by Nancy Warren
Once she’d well and truly smoked Gabby, Leandra walked towards the dress in the corner.
“Do you mind if I smudge the dress?”
“Do you have to?” Now, on top of everything else, she’d have to get the dress dry-cleaned.
“If the dress was cursed, then yes, I really need to smudge it.”
“Fine.” She sighed. This was such a terrible idea; she never should have listened to Marlene.
After Leandra had circled the dress waving her weedy cigar and puffs of smoke wafted around it as though the gown were being burned at the stake she nodded and returned. “Now ladies and gentleman I’d like you to come and stand in a circle near the dress. I will walk around the room and I’ll recite a little incantation that will invite any darkness, any anger or pain to leave the space and replace it only with harmony and peace. I want you all to think peaceful, joyful thoughts as you listen to my words.” Her voice took on a hypnotic quality, or maybe she was getting high from the smoke. “Visualize any darkness, any anger, floating out those windows and being replaced by calm and peace and joy.”
It was difficult to think peaceful thoughts when Wade was so close and all she could do was relive her amazing weekend, but she tried.
The woman walked slowly to the center of the room. She raised the stick towards the ceiling and chanted, “Spirits of the North, I call on all you to release any darkness or pain from this space and replace it with peace and joy,” then she moved the stick in the opposite direction and recited, “Spirits of the South, I call on all you to release any darkness or pain from this space and replace it with peace and joy,” she repeated the words, pointing her stick twice more and then she moved to a corner and began her incantation again. Wade interrupted, “Leandra, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you need a compass. That’s not north, it’s east.”
Leandra giggled one more time. “Oh dear. I’ve never had much sense of direction. Did I get any of the directions right?”
He shook his head.
“Well, I don’t want the poor spirits to get all confused and spin around in circles bumping into each other.” She said to Wade, “Maybe you can chant with me.” She walked over and linked her arm with his and dragged him with her. Her silk turban had tilted so it was hanging over one eyebrow and she looked more like a pirate with a smoking problem than any kind of spiritual healer.
“Spirits of the North?” She gazed at Wade inquiringly and he pointed her to north. Then he pointed to south and so they continued. Wade was like a spiritual seeing-eye dog giving her a nudge so she knew where she was going and Leandra and her smudge stick obligingly followed his directions for north and south and east and west. She glanced over and saw that Ashley and Tasmine were getting red in the face from stifling giggles and she felt a wild urge to guffaw like she used to in the old days. The smoke hung lazily and there was a slight haze in the atmosphere when Leandra and Wade returned to the circle. “Now, I’m going to walk around this whole circle and to the dress particularly and Evangeline and I want you all to work with me. Together we’ll visualize any kind of bad energy floating out that window.”
They all nodded solemnly. Though Ashley’s eyes were filled with tears of unexpressed merriment she managed a nod.
Leandra didn’t notice the suppressed hilarity or chose to ignore it. Once more she walked around the circle saying her piece and, even though Gabby felt that this was the most ridiculous spectacle she’d ever taken part in, she repeated the words in her head.
And then the most remarkable thing happened. She was idly watching Leandra follow Wade’s directions as she did her north, south, east and west business, when suddenly the lazy smoldering resolved itself into a solid stream of smoke and while they all watched, open mouthed, it turned a lazy corkscrew and disappeared out the open window. For a stunned moment no one said a thing, including Leandra.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Wade said at last.
Ashley blinked. “That was the absolute coolest thing I have ever seen.”
No one else said a word. Marlene walked up to Leandra and gave her a big hug. “That was awesome.”
Leandra took in a big breath and let it out again and then, very carefully, she put out her smoldering smudge stick and presented it to Gabby. “You can keep this, dear. Anytime you feel a need to cleanse the space, you can follow what I did.”
She accepted the gift gingerly, then placed it on a crystal dish where she kept spare pins.
Marlene walked to the center of the room and turned around. She nodded. “I can feel it, can’t you? The anger and bad feeling is gone and all I sense is peace and harmony.”
Gabby was desperate to believe it was true and if some crazy woman in a silk scarf and dangling crystal earrings was literally blowing smoke, she didn’t care. She wanted to believe she was free of the bad luck and bad press that had dogged her. “Is it gone? Does this mean the curse is gone?”
Leandra shrugged. “Whatever bad energy was in this room is gone. Curses aren’t really my area.”
She began packing up her bag and Marlene made a gesture rubbing her thumb against fingers reminding Gabby that curses might not be Leandra’s thing but money certainly was. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out the check that she’d already had prepared. She passed it to Leandra. “Thank you very much.”
The woman tucked the check into her bag and then took Gabby by the shoulders and looked deep into her eyes again for that one moment beyond comfort. Then she pulled her in for a smoke scented hug. “You’re going to be okay. I can see it.”
For a second she hugged the woman back. “I hope so.”
Chapter 12
Marlene and Leandra left first. The four brides seemed as though they didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. Gabby supposed that if she were a better host she would offer them a cup of tea or a glass of wine or something but she wanted them all to go away. Wade didn’t barge into her office carrying flowers for no reason.
Besides, she felt a little too stunned by the way that smoke had turned and headed out the window. She needed some time to process that.
Tasmine, Ashley and Kate huddled together for a moment and then Ashley said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I could sure use a drink. We’re going down the road to Señor Hooch for margaritas. Who wants to come?”
She couldn’t stand the thought of sitting, making jokes over salt-rimmed glasses with these women. However, they’d gone to a great deal of trouble to be here for her. Wade did not say anything. He looked at her, and she felt as though he were testing her somehow. She hated it when he looked at her like that. Almost always, whatever it was he expected, she screwed it up. Well, the least she could do was to buy these girls a drink. She dug her wallet out of her bag and pulled out a couple of fifties. Ever since she’d been young she had understood the value of always having a substantial amount of cash in her possession. She’d never lost the habit. She walked to Kate who, as the first of the brides, was appointed leader. She said, “I’m sorry, girls, I’ve got too much work to do today. But please, let me buy you a drink.” She handed the money to Kate who looked at the bills as though she had never seen currency before and then up at Gabby with a slightly puzzled expression on her face. “That’s okay. We don’t need your money.”
She felt that she had made some sort of social blunder, something she tried very hard not to do. She crumpled the bills in her hand. “Well, I am sorry I can’t join you. Perhaps next time.”
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “Next time we smudge a dark spirit out of here we’ll get another drink.”
Tasmine laughed and looked inquiringly at Megan. The redhead glanced after the three longingly and said, “Is it okay if I join you there? I want to talk to Evangeline.”
“Sure, see you later.”
Oh no. She did not want to have this conversation. There was a reason she had wished not to include Megan O’Reilly in this curse-busting session. But, the girl had come over here specially. She owed her a meeting. She
dragged up a smile. “Wade, could you give us a minute?”
“Sure,” he said.
Megan shook her head and the sun caught that gorgeous red hair sparking bronze and copper. “Oh no, that’s okay. He can stay. It won’t take that long.”
She shrugged. Put the professional smile back on her face. She refused even to glance at the dress hanging there slightly smoky but curse free. “What can I do for you?”
Megan took a deep breath and pushed her hair behind her ears in what was clearly a nervous gesture. “I’m sure you know why I’m here. I’ve been trying to get hold of you.” Even as Gabby refused to so much as glance at the dress hanging in the corner, Megan seemed unable to stop staring at the gown. “I wonder if you’d consider, if there’s anything I could do, to encourage you to let me wear that dress for my wedding.”
The girl was absolutely beautiful in a quirky, non-traditional kind of way. Exactly the kind of face and body that would normally make her fingers itch to design for. How to handle this delicate situation. “Of course I would love for you to wear it except that I’ve already announced to all the world that I will be wearing that dress myself when I get married.”
Those lovely shoulders slumped ever so slightly. “I know. You did say that. But, so often the things that celebrities say in the press and what they really do are different. It was worth a shot.”
A tug of compassion pulled out her. “I can’t let you wear this dress.” The very idea of her planning a wedding and not turning up for the ceremony was too much to even contemplate. Evangeline’s business and her reputation hung by a thread as it was. If one more bride spurned that dress, it would all be over. However, she could be generous. She said, “But I’ll do something even better. I will design you your own dress. I think we could do something absolutely stunning.”
She’d expected the girl to beam with happiness, weep with joy, jump up and down with excitement; instead her shoulders slumped a little more. “I don’t want another dress. I want this dress.” She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a satin-covered photo album. She passed it to Gabby. “Please, just look at these.”
She opened the album and saw that it was filled with photographs of Megan wearing the dress. In every pose, whether candid or studied, the dress and Megan seemed to reflect each other’s glory.
There was one she particularly liked of Megan and the young man who looked enough like Joanne West that she knew this must be her son. He was lifting Megan in the air and the two of them looked so happy to be in each other’s arms that her heart did tug a little.
The dress she had designed for Kate Winton-Jones looked as though it had actually been made for Megan O’Reilly. It was as though the gown had found its true owner. But she couldn’t risk her business, everything she’d built and worked for, not for one starry-eyed girl wearing a dress that should never have been hers. Even so, she flipped through the rest of the photos in the album. Here was this lovely girl reclining on a red velvet settee and the equally photogenic young man slipping a ring onto her finger. Megan came up beside her and said, “That’s Dylan. That’s the man I’m going to marry.” Even her voice trembled with sincerity. As if she couldn’t tell from the photographs that these two were in love.
Wade did not say a word. He was sitting at her desk and she thought he might be checking email on his phone, but she felt his presence. She hesitated for just a moment and then said, with complete honesty, “I’m sorry. If it had only been one bride who didn’t wear this dress down the aisle, I might take the chance, but it’s been three brides. If you took the dress and didn’t get married, I could never recover.” She had to make this girl understand that her generosity only went so far. “Please, let me design you another gown. On the house.”
“I wish I could describe to you how it felt when I wore that dress. How everything seemed right.”
“My dear girl, that dress was cursed. No one ever gets married in it. It’s the last dress you should want.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think—and I know this sounds crazy—but I think maybe that dress has magic. But not black magic. Do you think Kate Winton-Jones would have been happy if she’d married Edward Carnarvon? I’ve talked to all of these brides. We got to know each other because we’re all involved with that dress. Do you think Ashley Carnarvon would have been married happily to Eric van Hoffendam?” She shook her head. “She and Ben Saegar are like soul mates and Tasmine is perfect for Eric. I was at their wedding. You have never seen such intense love.”
“I am very happy they all found happiness, I really am. But I have paid a heavy price for these women who couldn’t make up their minds. I’m sorry, I can’t be made a fool of again.”
Megan heaved a sigh, and gazed at the gown as though it were her lover heading off to war and she had no idea if she’d ever see it again. “Well, at least I tried.”
She felt that she had failed somehow. Wade’s dispassionate gaze on her made her somehow feel that she was standing in front of the angel Gabriel, or whoever stood at the pearly gates. He was standing there holding up a list and it wasn’t looking good for her. She said, “The offer stands. I am willing to design you a stunning gown. Do you know how many women around the world would kill for a chance like this?”
Megan smiled sadly. “I appreciate it, I really do. But it wouldn’t be the same.”
“We could start fitting today. I could have your gown finished in four weeks.”
Why was she begging for this girl’s charity business? Megan shook her head once more. “No, thank you.”
She felt an unfamiliar sense of desperation. She wanted to close this deal. “Two weeks. I can put a rush on it and have it done in two weeks. You’re surely not getting married in the next fortnight?”
But Megan was already walking to the door. As she was leaving she took a final glance at the dress. “I just wanted the magic.”
Chapter 13
As the door closed she felt the echo of finality. She glanced up at Wade. “Well, I don’t know what more I could have done.”
He looked at her with cool gray eyes. “You could have let her wear that dress. You know damn well you’re never going to wear it.” He’d placed the bouquet of flowers on the desktop. She wanted to thank him but she needed to get things straight first.
“It’s imperative that the world believes I will be wearing it.” She walked over to him, beseeching him to understand. “You know better than anyone how hard it’s been for me. How hard I worked to become not only a top model but a top designer. What were the chances that little Gabby Brock would end up with all of this?” She raised her arm and extended it like an interior designer showing off a newly decorated room. “The chances were nonexistent. I had no business to make a success of myself.”
He stood and put his hands on her shoulders. “And yet you did. And I’ve been proud of you. For all the crazy roller coaster ride you’ve put me through, I have always been proud of what you’ve done.”
She finished the sentence for him, “But not today?”
“Not today. You had a chance to give that girl magic. Magic’s a very special thing. You can’t hold it in your hand, you can’t put it in a jar or lock it in a safe. It’s as fleeting as a shooting star.”
“Well, if she’s so in love with the man from the vintage store she’ll have plenty of magic. It’s not the wedding dress that makes a marriage, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
She looked up to Wade. The energy in the room had shifted somewhat. She felt almost as though a cold breeze floated in from the window, which was crazy since it was seventy degrees outside and sunny. But something had shifted. She put her arms around Wade’s neck and rubbed up against him like a cat.
“Let’s not argue. I’m sure you didn’t come here to get smoked like a side of bacon. I’m sure we can think of something more interesting to talk about.”
He gazed down at her for a moment and she felt her heart speed up. He didn’t look like he wanted to
take her to bed, he looked as though he had something much more serious in mind. He pushed her gently away. “I came here to tell you something.”
She took a step back instinctively as she prepared for bad news. “I’m listening.”
He pushed his hands in his pockets but even through the fabric she could see that they were clenched. “I have to get back to New York. I got a call this morning. There’s an emergency they need me for in person.” He blew out a breath. “To be honest with you I never intended to stay this long in the first place.”
She nodded. She had always known this would happen. He didn’t need to look so serious. “That’s fine. When do you leave?”
“Tonight.”
Her eyebrows rose. “So soon?”
“We’ll have an emergency meeting tomorrow, first thing.”
In the old days he’d have told her exactly what was happening. Now he didn’t.
She nodded. She understood business. “When will you be back?”
He took a step towards the window. She could see his outline against the light, the strong shoulders, the torso she loved to wrap her arms around, his long legs. She even liked the way he held his head. “I won’t be coming back.” He said the words to the window and she felt them floating out the way the smoke from the smudge stick had.
“What do you mean, you won’t be coming back? What about our weekend? Surely we aren’t finished with each other.”
He shook his head, still looking away from her and then finally he turned. She was shocked at the blazing expression in his eyes. He said, “I love you, Gabby. I have loved you from the beginning, when you were a scrappy young model, all long legs and big eyes, trying to find your place in the world. I’ve admired you and I’ve supported you wherever I could. But the woman I love is Gabby Brock. I can appreciate that Evangeline is a marketing creation and she’s brilliant, but she was never meant to take over.”
