Chapter 2 - Sage Green and Wicker
The bridal boutique on Route 202 was named L'Aura, an architectural affectation of limestone arches and frosted glass that smelled aggressively of lavender oil and hot steam irons.
Kelsey stood on a circular walnut platform in the center of the showroom, surrounded by three three-sided mirrors that reflected her from nine different angles. The dress was an A-line gown of Duchess satin with a cathedral train that cost thirty-two hundred dollars. I had paid for it three weeks earlier, writing the check from my personal checking account while Mom stood beside the register, telling the sales associate that her youngest daughter had "the bone structure of a young Grace Kelly."
"Turn left, Kelsey," Mom commanded from the velvet settee where she sat with her legs crossed at the ankles. "Let me see how the bustle falls over the lower hip. If the fabric bunches there, Maryanne’s sister will notice immediately. She was an apparel buyer for Wanamaker’s in the eighties; she knows a shortcut when she sees one."
The dressing room curtain to the left slid open with a soft, metallic whisper of brass rings.
Ren stepped out.
The dress I had commissioned for her was sage green—a soft, muted eucalyptus shade that matched her gray-green eyes. The seamstress, an elderly Ukrainian woman named Oksana who had alterations clients booked six months in advance, had followed my sketch precisely: a simple square neckline, an ungathered skirt that hit three inches below the knee to prevent tripping, and wide, sturdy shoulder straps that wouldn't slip during a long service.
Ren did not look at the three-sided mirrors. She stood on the carpeted runner, drove both of her hands deep into the side seams of her skirt, and spread her elbows out like small wings.
"Pockets," Ren announced to the room. Her face was radiant, her small chest puffed out until her collarbones showed against the pale cotton. "Look, Aunt Kelsey. Two pockets. I can put three tissues, two cough drops, and a tiny plastic horse in here and nobody can see them."
Kelsey didn't look down. Her eyes were fixed on the reflection of her own waistline in the middle mirror. "Darcy, why does her skirt look so stiff? It looks like an apron. Can't Oksana take the lining out so it falls more like chiffon?"
"The lining keeps it from wrinkling when she sits down in the pew, Kelsey," I said, kneeling on the carpet to adjust Ren’s hem. "It’s cotton-linen. It’s supposed to have structure."
"Well, it doesn't match Sloan’s dress," Kelsey muttered, plucking at a lace applique on her bodice. "Sloan’s dress is from an import house in Charleston. It has four layers of English tulle and a French silk sash that costs two hundred dollars by itself."
Before I could answer, the boutique’s heavy glass front doors swung open, triggering a melodic chime.
Maryanne Hail swept into the showroom like a brigadier general arriving at a forward supply depot. She wore a tailored navy blazer with brass nautical buttons, white denim jeans, and leather driving moccasins without socks. Trailing behind her was five-year-old Sloan, whose honey-colored hair had been curled into tight, glossy ringlets that looked as though they had been treated with furniture polish. Sloan was clutching a white wicker basket wrapped in pink tulle, filled to the brim with artificial silk rose petals in shades of blush and champagne.
"We’re late," Maryanne announced to the room at large, not pausing to greet the sales staff. "The traffic on the bypass was unspeakable. Some truck hauling scrap metal lost a tire near the turnpike entrance. Kelsey, darling, that train is magnificent. It completely hides the width of your lower calf."
Kelsey’s face tightened for a microsecond before she forced a bright, eager smile. "Thank you, Maryanne! Darcy just paid the final alteration invoice."
Maryanne didn't look at me. She turned her gaze slowly down toward the runner where Ren was still standing with her hands thrust into her pockets, her small canvas sneakers planted six inches apart. Maryanne’s eyes traveled from Ren’s unstyled hair down to the sage-green cotton, lingering on the two bulging pockets with the cool, clinical distaste of a homeowner discovering damp rot in the basement floorboards.
"And this is...?" Maryanne asked, her voice dropping into a smooth, musical purr.
"Ren," I said, standing up to my full height. "Kelsey’s junior bridesmaid."
"Ah," Maryanne said. She didn't offer a hand. She reached down and tapped Sloan’s shoulder with one gold-ringed knuckle. "Sloan, show Aunt Kelsey how we do the entrance."
Sloan did not hesitate. With the mechanical perfection of a child who had been drilled through three seasons of junior modeling pageants, she took four tiny, floating steps across the carpet, dipped her knees into a buttery curtsy, reached into the wicker basket with two fingers, and let three pink silk petals flutter through the air to land precisely six inches apart.
"Preston’s grandmother’s wicker," Maryanne said, looking over Ren’s head at my mother. "Hand-woven in Nantucket in 1952. All the Hail girls have carried it. It’s an heirloom, Brenda. You know how these things are. When you have a lineage in the valley, the symbols matter."
Ren took her hands out of her pockets. She reached behind her into the dressing room stall and brought out her paper cardstock basket. The raffia was slightly frayed at the left corner where she had carried it through the parking lot, and the yellow cardstock had a faint grease stain near the base from a potato chip she had eaten in the car.
"I have a basket too," Ren said to Maryanne. "I made it from sixteen-pound cardstock. It has a double-bottom so the handle doesn't tear out if the wind gets in the church."
Maryanne didn't laugh. She looked at the paper basket, then at my mother, her eyebrows arching into two thin, penciled arches of amusement. "Brenda, darling. You didn't tell me we were doing craft projects for the cathedral."
Mom’s face went crimson. The red climbed from the collar of her blouse up into the roots of her hair. She stepped off the platform, grabbed Ren’s shoulder with five hard fingers, and pulled the child three feet backward into the shadow of the alteration stall.
"Not in front of company, sweetheart," Mom hissed under her breath.
Ren looked at the wicker basket in Sloan’s hands, then down at the yellow paper box in her own. Her gray-green eyes were enormous, reflecting the halogen spotlights of the ceiling. "Why does she get a basket with ribbons?" Ren asked me, her voice cutting through the boutique’s lavender-scented air like a cold blade. "Kelsey said I was the one who had to practice the steps. I did forty-two steps on the deck without looking at my shoes."
"Ren," Kelsey snapped from the mirror platform, her voice rising into that brittle, defensive shriek she used when she felt her status slipping. "Stop it. You're making a scene. Maryanne, please, we're going to figure it out. We have three weeks."
"Of course we'll figure it out, darling," Maryanne said smoothly, turning her back on us to stroke the Duchess satin of Kelsey's train. "One little girl in the aisle is quite enough for a formal five o'clock high mass. Sloan is family, after all. Preston's direct bloodline. Too many children makes a sanctuary look like an orphanage outing. Don't you agree, Brenda?"
Mom stood beside the dressing room curtain, her hand still clamped onto the meat of Ren’s small shoulder, her eyes fixed on Maryanne Hail’s brass buttons.
May you like
"Of course, Maryanne," Mom said, her voice small, obedient, and hollowed out of every trace of the woman who had spent thirty years ruling our kitchen. "Whatever makes the line look clean."
Ren didn't say another word. She walked back into the stall, pulled her sage-green dress over her head with a muffled grunt, folded it with agonizing care along the seams, and put her denim shorts back on. She kept both hands buried in her front pockets all the way out to the parking lot, her shoulders hunched against the October drizzle, her yellow paper basket left behind on the boutique’s glass counter until I turned back to retrieve it myself.
