The Wedding Dress

by Rachel Hauck

  “I sewed it with gold thread.”

  “Gold?” Emily examined the hem of the fitted lace sleeve. “What on earth? Real gold?”

  “I get it here and there. I save it from some piecework I do. Things can be had in this city, even to a colored, if she wants it and knows how to get it. Sometimes I just ask the Lord to bring me what I need.”

  “What did you ask Him for while sewing my dress, Taffy?”

  “To bring you what you need.” Taffy patted Emily’s leg. “Turn so I can keep pinning.” She bent away again, coughing, her chest rattling.

  “You should see a doctor.” Emily stepped around so Taffy could finish the hem.

  “White girls see doctors. Old colored ladies kneel and pray.”

  Emily gazed down at her. “I wish I had your faith and courage.”

  “That’s what I’ve been praying for you to have, Miss Emily. Courage and faith.”

  Emily peered over her shoulder into the mirror. The back of the gown scooped down her shoulders. The skirt fitted smoothly to her hips and flowed like milk over the stool to a chapel train. She felt as if she could float in this gown. She never wanted to take it off.

  “Courage and faith, you say?” Emily gave her attention to Taffy. She’d need both, no doubt, to marry Phillip, the stubborn man. She’d realized since their engagement it would be no small task to bear the Saltonstall name. Women like Emmeline didn’t care a wit about marital vows. They’d always bat their eyes and shove their bosoms at men like Phillip. “. . . He’s too much about himself, too stupid, not to be flattered.”

  “Come again, Miss Emily?”

  Her cheeks burned. “Just talking to myself.”

  Taffy grinned and plucked another straight pin from her lips. “I talk to myself all day long ’round here.”

  “Taffy, why do you think I’ll need courage and faith?”

  “Because . . .” The woman exhaled as she pinned the last length of hem. She stood to her full height and gazed into Emily’s eyes. “You’ll need it to marry the right man.”

  Soft pockets of mud sloshed over Emily’s shoes and dotted the hem of her skirt as she cut through the neighbor’s yard toward her own kitchen door. Big Mike had dropped her off at Taffy’s but he couldn’t stay. Father had a list of chores for him to attend so she rode the trolley home.

  “Aye, there you are, miss.” Molly pushed through the kitchen door, her brow arched. “The missus has been looking for you. Decide to take a romp in the mud, did you?”

  “I walked from the trolley.” Emily started for the back stairs. “Where’s Mother? Can you launder this before she sees it?” Emily unhooked her skirt and stepped out, stepping around the pantry door in case Father’s man, Jefferson, walked in while she was in her bloomers.

  “Leave it in your dressing room. I’ll come for it.” Molly dropped a mound of bread dough onto the work table. “And just where were you this afternoon?”

  Emily blushed under Molly’s quizzical stare. The woman knew her better than some of her school friends. “I went to Taffy’s. She sent word the dress was ready for hemming.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her to come here? You know how your people feel about you going to the colored neighborhood.”

  “She wasn’t feeling well.” Emily walked over to the worktable. “Besides, I had to make sure Taffy made a wedding dress, not an evening gown as Mother insisted. I’m going to figure out a way to wear Taffy’s gown at my wedding, Molly. You watch. When I tried it on today, I actually felt . . . loved.”

  “Loved?” Molly made a face. “Are you not loved, miss?”

  “Mind your tone, Molly.” Since Charlotte’s confrontation with Phillip over her first visit to Taffy’s four weeks ago, he’d become the most attentive and affectionate fiancé. His passions were tempered and controlled, as if he remembered whose lips he kissed. His future wife’s. Not a subservient mistress who served to quell his lusts. “I’m loved, certainly. It’s just that the dress makes me feel . . . so good. So clean.” Emily struggled to find words to match her feelings.

  “Ah, the kind of feeling I get at church when the Spirit moves.”

  “What does the Spirit do when He moves?” Emily stood by the kitchen stairs, eyes fixed on Molly. She’d heard of signs and wonders in some of the churches. Her minister passed it off as emotionalism. But Molly was a steady girl, not given to demonstration.

  “What does He do? Whatever He wants, miss. Do you know how you sometimes have to take all the linens out of the drawer to get it straight and orderly again? The Spirit sometimes does the same with our sins.”

  “Put all your sins on display?” How horrifying. Emily shivered from the idea. And from the cool evening air seeping into the kitchen from the window Molly kept cracked open.

  “Only to you. Not everybody. But a person might weep. Or shake. Or blubber for forgiveness. Then in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, the Spirit has righted things and the person is back in business, all clean and orderly inside. Joyful.”

  Did Emily feel clean and orderly inside? Joyful? “Don’t tell Mother I went to Taffy’s.” When was the last time she laughed? Really laughed. It was with Daniel that time he—

  “What if Mr. Phillip’s people saw you again?”

  “I was careful.” Emily had counted the cost, but now that she was home, cold shivers wrapped around her torso. “He’ll just have to understand. I needed the dress fitted and hemmed.”

  “Emily, are you in here?” Mother emerged from the other side of the kitchen door. “Mercy, you’re in your bloomers. What have you done to your skirt?”

  “Mud, Mother, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “Certainly not. But why is your skirt covered with it?”

  “It’s been raining . . . the streets are muddy.” Emily dashed up the stairs with a backward glance at Molly before Mother could probe further.

  “Would you like some cake, Mrs. Canton?” she heard Molly say. “The last piece of chocolate is under the tin.”

  Oh, thank you, Molly. Mother would do just about anything for chocolate cake. Especially yours.

  Emily washed and changed, her thoughts wandering to a thick slice of jellied bread, when she heard the front bell chime. She peered out her window. A police wagon waited in the circular drive. Father? Or . . . Big Mike? Mother was right, she was going to get someone hurt by going to the coloreds’ district.

  Emily hurried from her room and down the stairs.

  “Good evening, we’re sorry to disturb you.” Somber male voices swept through the foyer.

  “Officers.” Jefferson held the door open for them. “How may I assist you?”

  Emily stepped off the bottom stair into the foyer. “Is everything all right?” She gazed from one officer to the next. “It’s not my father, is it? Or Big Mike?”

  “No, ma’am.” The officers exchanged a joyless glance. “We’re here to see you.”

  “What’s all this?” Mother came out from the kitchen. “Officers, please, won’t you come in? Can I offer you tea or coffee? Mr. Canton isn’t home but we do expect him soon.”

  “Ma’am.” The tall one with serious blue eyes removed his cap. “We’re here on official business.”

  “What sort of official business?” Mother faced them, hands grasped at her waist.

  “We have a warrant for the arrest of Miss Emily Canton.”

  Emily froze, her heart careening to a stop. “Me?” The word exhaled on a thin, weak breath.

  “Arrest my daughter? On what charge?” Mother stepped in between Emily and the officers. Emily collapsed to the step with a thud. Jefferson pressed his hand against her back, kneeling on the step beside her.

  “Violation of the law, ma’am. She was seen down at the Gaston Hotel this afternoon. The charge is fraternizing with the coloreds, threatening to stir up insurrection.”

  “Insurrection.” Mother stomped her well-heeled foot. “Taffy Hayes is my seamstress. Are you saying we can’t do business with my seamstress because she’s
colored?”

  “Not when it’s believed trouble’s brewing. There are some who want to remind us whites and coloreds are separate but equal.”

  “So they make a spectacle of my daughter?” Mother’s words fired like a Fourth-of-July canon.

  Emily clung to Jefferson as the tall, leading officer produced a warrant. She tried to read the document but the words simply swam. Mother snatched it from the officer.

  “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”

  “Miss, you’ll have to come with us.” The officer reached for Emily but Jefferson held on. Don’t let me go, Jefferson.

  The officer apologized with his eyes as he wrenched Emily from his grasp. “Mother?”

  “This is an outrage.” Mother followed them down the porch stairs. “Jefferson, telephone Mr. Canton’s office. Now.”

  Emily tripped toward the wagon, her legs out of her command, the toes of her shoes dragging along the pavement, her thoughts like dead leaves in the fall wind.

  Mother ran alongside. “Now you listen to me.” She gripped Emily’s face in her hands. “You are a Canton with Woodward blood. Be strong and courageous.” Mother’s eyes glowed with anger at the officers. “I’m sure these men will treat you as the lady you are. I’m right behind you. Jefferson will drive me in the car.”

  “Oh, Mother.” Emily collapsed against the officer, going limp as he steered her into the wagon. “I just wanted a wedding gown that made me feel free, and loved. Beautiful. Like a princess.”

  “Emily, be strong.” Mother raised her up straight, shaking her shoulders. “This will be over by dinner.”

  The officer helped Emily into the backseat of the wagon. When the driver chirruped to the horses, Emily’s hot tears burned a trail from her eyes to her chin, dropping like hot coals to her icy hands.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Charlotte

  The waiting room needed more light. Why did architects insist that grieving, scared, nervous people sit in the dark? Charlotte walked to the window overlooking the city, grateful for the lingering sunlight claiming the early evening hours.

  She arrived at the hospital the same time as Mr. and Mrs. Rose and Katherine. While they talked with the doctor, she stood by the chairs, waiting. The brothers, David, Jack, and Chase, were on their way, bringing their bikes home from Huntsville.

  Tim was wheeled into surgery, and in a punctuated silence, Charlotte waited with the family for more news, making small talk, trying to piece together details from David’s scattered, anguished call.

  Hit a double. Came down wrong. Landed on another bike. Tim’s bike went airborne and landed on him. He was pinned between the two in a painful heap.

  The news made Charlotte crazy. Why did grown men behave as if they were invincible boys? Mrs. Rose, who had lived though many accidents with her sons, patted Charlotte’s arm.

  “Tim will be fine.”

  But this was new to Charlotte. Deadly sports and men who loved them. She’d just told him to be safe.

  Around six the brothers arrived, still in their dusty racing gear. Around seven Tim was moved to a room. As soon as the doctor gave permission, the Roses flooded down the hall to see him.

  Katherine held back for a moment. “I’m sorry about you and Tim, Charlotte.”

  “It’s old news, Katherine. If you were sorry, you’d have called me weeks ago.” She wasn’t in the mood for games.

  Her almost sister-in-law started to speak, then hesitated. “I want him to be happy.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Charlotte continued to wait. The family had dibs on Tim first. Not the ex-fiancée. She wouldn’t be comfortable with them anyway.

  Watching them pile into Tim’s room, Charlotte ran her thumb over her bare ring finger. Family. She wasn’t sure she’d ever known what that felt like.

  With Mama it was “us girls” or “us two.” For birthdays. For Christmas. For Thanksgiving. When Mama died, Charlotte was the only relative listed in the obituary.

  Moving to the window, she rested her forehead against the sun-warmed glass and exhaled her pent up emotions. Please, Jesus, be with Tim.

  “Charlotte, hey—” She looked up as Jared approached, dressed in his blue scrubs and white coat. “Dix said don’t worry about the shop. She’s got it.”

  “What’s the word on Tim?” Charlotte sank her hands into his. They were smooth and strong. Healing.

  “Good for a man who landed on top of a bike, then had his five-hundred-pound bike land on him.” Jared squeezed her fingers. “He’s bruised and banged up. Had his spleen removed, and we have a tube in his chest to help reinflate his left lung. We’ll keep him a few days. He’s lucky he’s alive. If he’d landed an inch or two higher on his neck, he’d be paralyzed or dead.”

  He’s lucky to be alive. The confession swirled in Charlotte’s head. What would she do without Tim? Friend Tim. She loved and needed him. She depended on him in a way she didn’t realize until now.

  Jared drew her into a hug. “We’re here for you.”

  Charlotte exhaled, releasing some of her burden on him, Dixie’s Dr. Hotstuff. If she had a brother, she’d want it to be like this.

  “Charlotte?” Jack came from Tim’s room. His face was ringed in dirt. His tone, somber. “Tim’s asking for you.”

  “Oh?” She gazed around Jared, down the hall.

  “I’ll be back later.” Jared turned to go, and for a blip of a second Charlotte wanted to cling to his brotherly warmth. “I need to check on a few other patients.”

  “Thanks, doc.” Jack watched him go, then looked at Charlotte. “Tim couldn’t care less about the rest of us. Just keeps asking about you. He’s in and out, so . . .” Jack motioned for her to follow him.

  When Charlotte entered, the family exited, each one giving her a light embrace. “Darling, come by for dinner if you can.” Mrs. Rose, always the matriarch, smoothed her hand over Charlotte’s hair, like she’d done numerous times when she was in Tim’s life. “We’re going to be at the house.”

  “Thank you.” But no. Charlotte stepped aside for Katherine to pass.

  Tim’s room was quiet, lit with a soft lamp attached to the wall behind the bed. His window framed the last hurrah of the sunset. Charlotte leaned in to say “I’m here,” but he was sleeping.

  Slowly, she sank to the chair by his bed. “Crazy boy, almost got yourself killed.”

  Hooked to tubes and machines, he appeared peaceful in his sleep, a sweetness to his bruised, handsome face.

  Hideous dark blue and black marks ringed his neck and ran down his right arm, straight through the cast and out the end to his fingertips.

  “Oh, Tim, you have to be all right.” Charlotte rested her forehead against the edge of the bed and whispered, “What would I do without you?”

  A soft touch on her head sent chills down her arm. Gently, Tim stroked her hair. “Tim . . .” she lifted her head.

  “I’m sorry.” Tim swept his thumb over her wet cheeks, his voice a whisper, breathless.

  “Sorry? For what? Being you? You don’t owe me—”

  “For thinking there was anything in this world I loved more than you.” His words ebbed and flowed with his strength.

  Charlotte pressed her lips against his palm. “Just don’t die on me. If you do, I’ll be mad.”

  He smiled, then winced. “Everything hurts. Even the tips of my hair.”

  Charlotte rose up and leaned against the side of his bed. “Sleep, rest, tell your lung to get back in shape.”

  “Banged myself up pretty good, didn’t I?” Tim bent his not-so-banged-up arm until his fingers touched his lips.

  “What? Do you need something? Water?”

  “Kiss.”

  “A kiss?” Charlotte brushed his sweaty, matted hair from his forehead.

  “Makes the wounds feel better, right?”

  “I can’t deny a wounded man, can I?” Charlotte stretched to kiss the side of his mouth. His eyes closed and his warm breath brushed her fa
ce. She slid her lips over his with another light kiss. Tim wrapped his good arm behind her back.

  Charlotte lifted her head, and when their eyes met, she kissed him again, her light touch tasting his passion.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” his lips whispered against hers.

  “Lord help me, but I love you too.” Gently, she stroked her fingers over his forehead. It was the one place where he wasn’t bruised. “I don’t want to, but I do.”

  He slipped his fingers though the ends of her hair. “When I came to after the crash, all I could think about was you. I didn’t know where I was, and for a few minutes, who I was, but I knew there was you.”

  “Good friends are hard to find, you know.” She smoothed her hand down his chest between the tapes and the tubes.

  “I have good friends. But a woman I love who’s also the hottest thing I’ve ever seen and happens to be my best friend too—that’s darn near impossible to find. Charlotte—” He seemed awake now, peering at her, his voice unwavering.

  Behind them, the door swung open. “Goodness, Tim, I got here as fast as I could.”

  Charlotte jumped back as Kim, the blonde from the restaurant, barged across the room.

  “Katherine called hours ago, but I was in a commercial shoot. Oh, darling, are you all right?” She walked around the side of the bed and kissed him full on the lips.

  The lips where Charlotte’s had just been.

  “Kim.” Tim winced, tipping his head away from her. “This is Charlotte Malone.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Kim offered her hand, then set her handbag on the nightstand and slung her sleek, gorgeous hair over her shoulder. She bent her sculpted face over his and leaned close with her taut, perfect body. “I canceled our dinner reservations, babe. George and the gang send their love.”

  Charlotte stumbled over her chair as she backed away from the bed.

  Kim looked up, frowning. “Goodness, are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” Charlotte contracted her ribs, holding the roiling emotions in her belly. If she let loose, she didn’t know what would come out of her. “I’ll see you, Tim.”