by Rachel Hauck
Tim scooted his chair over to hers. “It’s not that I don’t love you.”
“But you don’t want to get married?” She tucked her hands close to her middle and gentled his ring from her finger. When she set it on the table, those darn tears trickled to the corner of her eyes. Tim stared past her shoulder toward the dark window.
“I thought I did.” He tried to hold her hand but Charlotte withdrew. “Some of the guys from our local motocross club went up with us today. We were talking about the big race in Florida, making plans to go, when one of the guys looked at me and said, ‘Tim, you realize we’re talking about the week after June 23. Aren’t you getting married that day? Won’t you be on your honeymoon?’”
“You forgot your own wedding.” Charlotte ran her hand over the cold chill creeping down her arms. Her gaze landed on the trunk and at the moment, she felt an odd kinship to the battered, rejected box. It felt like her only ally in the loft.
“Charlotte, I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Katherine was all worried I’d hurt you.”
“Yeah, Katherine needs to mind her own business.” Tim at last peered at her face. “I love you, I do, Charlotte. I’m just not sure I’m ready to get married. Our relationship kind of knocked me off my feet. We moved so fast.”
“We didn’t move fast, Tim, you moved fast. Like I was one of your racetracks to conquer.”
“That’s not fair. I moved fast because I fell in love with you.”
“Then what’s changed?”
Tim stood and paced toward the living room. “I’m not sure. I wonder if either of us really wants to get married. We haven’t done anything to get this wedding together. You don’t have a dress. I didn’t put the deposit down on Avondale.”
Charlotte stared at the ring waiting on the table. “So what now?”
“Postpone? Wait.” He gazed at the ring. “Put that back on. We’re still engaged.”
“Is there someone else?” Charlotte swallowed the fresh rise of tears, staring at her folded fingers in her lap. She made no movement for the ring.
“If there was, would I ask you to put the ring back on? There’s no one else except maybe me. My own selfishness. I thought I was ready, but—”
“You’re thirty-two, Tim. You’re a successful Birmingham architect. If you’re not ready, then maybe I’m not the right woman.” The sharp accuracy of her own words pierced her heart.
“Am I the right man? Why have you been dragging your feet? Don’t brides rush out to buy a gown the moment they get the ring? You own a bridal shop. You have access to the newest, best gowns in the world. But—” He paused to assess her with a tender glance. “Tell me you don’t feel like something is out of step with us.”
“I guess . . . yeah, maybe.” A rebel tear slid down her cheek. “I just thought we were busy, but we’d get around to our wedding. I guess if you were really into me, and marrying me, there’d be no way you’d forget our wedding and honeymoon for a chance to go racing with the boys.” Sniffing, she caught a second tear with the back of her hand. “I don’t know much about your gender, being raised by Mama and Gert, but I do know this from working at wedding shops since high school: a man will do anything for the woman he loves and is going to marry. Shop on Super Bowl Sunday. Try on ten tuxes even though the first one was just fine. Desert his friends and hobbies, even move across the country. All for love.” Charlotte picked up the ring and met Tim in the living room. She pressed it into his palm. “If we’re not getting married on June 23, then what’s the point of pretending?”
“Charlotte, we’re not pretending, we’re waiting.”
“For what, Tim? For it to feel right? Suddenly? It felt right when you proposed the first time. You can’t cancel a wedding but keep the engagement.” She’d learned that, too, from working with brides and grooms over the past twelve years. First in the bridal shops of others, then her own. Once the wedding is postponed . . . “If we’re not getting married, then we’re not engaged.”
“I don’t want to lose you.” Tim regarded the ring, slipping it over his pinky to the first knuckle, then reached for Charlotte, pulling her to him. “You swept me off my feet when we first met.”
“Sometimes we don’t know what we want until we get it. Then”—Charlotte jerked with the first sob—“it becomes complicated and . . . the brides . . . the dresses . . . the details . . .” Charlotte gave up, tucked her elbows into her ribs and, still leaning against Tim’s firm form and sweat-soaked t-shirt, she wept.
She’d sensed this coming, a shift, a change. This was what drove her to the ridge Saturday morning. The feeling of is this really what I want? It had been coming—if not from Tim, then from herself. But oh, how she hated endings. How she hated good-byes.
Tim stroked her hair, not saying a word, clearing his throat, throttling the rumble in his chest.
“I’m sorry, Char.” He cradled and caressed her, rocking slowly side to side, his own tears catching on his whispers. “Shh, it’ll be all right.”
She wrapped her arms around him and molded against him, his tenderness throttling her sorrow. He might be breaking up with her, but at the moment, he was her best friend, her quiet strength.
When she stepped out of his arms, wiping her face, she kept her shoulder toward him and faced the hall toward her room. “It’s easier if you just go, Tim.”
Thank goodness they’d held to their convictions and not slept together. How much more difficult this would’ve been. How cold his side of the bed would’ve been tonight. “You won’t mind seeing yourself out.”
“Charlotte?”
“Bye, Tim.” In her room Charlotte shut the door and dove onto her bed, burying her head under the pillows, her chest swelling with a ravenous storm of sobs. She’d survived Mama’s death. She’d survived being raised by grumpy, yet kind ole Gert. She’d survived celebrating Christmases and birthdays alone. How could she not survive this petty little thing? A broken engagement? Oh, she’d survive tonight, all right. Surely she would. As long as she didn’t hear the click of the door closing behind Tim as he left.
Chapter Six
Emily
In the flickering gaslight Emily poured the letters from the cedar box onto her bed. There were dozens of them, all addressed in Daniel’s smooth, even script.
Why would Father hide them from her? It was so unlike him. Emily sorted the letters by postmark, from April to August, counting forty in all.
Her engagement ring caught on her bedcover as she crawled to the center and propped against her pillows.
Phillip’s ring on her left hand, so rich and exquisite, paled for a moment in comparison to the pile of letters in her right. Words and thoughts from Daniel’s heart, written in his own hand, seemed more rare than any stone carved from coal.
Emily batted the sleep from her eyes and the weariness from her heart. Such a day. The suffragette meeting, then seeing Phillip in the city, sitting his carriage, warmed by his amorous kisses.
Then running home and into Daniel. Oh, dear Daniel. The memory of his touch made Emily’s pulse throb in her veins.
And Phillip’s proposal. Tonight of all nights. She’d expected it soon, maybe at the Woodward end-of-summer lawn party on Labor Day weekend.
Emily sank into her pillows and closed her eyes. She had half a mind to march down the hall to Father and Mother’s door and demand Father’s reason for keeping Daniel from her.
But she knew better. Father never responded to temper tantrums, especially at one thirty in the morning. He’d only tell her to behave herself, go to bed, and be ready to apologize in the morning, and if he felt the need, he might discuss the issue.
Why concern herself with Father now? She had Daniel’s letters. Emily roused herself and took the first letter from the pile. She filed the remainder in the box.
April 16, 1912
Dearest Emily,
It’s late and I need to get some shut-eye, but I couldn’t go to sleep without writing you.
&nbs
p; I said prayers for you, and me, tonight. I’ve only been gone a few days, but I’ve been thinking a lot about you and any future we may have together should the good Lord so smile on me.
Believe me when I say I have you on my mind every day, even though I’m playing ball and seeming to have a good time with the fellas. I miss you terribly, Em.
Playing ball is a lot of work for a few bucks, if you can imagine. Ole Moley works us hard. If we’re not playing, we’re practicing. He’s called for an early practice in the morning before we travel.
Guess I can’t blame the guy. Scully pitched a no-hitter against the Atlanta Crackers tonight. Moley said we must keep the winning fires stoked.
We sleep in run-down motels and even on the ball fields. It rained a week straight and we had to sleep in the jitney. Moley found a nice lady to rent us a room for a hot bath after we’d only washed in a pail for ten days. Don’t have to tell you how ripe we all smelt.
What other news can I share? Sure wish I could hear from you so I could talk about your world a bit. Milton’s girlfriend wrote that she was engaged to another man. Poor worm. He moped around pretty good until we got to the ballpark and several pretties were waiting at the ticket booth. He forgot his old gal right quick.
But don’t worry, Emily, my eyes are only for you. Say, when you write me, can you send along a new photograph? The one I had of you was destroyed when the jitney sank in a mud hole up to the chassis and we had to dig the old girl out. The roads in Tennessee aren’t as good as the slag roads in Birmingham.
But you already know that, since your father financed the limestone mine that makes the slag.
My birthday was yesterday. Did you remember? I hope you sent me a birthday greeting on the wind. I craved my mama’s cake. I remember the last one she made for my sixteenth birthday, right before she died.
I’d say more if I knew what you were doing these days. Say hello to the folks there for me.
Remember the first night we met in the campus library? My buddies were cutting up, not paying any mind to the rules, talking mischief. You shot fire at us with your dark eyes. I said to my roommate as we walked back to our dorm, “I’m going to marry that girl.” I meant it. I’ll spend all my life making you happy. If you want me.
One final note, some of the boys and I attended church on Sunday. The preacher was a bit heavy on the hellfire and brimstone, but it got to Scully. He ran down to the altar when the call was made. For me, I just remembered why I love Him. And you.
All my love and affection,
Daniel
Emily folded the letter back into the envelope, not sure what or how to feel. Schoolboy folderol, most of it. Spend his life making her happy. Goodness. What a childish declaration. Daniel should know better since he’s a grown man.
Stuffing the letter back in the box, Emily slammed the lid shut, her engagement ring pinging against the wood, and shoved the box under her bed, way back, against the wall.
She was engaged. Why, she was practically stepping out on her intended, reading another man’s love letters. How could she be so untrue to Phillip mere hours after accepting his ring?
Emily readied for bed, then sank to her knees, where she said her prayers every night. But instead of closing her eyes, she reached under the mattress for the leather diary where she poured out her heart to Daniel when he first left with the Barons.
April 30, 1912
Dear Daniel,
I think of you, wondering where you are, praying you are well and safe. I wish you’d write to me. I miss you terribly. Who can make me laugh when I’m feeling blue? Father tries, but I’m immune to his old stories now. They only tickle Mother’s funny bone.
Yesterday, Mother and I shopped downtown, then came home to work the garden with Molly. It was a glorious day and brought to mind our walks on the campus quad.
Emily slammed the diary closed. The rest of the entry was merely pouring out her heart to herself, trying to make sense of her feelings. When Daniel left she knew she loved him, but in the passing weeks, she’d started to doubt.
Perhaps it was divine that he departed, choosing baseball over her. Phillip called on her a few weeks later and invited her to attend the Black and White Ball.
The invitation seemed more than fortuitous. It appeared divine, indeed.
Shoving her book back to its hiding place, Emily burrowed under her coverlet and sank deep into the feathery mattress, stretching her legs against the clean sheets.
A spark of ire toward Father made her bolt up in bed. Emily shoved her hair away from her face and hammered the quilt with her fist. How different this night might be if she had received Daniel’s letters. She plopped back down into her pillows and reached for the bedside lamp. Darkness rose in the room as the light faded.
She was engaged. And she’d be true to Phillip with her word and her heart.
Charlotte
Charlotte balanced Starbucks lattes in her hand along with a bag of pastries as she unlocked the shop’s back door, crossing through the old utility room to the kitchen. She set breakfast on the kitchenette table, shook her arm awake, and went back to her blue Cabrio for the box of unused invitations.
“Dix?” It was five minutes ’til opening, and the lights were on and the music played. Bach this morning and his sweet tones fitting for violins. “Dixie? I brought coffee. And food.”
Charlotte angled into the shop, listening for the thunder of her friend’s footsteps. But silence answered. Hmm, she must be upstairs.
Back in the kitchen, Charlotte dropped the invitations to the kitchen floor and reached for her latte. She had plans for those invites. Dumpster plans. But first, her breakfast.
She had a new lease on life. Yes, she did. Starting over could be good, a chance to shake things up, get focused. Maybe attend a bridal show in New York or L.A. Even better? Paris. She’d planned on a Paris trip this year until Tim swept her off her feet.
Bray-Lindsay had extended her a standing invitation and she had yet to accept.
After Tim left and Charlotte wept her soul raw, she’d managed a midnight call to Dixie, begging her to open the shop in the morning even though it was her day to come in late. “I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll sleep in.”
But Charlotte didn’t sleep much.
“Dixie, hey, where are you?” Charlotte walked toward the sales counter, checking the stairs and second-floor landing. The cash register was up and ready. But locked. Good. “Are you upstairs?” Charlotte stooped by the main display gown to perfect the flow of the chapel train.
“Charlotte, you’re here.” Dixie came around the corner, from the direction of the reveal salon. She grabbed Charlotte’s hand and pulled her along. “Close your eyes.”
“And run into the wall? No thanks. What’s going on? I brought lattes and pastries.”
“Okay, great, but first, close your eyes.”
Charlotte skidded along with Dixie, her knees trembling. The high-octane adrenaline of “taking her life back” that fueled her morning shower and Starbucks drive-through was evaporating. And the depleting fumes of hope, of tomorrow being another day, ran thin. She’d fooled herself into believing this was a fresh new day. Forget Tim Rose. Tim who?
No, today gripped her heart with a hard, sad fist. It’s over. Love done gone. “Dix, really, I’m not in the mood.” She paused at the reveal salon door. “Whatever you’re up to, I’m not doing it.”
Though Charlotte crawled out of bed early, turned on a low lamp, filled a tumbler with Diet Coke, and read John 15.
Apart from me, you can do nothing.
She could do anything if she believed.
“You’re going to love this,” Dixie said. “You know how you introduced Kristin to her dress. Well, after five years of standing under your genius shadow, your fairy dust fell on me, and I’ve found the perfect gown for you.”
“No, Dix, really, I can’t.”
“You promised me. This week. And I put a call into that man of yours and left a message I’d
be there at his office around three with a half-dozen tuxes for him and David to try. Ha! You have to get up pretty early to keep ole Dixie down. Hey, was that a song? Anyway, there’s more than one way to tux a groom and I found it.” Dixie backed through the salon door, shoving it open, pulling Charlotte with her. “Keep those baby blues closed, Charlotte.”
No, no, no. “Dixie, wait, listen to me—”
“Stop protesting. Hold on, let me get you into position.” Dixie shifted Charlotte a little to the right, squaring her shoulders. “Open your eyes.” Dixie swooped in front of her, arms high and wide. “Ta-da.”
On the reveal stage was a simple satin gown with an Italian-lace band at the waist, trimmed in pearls. The elbow-length sleeves touched the top of long white gloves. Tulle and crinoline held out the Cinderella skirt that swept into a shimmering cathedral train.
“Oh, Dixie, it is beautiful.” Charlotte battled tears for a second, then gave up. The lights danced over the pristine satin and caught the incandescence of the pearls. If she were getting married, indeed Dixie had found Charlotte’s dress.
“I know June isn’t a month for gloves, but I thought they completed the look. Do you like it, really? Cap sleeves aren’t in style, per se, but this dress just speaks to me. Does it you? I tell you, I don’t know how you reach into a woman’s heart and pull out the perfect gown for her. But you do. I know you better than I know anyone other than Dr. Hotstuff, but I struggled to project your essence into this gown. Well?” Dixie exhaled, eyes wide.
“I told you, my gift is from God.” Charlotte’s voice broke, but she recovered as Dixie stepped toward her.
