But before I had a chance to die, strong hands reached beneath my arms, dragging me up and pushing me toward the surface until my head popped above the water. I gagged mercilessly, coughing as my rescuer pulled me toward the shore. When he deposited me safely on the rocky bank, shivering and breathing hard, I looked into his dripping face and saw a pair of pale blue eyes watching me.
“Are you all right?” he asked as sodden dark hair clung to his skull.
Sniffling, I dragged a soggy sleeve beneath my runny nose and nodded, gaze downcast, gagging a little still and feeling the fool.
“You need to see a doctor or anything?”
“No,” I croaked and wrapped my arms around my knees, hardly able to look at him as the shocking image I’d seen flashed in my mind’s eye again. The dress had caused this, I realized. There was something truly odd about it, something unnatural. When Anna had worn it the night before, had she glimpsed herself with someone other than Davis? Is that what had made her do what she’d done?
The dress showed me everything so clearly. How could I ignore my destiny?
What if the Gypsy hadn’t been lying when she’d told Anna that the dress would make happen what was meant to be?
“I’m sorry if I caused you to fall,” the young man said, as I remained quiet on the outside while, inside, my mind ran rampant. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but you were pretty close to the bank and those rocks are slick, especially when you’re wearing impractical shoes.”
Under normal circumstances, I might’ve argued that my ballet flats were completely practical, but this didn’t seem the time to do it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I assured him and gazed down at my feet, surprised I hadn’t lost my shoes to the river. Their soft pink had turned dingy, and they squished when I pushed the soles against the ground.
“You saved my life,” I said, because I surely would’ve drowned without him there and then Mother and Daddy would be arranging for my funeral at the same time they attempted to return all of Anna’s wedding gifts. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugged as he wrung out the front of his T-shirt, twisting it in his hands. Then he stopped what he was doing and faced me. “Shoot, I’m forgetting my manners, aren’t I?” He rubbed a damp hand on soggy pants before extending it. “My name’s Jonathan Ashton, though everyone calls me Jon. I hope it’s not too forward of me to say that you’re the prettiest fish I’ve caught all morning.”
“I’m Evie Evans,” I said softly and reached out, only to see my thin hand engulfed in his calloused palm. I felt a brilliant warmth press through me, and I blushed despite how cold and wet I was. “And I’m about as pretty as a drowned rat,” I remarked as I withdrew my hand and tucked my arms around myself again.
“Oh, no, I’ve seen drowned rats, and you’re heads above them, really,” he teased and brushed dripping hair from his brow.
He had a very nice face with even features that bordered on handsome and a ruddy, sun-kissed complexion. Usually I was shy with strange boys—Daddy liked to say I was a very accomplished wallflower—but I wasn’t afraid of Jonathan. I had the odd sense that I knew him already, that I could trust him implicitly.
“If it’s not too nosy of me, what were you throwing out?” he asked and offered a hand to draw me up.
“Bad luck,” I told him.
Only Jon disagreed. Once he drew me to my feet, he spotted the black dress, washed onto the rocks by the current. Before I could protest, he began picking his way down the bank toward it.
“Leave it!” I implored him because I wanted him to toss it back, not retrieve it.
“It’s cursed,” I said without thinking how silly that sounded.
Jon smiled and shook his head. He walked toward me, wringing it out. “I’d say it’s just the opposite, Miss Evans, seeing as how this dress is why we met. Without it, our paths never would have crossed, now would they?”
Although I tried, there wasn’t anything I could do to make him change his mind. Jon even took the dress home and had his mother carefully launder it. The next day, he brought it to the house with a bouquet of tulips and asked me if I’d please consider wearing it out to dinner with him, if I would be so kind as to grant him my company on Friday night of the next week.
With my stomach still in knots over Anna’s disappearance, I realized I should politely decline. It would be very bad form, wouldn’t it? How could I go on a date with a man I’d just met—through quite an odd circumstance—when my family was going through such gut-wrenching turmoil?
Only much as I tried to form the words “I’m sorry, but no,” I couldn’t do it. Even with the dress bundled carefully within a layer of tissue, as I held it, I could sense its energy washing through my skin. Though it seemed illogical to say so, I knew the dress wanted me to go. And, to be honest, so did I.
In the end, I told him, “All right, yes, I’ll have dinner with you. If you’ll please call me Evie,” and the prickling sensation ceased.
“How about I pick you up at seven o’clock, Evie?” he suggested, and I told him seven o’clock would do very well.
I didn’t dare tell Mother and Daddy about Jonathan and the unusual way that we’d met, although I did let it slip that I was soon going out to supper with a new acquaintance, “To help get my mind off Anna.” And that much was true.
Not surprisingly, they appeared to only half-listen. They were too busy fretting over the destruction left in my sister’s wake to worry about what I was doing. They’d begun to fight about Anna in front of me, once at the breakfast table where my mother had burst into tears.
“It’s your fault!” she had accused my father. “You drove her off!”
Daddy had turned red down to his collar. “The girl is vain and self-absorbed, do you blame me for that, too?”
Sadly, I’d noticed they’d started sleeping in separate rooms. It was no wonder when I was home, I’d begun hiding out in mine, the door closed and my record player on to drown out their voices.
The only time I could escape was when I left the house to teach, so I was honestly glad when the evening of my date with Jonathan rolled around.
As I prepared for our dinner, I debated whether or not to actually don the black dress, as he’d requested. Not only was I wary because of its unnatural qualities, but I was sure it wouldn’t fit, considering how snugly it had hugged Anna’s petite though shapely frame. Since I was taller than my sister by a fist, not to mention lanky and angular as a boy, I expected it to fall far short of my knees and hang like a deflated tent.
But Jon wanted me in it, and I was curious. So I took the chance and slipped the dress over my head, tugging it down past my hips.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” I murmured as I glimpsed myself in the bureau mirror. It suited me beautifully. My body looked fit yet feminine beneath the black silk, and the garment glinted flirtatiously beneath the light as it had when Anna had worn it.
I watched out the window for Jonathan’s truck and was at the front door before he could ring the bell. Instead of inviting him in, I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.
“You look nice,” I told him, as he’d dressed in a pressed white shirt and creased trousers, his boots buffed to a warm shine. His eyes widened at the sight of me, so I did a little twirl with a curtsy at the end. “Do you like it?” I asked.
“Do I like it?” he repeated and let out a low whistle. “My, oh, my, you clean up awfully well,” he said with the most satisfied smile on his lips. He could hardly take his eyes off me to drive his pickup into Ste. Genevieve for supper.
As we rode, Jon chatted with me, telling me about his job as a barge and boat mechanic, how much he liked to fix things, and how he had started taking apart toasters and radios and putting them back together before he could read. I listened and remarked in all the right places. I wanted to believe that it was me and not the dress that emboldened me. I had a renewed confidence, like every move I made and every word I spoke had a purpose.
/> But there was more to it than that, an energy I couldn’t define that made me laugh more easily and smile more often. Normally, I was not inclined to get affectionate with a man I barely knew—not that I’d had a lot of opportunity—but I found myself replying, “Yes, you may,” when Jon asked if he might kiss me good night. With a confidence rarely felt, I reached for his shoulders to hold him closer, and I shut my eyes as his lips touched mine.
Another vibration rocked my senses, and I saw a second vision: Jonathan held both my hands in his as we stood before a man with an open Bible, and we pledged to love and honor each other until death did us part.
The image was real enough to unsettle me, and I pulled apart from him, my eyes wide and pulse rapid. If my heart had jumped out of my chest at that moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I have to go,” I said, my cheeks hot. I ducked my head, afraid to look at him.
“You felt it, too, didn’t you?” He caught my arms, not letting me go, and I finally peeled my gaze off my shoes to see that he was startled by what had passed between us, too. “There’s something very different about you, Evie, something about us. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there just the same.”
I stood there like a mute, blinking at him, unable to put to words what I’d just seen. How could I tell him it was the black dress and its voodoo, playing tricks on our minds? What if the Gypsy hadn’t lied and the dress could show destiny? Had I just put some kind of spell on him? Or did he truly find me so special?
“Whatever’s going on, I like it,” he whispered and leaned his brow against my hair. “I could stand right here and hold you all night. You smell so good, so soft and sweet,” he said, and I wanted to tell him I wasn’t wearing cologne. It made me sneeze. Then I realized what he meant because I could smell it, too, emanating from the silk of the dress.
It was lily of the valley, my sister’s scent.
But how was that possible when the dress had been carefully cleaned and submerged in the muddy river before that? Somehow, it remembered Anna, as if it still claimed a part of her; and now it had claimed me as well.
“I fished you out of the drink, and you’ve gone and got me hooked,” Jon said, his voice low and tremulous.
His words made me shiver and set my heart to pounding in a way it never had before. I felt that odd warmth again, the tingling where the dress touched my skin, and I knew deep down in that instant that Jon and I would be together forever. Maybe Anna hadn’t exaggerated about the dress and its mysterious effect. Perhaps there was something magical about it; although, if anything, that made me distrust it even more. What if the next thing it showed me wasn’t good at all but horrifying?
When I finally said good night and went inside, I headed straight for my room and peeled off the dress. I packed it away in an old flowered hatbox and stowed it on my closet shelf, hoping it would stop whatever it was doing and leave well enough alone.
But the dress had other plans, of course.
Chapter 10
Toni
Toni ended up running back and forth to the hospital the better part of Saturday. She stayed with her mother for ten-minute intervals—longer if the ICU nurses would allow it—sometimes sitting quietly and holding Evie’s hand but more often regaling her comatose mom with snarky monologues about the Dimplemans’ elaborate anniversary party, a Town & Country debutante’s posh coming out, or a particularly demanding bridezilla. When she took a break, she hit the cafeteria for coffee and returned endless calls from Vivien, anxious mothers-of-the-bride, and myriad vendors for upcoming events. She also responded to the chronic texts from Greg asking for updates on her mother, whether or not she was moving in with him, and when she was coming home.
Evie’s still N coma, she typed. I won’t leave until she’s awake and OK.
She didn’t touch the moving-in question. That was a whole other can of worms. Although it got her to thinking about how long Dr. Neville would keep Evie unconscious and how much time she could afford to stay away from St. Louis, her business, and Greg. Her laptop and BlackBerry were lifesavers but they didn’t make up for missing face-to-face meetings with brides and society ladies. She could stand to pack a proper suitcase, too. Not that she couldn’t wash the pair of sweaters, tees, and single pair of jeans she’d tossed in her bag or sleep in a Madonna tour T-shirt for the next week, if she had to. Hell, she’d lost luggage en route to destination weddings and ended up in her J. Jill Wearever tank dress and cardigan for two days straight.
Toni figured she’d hold out awhile longer, even if it meant digging through her closet and finding something that fit from the 1980s (leggings were apparently back in style). Sticking around Blue Hills would give her some much-needed breathing room besides, as she had yet to decide about her future living arrangements. Honestly, it was the last thing on her mind.
Later that afternoon, she left Evie when a nurse appeared with an orderly to roll Evie up the hallway for a CT scan. Back at the Victorian, she put in a few hours on “the big dig,” as she’d dubbed the task of sifting through Evie’s mess in the den. She and Bridget tackled the bills first, putting them in order, with the latest unpaid utilities prioritized. Then they tracked down as many bank statements as they could find and set those in a file organized by date. It was a start anyway.
“Heaven knows, your mother kept every piece of paper that came into the house, which wasn’t so much of a problem until Mr. Ashton passed, bless his soul,” Bridget said with a frown, and the creases in her brow deepened. “She was always so tidy and everything had its place.”
“When I was little, she used to stack cans of veggies in the pantry in alphabetical order,” Toni remarked, and Bridget nodded.
“Once Miss Evie lost your father, everything fell out of place. Now it’s impossible to tell at a glance what’s important and what’s not, so we might have to go through each piece of it.”
“Nothing seemed important after Daddy died,” Toni remarked, because that was precisely how she’d felt for a spell.
Her dad had been her heart and soul, and for a while the world had seemed so still without him. She’d walked around with a hole inside, one she wished desperately to fill. That was when she’d met Greg at a fund-raising brunch she’d put together at the Forest Park Boat House. He’d remembered her mentioning how much she loved Mozart, and he’d invited her to the Symphony to hear a celebration of Mozart piano concertos. She’d agreed to meet him there so long as he promised not to make fun of her if she teared up (beautiful music made her weepy). Not only had he refrained from teasing her when she’d cried, but he’d handed over a neatly ironed handkerchief for her to wipe her eyes. When he’d called the next week, she’d suggested an indie flick at Plaza Frontenac, a subtitled Swedish film based on a book she’d adored, and he hadn’t even balked. She had thought she’d glimpsed some of Jon Ashton in Greg back then, in his careful way with people and the way he thrived on his work; only she’d realized through the course of their relationship that Greg lacked her father’s sensitive nature and his unconditional love for the woman in his life. Maybe she’d been more afraid of ending up alone than admitting she wanted more.
“My dad was devoted to my mother,” she said quietly. “She lost her honest-to-God soul mate, and those are hard to find. Once that happens, what’s there to live for?”
“Oh, but she didn’t lose all that was dear.” The older woman ceased what she was doing and met Toni’s eyes. “There was always you, child. If only you knew half the things she did for you,” Bridget murmured, turning away as she tossed more unread magazines into a box they’d labeled RECYCLE. “She didn’t just miss your father. She missed you, Antonia, more than you could imagine.”
“Then why didn’t she ever say it?” Toni asked, exasperated, because Evie clearly hadn’t shared anything important with her, most certainly not her emotions. “I love you” had come so easily to her dad, but not to her mother.
“Listen to me, child.” Bridget seemed to weigh her word
s carefully. “I’ve been around Miss Evie for long enough to know she wasn’t the type to wear her heart on her sleeve, except perhaps with Mr. Ashton. She’s so very different from”—she stopped herself and pursed her lips before she finished—“well, from you, isn’t she? She keeps everything bottled up tight inside.” She tapped her sternum. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel things just as deeply.”
Thank you, Dr. Phil, Toni was tempted to quip but bit her tongue.
“You broke her heart when you left,” Bridget went on, and Toni sighed.
Okay, here we go. “I couldn’t stay. There was nothing for me here. Did she expect me to work at the Tastee Freeze my whole life? Or take over the bookkeeping at the winery? I would’ve gone bonkers.”
“It was more than you not sticking around.” Bridget blushed, nostrils flaring, the fiery redhead she’d once been surfacing despite how her curls had faded. “You didn’t have to keep away for so long once her life turned upside-down, did you? When your daddy was dead and buried, how often did you visit, and St. Louis just an hour or so away? It’s too bad it took her getting sick like this for you to show how much you’d hate to lose her.”
Wow.
Toni sagged back against the wall, like she’d been hit, wondering how she could respond to that politely. But she was out of clever repartee and had no excuses but the usual, “I was busy living my life,” which, even though true, wouldn’t sit well with Bridget.
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” Toni finally replied, shell-shocked by how quickly the conversation had gone from Evie’s clutter to her apparent deficiencies as a daughter. “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry for being an ungrateful child?”
“Oh, dear Lord, no.” The housekeeper rubbed her nose, chin ducked, contrite. “I’m sorry, Miss Antonia. I shouldn’t have said what I did. It isn’t my place to determine what’s right or wrong, because sometimes the line’s so thin it’s impossible to make out. All we can do is what’s best at the time, or what we believe is best. Besides it’s all spilt milk anyhow.”
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