charge.”
“It’s dragging down my chest,” Nora cried.
Mother Nature did that, Helen thought.
“It just needs a little adjustment,” Millicent soothed. “Let me pin it for you. It will be fine. You’ll see.”
Millicent led a sobbing Nora back to the fitting room. In a short time, Helen heard giggles. “You are one hot mama,” Millicent said.
“I love it,” Nora said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Once again, Millicent had worked her magic. No wonder her hair was snow white.
Helen waited on the next mother of the bride. Rosemary was a tall woman with hair like iron and a backbone of steel. Helen thought Rosemary could walk across the salon with a book balanced on her head.
“I’m supposed to pick out a black dress,” Rosemary said. “I have no say-so in the matter. I’ve been told it’s not my wedding—by my own daughter.”
Helen could see the bitter hurt in the mother’s eyes. “Would you like something strapless or with a sleeve?”
“I don’t know,” Rosemary said. “My daughter’s getting married on the beach. It could be cold. It could rain. I don’t care. It’s not my problem. It’s not my wedding. Oh, hell. Make it sleeveless. If my arms are flabby, who cares? I’m sixty-two.”
Helen sold Rosemary a handsome black knit, but she couldn’t do anything about her hurt feelings.
Simone, the next mother of the bride, was a scrawny face-lifted blonde. “I don’t want to compete with my daughter,” she said, as she picked out a flashy rhinestone number.
Helen translated that as, “I
Poor Simone. She was expertly nipped and tucked, but a fifty-five-year-old could not upstage a woman thirty years younger. Not even if she went to the wedding naked. Especially if she went naked.
Helen sighed. Some women could not let go of their youth, even though it left them long ago. This store didn’t need a salesclerk. It needed a shrink.
Kiki’s murder didn’t surprise her. Helen was amazed every wedding didn’t end with a killing. Family neuroses were painfully exposed, often in the middle of the shop. Right now, Millicent was refereeing a family fight.
The father of the bride was sleek as a panther in black Armani. The mother of the bride wore matronly blue lace. Mr. Panther curled his lip at the blue lace.
“Are you trying to make me look bad?” he said. “That’s a five-hundred-dollar dress. It looks it.”
“I’m trying to be practical,” the mother of the bride said.
“There’s nothing practical about a reception at the Biltmore,” he said. “We’re having it there because I am successful. My wife must reflect my success. Don’t come out in anything less than two thousand dollars.”
“Come, dear,” Millicent said. “I have something that will look smashing with your hair.”
Helen wondered what it was like to fight with a man because you didn’t spend enough money. Probably like any other fight.
The mother of the bride appeared next in a six-thousand-dollar dress the color of old money. She smiled tentatively.
“That’s more like it,” Mr. Panther said.
Helen hoped they would leave soon. I feel like one big exposed wound, she thought. I’m rubbed raw by other people’s unhappiness. All this money, all these plans, and half these marriages will fail. Just like mine.
But it wasn’t only her unhappiness that haunted Helen. She was afraid. Each day, fear tightened her gut. Each night, it invaded her dreams.
She wondered how much longer the police would be able to ignore the pressure to make an arrest for Kiki’s murder. I’m an easy suspect, she thought. My fingerprints are in all the wrong places. My blood is on the victim’s dress. I had a fight with her the night she died.
Every time the doorbell rang, she expected to see Detectives McIntyre and Smith. If I can’t find the killer, I’m going to jail, she thought. If by some miracle I’m not convicted, my ex and the court will find me, thanks to all the trial publicity. I’ll wind up back in St. Louis. That will be another kind of prison.
So what am I doing to save myself? Spinning my wheels.
Helen had poked around and eliminated Chauncey as the killer—maybe. Jason still seemed a likely suspect, but others were just as good. Helen didn’t know what to do next. She was lost.
My life is hopeless, she thought.
To set the seal on her hopelessness, Cassie came back for the third time that week. Her wedding dress had more viewers than an art museum opening. “I’ve brought my cousin Lila to see my dream dress!!” Cassie’s black curls bobbed cheerfully on her shoulders.
Millicent rolled her eyes.
Helen said, “You’ve already shown it to your mother, your father, both grandmothers, your sister, your aunt, all four bridesmaids, and your best friend.”
“Do you think I should go ahead and buy it?” Cassie said.
“No, I think you should bring in the band and the caterer,” Helen said. “Everyone else has already seen the dress.”
Millicent gasped. Cousin Lila laughed. “Why don’t you get the dress before you wear it out, cuz?” Lila said.
Cassie hesitated, then said the three little words they’d been waiting for: “I’ll take it.”
“Praise the Lord,” Millicent said and grabbed Cassie’s credit card before she changed her mind.
After Cassie left, Millicent said, “I’m splitting the commission with you, Helen. I waited on her first, but you made the sale.”
“I don’t deserve it. I could have wrecked everything. I’m losing my patience. These big weddings set women’s rights back fifty years.”
“Weddings bring out the worst in some women,” Millicent said. “We’ve got Mom trying to recapture her lost youth. She’s afraid of growing old. She believes her daughter’s wedding is the signal her life is over. The bride is crazy, too. Brides become different people—moody, demanding, given to tears and scenes. Even if they’re living with the guy, they’re still nuts. It’s the commitment. Before, they could pack up and leave if something went wrong. They can’t do that if they marry the guy. So they’re scared.
“You’ve got two frightened people, the mother and the daughter, and they can’t comfort each other. And don’t forget Daddy. He has a midlife crisis and boffs his secretary.
“You know what? There’s a reason for all that craziness. It’s nature’s way of getting the bride out of her parents’ house and into her own.”
Helen laughed.
Millicent looked out the shop window. “LaTonya and her mother are coming for her final fitting.”
“At five fifty?” Helen said. “We close at six. I’m not sure I can take another bride.”
“LaTonya isn’t another bride,” Millicent said.
LaTonya was almost as tall as Helen, with flawless dark skin. Her body was big boned and sculpted. She was a preppie princess in pre-law at Harvard.
Her mother, Dorcas, wore a faded pink flowered housedress and plastic thongs. Millicent saw that the bride’s mother had no interest in spending money on herself, but she’d do anything for her darling daughter.
Mom and daughter first went to Millicent’s archrival, Haute Bridal. “They wouldn’t show us a dress,” Dorcas said. “Said my baby girl would be happier here where they had cheaper stuff.”
Dorcas spoke without bitterness. Helen would have picketed the place—or burned it down.
“We bought here because Millicent was so nice,” Dorcas said. “It was the right place to go.”
Dorcas had spent five thousand dollars on LaTonya’s dress and veil. Dorcas’s sister bought a thousand-dollar dress. Her aunt spent seven hundred bucks. Millicent knew Dorcas owned a string of wing-and-chip shops and raked in a million bucks a year. She was also a gospel singer of local renown.
Helen took the bride upstairs to try on her dress for the final time.
“You look tired,” Millicent said to Dorcas. “Sit here in this chair, and we’ll have your daughter come down in her dress. I’ll put on her veil and everything, so you can see the whole effect.”
LaTonya didn’t whine about her thighs, hips, or gut. Helen was grateful for that. She zipped the bride into her dress. Millicent crowned her with a chiffon veil. The white satin dress and brown satin skin were a stunning
