The Dress Shop of Dreams Page 17

“Only twenty years.” Cora smiles, slipping the dress slowly over her head. It falls to her feet, folding her body in silk.

  “So?”

  Cora brushes her hand across her belly and along her hips. “It feels like sex,” she says quietly, then clamps her hand over her mouth in shock.

  Etta laughs. “Really?”

  Cora flushes. “I can’t—I don’t know why I said that.”

  “The dresses do have rather surprising,” Etta says with a giggle, “and sometimes rather delightful effects on the women who wear them.”

  “Well,” Cora says, pulling the dress back over her head and letting it float to the floor, “I don’t think I want that particular effect.”

  “Are you sure?” Etta winks while she offers her granddaughter the other dress: a red velvet so dark it’s nearly purple, with a neck so low it falls over Cora’s shoulders and a hem so short it barely touches the tops of her thighs. From the fabric hangs a curtain of jet black beads reaching her knees. The delicate strings of glass swish and shimmer as she walks.

  Cora stares at herself, open-mouthed, in the mirror, turning one way and then the other. “It’s … obscene,” she says, not wanting to admit that it’s quite the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, still less willing to admit that it makes her feel more beautiful and powerful than she’s ever felt in her life.

  Etta claps. “It’s magnificent.”

  “Well, yes,” Cora admits, unable to deny the truth of such a fitting word. “I suppose it is.”

  “How does it make you feel?”

  Cora closes her eyes to search for the perfect words, but can’t find any more apt than the one her grandmother chose. “Magnificent,” she says with a sigh. “It makes me feel magnificent.”

  “Perfect.” Etta laughs. “And what does it make you want?”

  Cora considers. She gazes at the dress and swishes the beads slightly from side to side. As she strokes her fingers around her waist, an answer slips into her heart. Walt. Her eyes widen in surprise.

  Etta smiles. “What is it?”

  But Cora can’t say his name. She can’t say it to herself, let alone her grandmother. So instead she says something else, something that at least makes some sort of sense.

  “I want to know what happened to my parents,” Cora says. “I need to know the truth.”

  “Well,” Etta says, “I suppose that will have to do for a start.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cora sits on her sofa in her T-shirt and pajama pants. It’s ten o’clock in the morning and she’s got nothing important to do. She doesn’t have a lab to get to, a scientific breakthrough to make, a chance to save the world or at least make it a bit better than it was before. She’s not exactly sure how she’s going to go about solving the mystery of her parents’ deaths. What’s the next step? She needs to think about it from a scientific viewpoint; solving a suspicious death can’t be any harder than solving world hunger would be, in fact one would imagine it’d be decidedly easier.

  Cora glances at a box at her feet, a box of cream linen edged with gold and on it, in colors that change whenever Cora looks again, are embossed the words A STITCH IN TIME. Inside the box is the red velvet dress, a talisman, an amulet, a charm, quite the most magical thing Cora has ever owned. She hasn’t tried it on again since last night but she can feel it lying folded in its special box, waiting, calling to her, whispering promises of possibilities, of what might be to come.

  Cora hasn’t had the courage to even open the box and touch it without Etta there. What she felt when she wore it was so startling, so incredible, it hit her with such electric force that Cora needs to wait awhile before submitting herself to it again, stepping into the power of that particular whirlwind.

  Last night she dreamed of her parents again, and of Walt. When Cora woke she realized they hadn’t been just dreams but memories. Walt was ten years old, she was twelve. She’d stepped out of her grandmother’s shop to see him waving at her from the bookshop doorway.

  “What is it?” Cora asked as she reached him.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “What?”

  “We’re going on an adventure,” Walt said. Then, seeing the spark of fear ignite in Cora’s eyes, he reached out his hand. “It’s okay, you’ll love it, I promise. We won’t be going far. It’s just under our feet.”

  Cora smiled. “The tunnels.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But how did you—?”

  “My dad knows someone at Trinity College.” Walt sat a little straighter and grinned. “He’s going to show us the caves.”

  “When?”

  “Today, if you like.”

  “Really?” The idea of more than twenty-five thousand bottles of wine, of counting as many of them as she could, rose inside Cora and she was barely able to contain her excitement.

  “Sure.” Walt stood up. “Come with me.”

  Less than an hour later Cora and Walt were standing at the entrance, gazing down at a deep hole in the ground, a flight of wooden stairs—13 visible steps—that led down into darkness. Next to them stood the Trinity College sommelier, a man whose name, in all the excitement, they’d both already forgotten.

  “So kids,” he said, “you ready to follow me?”

  “Yes,” Cora piped up. Now that she stood just on the edge of adventure all her fear had evaporated and she bubbled over with excitement to enter this cavern of counting, all these rare and precious bottles simply waiting to be categorized, computed and calculated.

  “Yeah,” Walt said softly.

  Cora glanced at him, then slipped her fingers through his. He looked at her with surprise. The man looked at them both.

  “Come on then,” he said, hurrying down the steps, “what you waiting for?”

  Walt hesitated, his toe on the top step. Cora felt his nerves tingling on her fingertips.

  “Will you hold my hand?” she asked. “I’m scared of the dark.”

  “Are you?” He looked hopeful, relieved. “Okay, sure.”

  And together they walked hand in hand down the steps and into the dark.

  Then the dream shifted and, instead of stepping into a secret grotto of alcohol, Cora found herself in the lab with her parents. They wore white coats and held tongs while Cora, now four years old, sat cross-legged on the wooden laboratory table in front of them. At first she thought she was watching them conduct some important scientific experiments but then glanced down at the tong she was holding and realized they were roasting marshmallows over Bunsen burners.

  Cora pointed to the bag of remaining marshmallows. “Fifty-six left,” she said, “Eighteen point six each. I’ll have the extra two, then it’ll be even.”

  “Oh, really, will you now? My tiny, greedy genius,” Maggie said with a smile. “Okay, so now we need chocolate. Marshmallows need chocolate.”

  “Do they?” Robert laughed. “Is that a fact?”

  “It is. The low-frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature. A quarter of the world’s plants will be threatened by extinction by 2010. In five billion years the sun will run out of fuel. And marshmallows need chocolate. All very well-known scientific facts.”

  “Well then, it’s lucky I happen to have a little something of that nature in my pocket,” Robert said, pulling out a small chocolate bar with a flourish and breaking it up into pieces.

  “Daddy?” Cora said, taking three pieces of chocolate. “Tell me how you met Mummy.”

  “We were at a lecture on molecular biology at Corpus Christi,” Maggie said. “And your father didn’t know the molecular structure of flerovium.”

  “Professor Conway called on me and your mother turned to look. Our eyes met and my mind went blank. If he’d have asked me how many electrons were in helium I couldn’t have told him. I didn’t know my own name.”

  Maggie laughed. “Blaming your ignorance on my beauty, not a bad strategy, Dr. Carraway.”

  “Why, thank you, Dr. Carraway,�
�� Robert said, “I’m glad you approve.”

  Munching on a cube of chocolate, Cora watched her parents kissing and giggled.

  “One proton of faith, three electrons of humility, a neutron of compassion and a bond of honesty,” Robert said, winking at his daughter.

  “What’s that?” Cora frowned, confused.

  Maggie laughed. “That, according to your father, is the molecular structure of love.”

  “Indeed it is, little girl, so you remember that, okay? It’ll help you out when you’re older and looking for a man to marry.”

  “Okay, Daddy, I will.” Cora glanced up from her melting marshmallow.

  “Perhaps a bit early in life for such advice, don’t you think, darling?” Maggie laughed again. “Shouldn’t we at least wait until she starts dating?”

  “The girl’s a genius, Mags, she’s an early starter. She’ll probably win the Nobel at eleven and be in love by twelve. You mark my words.”

  “I already know who I’m going to marry, anyway,” Cora says, “I’m just waiting till I’m old enough.”

  “Oh, yes?” Maggie smiled. “And who might that be?”

  “Francis Crick.” Cora carefully balanced a cube of chocolate atop the marshmallow and held it over her Bunsen burner. “Or, if he’s dead, then James Watson.”

  “An older man, eh?” Robert nodded. “I can’t argue with their pedigree, that’s certain. Only the best for my girl.”

  “When I’m old enough I’m going to do something really great like … Rosalind Franklin discovering DNA,” Cora explained. “And you both will be very proud of me.”

  “Oh, my darling girl.” Robert grinned, cupping his hand to her cheek. “We couldn’t be prouder of you right now than if you saved the world.”

  The bell above Etta’s door rings and “Mack the Knife” fills the shop. Etta, having been lost in thought, drops the hem of a blue lace dress she’d been adjusting in the window. She looks up to see a shy woman in her mid-fifties, pretty but clearly not believing herself to be. Etta waits, giving her new customer space to slowly investigate the shop. Ten minutes later the woman takes a soft pink shift dress off the rack and clutches it close to her chest.

  “It’s the perfect complement to your complexion,” Etta says. “Would you like to try it on?”

  The woman nods. “It’s for a blind date tomorrow night,” she blurts out. “The first date I’ve had in twenty-five years. I’m feeling slightly terrified.”

  Gently, Etta takes the dress from her hands. “Don’t settle on someone too quickly this time,” she says softly. “You need longer to recover from your last relationship. You need to learn to love yourself first.”

  The woman stares at her with wide brown eyes. “How did you know that?”

  Etta just smiles. “This dress will help you to heal. Every time you want to swallow a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine, just put it on. It won’t take long. A month, that’s all you’ll need.”

  “Really?”

  Etta nods and the woman, now flushed bright with hope, flings open the curtain to the changing room. To sounds of surprised delight, Etta allows her thoughts to drift again, back to her own marriage and the man she lived with for nearly thirty years but only half loved.

  Etta never told her daughter that Joe wasn’t her biological father. She’s never told her granddaughter either. Sometimes she wonders how Cora might react, knowing that she has a grandfather living in the city. Of course, Etta does know, which is exactly why she’s kept it a secret. Cora would demand to see him, just as she’d have every right to do. But, given that Etta promised Sebastian she’d never see him again, it would be a tricky thing. She sometimes wonders how he would react if he knew she’d had his child all those years ago. Unlike the reaction of her granddaughter, the reaction of her ex-lover is harder to gauge.

  Etta was happy with Joe, not blissful or ecstatic, but quite content. They were married for thirty years, until he died of a heart attack a few months after Maggie died, and they were happy together. Joe loved Etta and told her so twice a day, in the morning when they woke and at night just before they fell asleep. He would smile and she would kiss him and tell him she loved him too. Which was true. Etta didn’t feel for Joe even a flicker what she’d felt, and continued to feel, for Sebastian but that didn’t mean it wasn’t love. If Sebastian set fireworks alight in her belly then Joe kept a candle burning: constant, consistent and true. He was kind to Etta and loved her daughter with joyful devotion.

  They never spoke of Sebastian but he was always there, in Etta’s mind and on Maggie’s face. Sometimes she’d catch her daughter’s eye, and for the briefest second, she’d be looking into his eyes again on the last night they spent together. It was unnerving at times, how much she looked like her father. But since no one knew, there was nothing to say. People see what they believe, so they’d tell Joe how his daughter had his nose/mouth/eyes and he would just nod and smile and give Maggie a kiss. People pointed out parts of Maggie they thought resembled Etta, too, but she could never see it. Sometimes she’d stand at the mirror with Maggie and search their faces for matching features but it was only ever facial expressions and certain mannerisms they had in common: the way they both chewed their lip when thinking or raised a single eyebrow when concentrating.

  Maggie was so different from Etta in every other way it was almost as if Joe and she had adopted the little girl together. Maggie could count before she could walk. Her first word was three. She counted to ten before saying mummy or daddy. As a teenager she preferred solving complex chemical equations to listening to punk music, which suited Etta just fine though she still couldn’t understand it. With every new and unusual trait her daughter exhibited (reciting the periodic table while boiling an egg, counting the steps from the shop to the supermarket, collecting crickets in shoeboxes and dissecting dead frogs), Etta wondered if these were things that Sebastian had done as a child or, with the exception, she hoped, of the crickets and frogs, still did. In this way she kept her lover alive in the present moment, almost as if he’d never left her.

  Lately, as she watches her granddaughter unfold, her heart gradually opening up, Etta wonders more and more often whether she should break her promise to Sebastian and take Cora to meet him. The thought is a slightly terrifying one, since it would mean first telling them both that she’d kept this gargantuan secret from them all these years. Perhaps they wouldn’t speak to her (which wouldn’t really matter in Sebastian’s case, she supposes) or perhaps the revelation would cause heartbreak, which certainly would matter. What is the right thing to do? Etta isn’t sure. Just as the magic of her divine dresses has never worked on her, so she’s never been able to give herself good advice. She can see what another woman needs to do as easily as she can stitch a dress, but when it comes to herself Etta has always been blind.

  Now Etta sits at her sewing table with a piece of green velvet between her fingers and a piece of matching silk on her lap. Etta often isn’t sure what she’s creating until she actually starts to sew; the fabric guides her as much as she shapes it, and it’s always the most exciting moment when the dress shows Etta what it’s going to be. As she slips the velvet under the needle Etta pauses to place her palm on the soft green.

  “What should I do?” she whispers. “Tell me what I should do.”

  Etta doesn’t know why she asks. It’s never worked before, so there’s no reason why it should work now. But Etta isn’t a quitter. One can’t be in the business of opening thousands of women’s hearts, bringing them wisdom and inspiration to change their lives, without being a character of particular stubbornness and determination. So, when nothing happens, when no answer comes, Etta simply decides to wait and believe that it will come soon enough, in one way or another.

  Cora is still sitting on her sofa, an hour later, counting the nails in the wooden planks on her floor boards (189, a number that unsurprisingly hasn’t changed since the day she moved in) when the phone rings. She sits up. The only person who ever cal
ls her is Etta, but never during the day when she’s busy in the shop. Unless something is wrong. Cora leaps up from the sofa and hurls herself toward the phone on the kitchen table.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “Is this Dr. Cora Carraway?”

  “Yes.” Cora is breathless with relief. Etta is okay. She knows instantly who it is: the policeman, but can’t remember his name. She racks her brain. Why is she so good with numbers and so bad with people?

  “Yes,” she says, “speaking.”

  “This is Detective Henry Dixon.”

  “Oh, hello,” Cora says. Yes, of course, Henry. She wonders briefly how he found her, then realizes that, as an officer of the law, he can probably find out the color of her underwear if he so desires. Cora flushes at the thought. Perhaps not. He’s silent now and she waits for him to speak.

  “Anyway, well,” he sounds nervous, “I’m calling to tell you, or rather I suppose to confess, that …”

  “Yes?” Usually she’d take advantage of the quiet to count the seconds and subject them to beautifully intricate long division sums, but she wants to hear what he has to say. “Is everything okay?”

  “Well, I’ve been looking into your case. And—”

  “Yes?” Cora’s fingers tighten around the phone.

  Henry takes a deep breath. “And … I believe you’re right. I don’t think your parents’ deaths were simply accidental.”

  Now it’s Cora who is unable to speak. She’s not simply incoherent, she has no words at all. Her mind is completely blank, barren, baffled. It’s an unusual and rather extraordinary experience but not, Cora realizes, an altogether unpleasant one.

  “I spoke with someone—a little while ago, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, I had a personal matter … Anyway, he was the investigating officer on the case,” Henry explains. “He didn’t admit to a cover-up or anything like that. It was more what he didn’t say than what he did, really. I’m probably not making any sense—”

  “Yes, no,” Cora finally finds her words, “it doesn’t matter. Does it mean you’re going to reopen the case?”