, but gave up. Her beliefs weren’t steeped in logic. They were more like faith. She knew what she knew and wearing a wedding gown was something she never intended to do.

  Samara’s luck couldn’t be any worse. First she ran into Justin Beckett and then the only interesting piece at the auction turns out to have a wedding gown in it, the last thing she wanted. She could dump both the dress and Beckett in that trunk and slam the lid closed.

  By Monday morning Samara had put the contents of the trunk out of her mind. She’d done the same with Justin. She’d taken the dress from Carmen and stuffed it back in the trunk. After Carmen left, she’d pushed the offensive box against a wall and forgotten it. It was back to work, back to concrete things she could control.

  Samara worked at the National Archives. She was an apprentice documentalist, someone who tested, verified and authenticated rare documents. Work required her complete concentration and Samara delved into it to the exclusion of all else. By noon her shoulders were cramped from bending over a California land grant from the mid-1800s. Suddenly she thought of the gown in her apartment. According to Carmen, the two shared the same time period. Samara had no idea where the trunk had come from or who had worn the gown. Letting her imagination take hold, she thought the dress and document could have a common history.

  Smiling, Samara put the thought aside and went to lunch, then spent the majority of the afternoon with the same document. Most people didn’t know that a documentalist could spend months with a single paper, trying to uncover its secrets. In this one the secrets would have to wait until a little later.

  Going to the elevator, she rode up to the public floor. Her office was several levels below the public one, where the public was not permitted and most of them didn’t know existed. The public floor usually calmed her. All that white marble should have given the place a cold, austere feeling. But the lighting was perfect. Done by experts, it softened the interior of the National Archives Building, bringing the heavy granite and limestone posts, staircases and high ceilings down to an intimate level.

  Samara loved coming up here, to the public floors of the building. She looked down into the case holding the Declaration of Independence. “When in the Course of human events…” She silently read the rest of the opening paragraph of the famous document that had established the United States.

  Leaning over the case, her image superimposed over the words. Samara knew the history of her people, knew the hardships African-Americans had endured so she could stand here, the struggle they had maintained for equality, yet she felt a strange affinity to the documents in this room and other rooms not generally on the public tour.

  The printing on the paper was faded and difficult to read, impossible in some places, yet it held the foundation of freedom for an entire country, a freedom that included her.

  “Awesome, isn’t it?”

  Samara’s body went taut. She recognized the voice.

  Justin Beckett.

  She turned around. He was close enough to be a shadow and she smelled the cologne he wore. It was a light hint of a scent, pleasant, smoky, reminding her of the outdoors, the woods in Virginia where she’d spent many childhood summers and where her sister now lived.

  “Justin, I’m beginning to think you’re stalking me.”

  He smiled. “Not at all. I enjoy coming here.” He ignored the sharpness of her voice and looked around the Rotunda. Only a few people milled about, looking up at the ceiling or down into the glass cases. It was nearly closing time and most of the tourists had left to get ready for dinner and whatever their plans were for the evening. There was a family of three looking at the inscriptions on the far wall, and the guards were at their stations, but for the most part, Samara and Justin had the place to themselves.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” Samara asked. She knew he worked at the OEO, Office of Emergency Operations, and it didn’t matter that it was after five o’clock. When you worked for the government in jobs like his, there were no clocks.

  “I needed to clear my head. This is a relaxing place and it’s within walking distance.”

  The OEO was a secretive organization and not set up to handle disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes or blackouts. Instead, the lights at the OEO burned 24/7 and their purpose had international implications. Exactly what Justin did at OEO was unknown to her. The business inside its walls was rumored to report directly to the Oval Office. She’d learned not to ask too many questions when certain alphabetic groups were mentioned.

  “How long does it take to clear your mind?” Samara asked. Her words had more meaning than were on the surface, but she didn’t think Justin understood that.

  “That depends,” he answered, reminding her of a lawyer. Of course, Justin held a law degree, just like practically everyone in the District who worked for the government. Samara had considered going to law school, too, but she’d dropped the idea, preferring preservation and restoration to arguing the finer points of the Constitution.

  “On what?” she asked.

  “On you.”

  “Me? What do I have to do with this?”

  “Why don’t you have dinner with me tonight and I’ll explain it?”

  Samara was shaking her head before he finished the invitation. “I’m working late tonight.”

  “You can’t work all the time. You still have to eat.”

  “I brought something with me.”

  “Good, I’ll come over and we can eat your dinner.”

  Again she shook her head. “You know you have no clearance for where I work.”

  Justin’s security clearance was probably higher than hers, but even with it, he wasn’t permitted on the level she worked without a reason to be there. Plus, she was not allowed to have friends in her office, security was tight at all levels.

  “And you’re not allowed food or drink in that area,” Justin told her. “We could eat right up the street.” He pointed toward the wall. Outside, and only a few blocks away, were both the National Theater and Ford’s Theater. Near them was an array of restaurants where theatergoers ate prior to the curtain going up. “I could make a reservation…”

  “Justin,” she interrupted him. “Give up. I’m busy.”

  She watched as his face fell a second before he recovered. “Maybe another day. You have to eat sometime. Maybe one day it will be with me.” He turned and walked toward the exit.

  “Don’t count on it,” she said, but not loud enough for him to hear.

  If he could, Justin would kick himself down Pennsylvania Avenue as he walked back to the OEO. The air was perfumed with that combination of exhaust and humidity that was as much a part of Washington in the summer as the historic monuments that sat near any point of the city.

  He knew he should have been up front with Samara about his marital status when he had first met her, but for some reason he wasn’t, and she was determined to never give him another chance.

  He should have moved on by now and he thought he had. Samara Scott wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world and he didn’t kid himself into thinking there was only one woman on the planet for him. They’d had a few conversations and two eclipsed dates. Then a year ago, when he was having lunch with MacKenzie Grier, there Samara was, as radiant and beautiful as the first day he’d seen her.

  But she had refused to have anything to do with him. And he couldn’t really blame her. He cringed at
the memory. He wasn’t divorced at the time, but he and his wife were separated, although they were still occupying the same residence. Honora, called Honey by almost everyone, was Justin’s ex-wife now, but on that night they were still married and she’d been especially angry. When she saw him with Samara, the situation was ripe for a collision and Justin was sorry the explosion happened with Samara as a witness. It took him a year after his divorce to get her to go out with him again. And Honey pulled another of her tricks.

  Justin wanted to kick himself again for falling for her ploy. She didn’t know they were going to be at the restaurant where he’d taken Samara for a quick meal. But he and Honey used to go there often. He should have steered clear of it, but he never expected that she would be there, too. She’d moved from the house they’d shared in Maryland to one inside the District’s boundaries.

  She said her car wouldn’t start and she needed help. The gentleman in him wouldn’t allow him to refuse. Outside, she said she really wanted to talk to him and would call the auto club. Borrowing his cell phone, since hers needed charging, Justin handed it to her. Honey was forever forgetting to put her phone on the charger and she could never find the car’s unit. She got behind the steering wheel. Justin hesitated, but got in, too. The moment he closed the door, she threw his phone in the bushes, started the engine and drove away, taking him with her and leaving Samara alone in the restaurant.

  “Take me back,” he’d demanded, but she only laughed at him.

  “So you can go with the woman who destroyed our marriage? Not on your life.”

  “Our marriage was over long before I met her. Now take me back.”

  Honey kept driving. Faster than she should have and it seemed as if the traffic worked with her. In no time she slipped into Rock Creek Park, where there were only a couple of stoplights from P Street to Virginia. When she finally stopped the car, Justin was well inside the border state with no phone. Naturally, Samara refused to see him again.

  He’d tried to apologize many times, but all she did was hang up on him. Yet there was something about her that called to him. He wanted more than to apologize, he wanted to know her better. He wanted to find that something he thought he had had with Honora, but knew now was only a shadow of the real thing. And deep in his heart, he thought Samara might hold the secret.