Pleating for Mercy

“No, never.”

She fell silent and when I looked up at her, she was frowning.

I stopped pinning. “What?”

“It’s just . . . she always said things like, ‘The Kincaids are all charmers, Josie. Don’t get involved’ or ‘Hope you know what you’re doing.’ Stuff like that. Now I’m wondering if she said all that because she was still . . .”

She broke off, but I finished the sentence in my head:

. . . in love with him.

“Do you think she wanted you to break it off?”

“I never thought so, not really, but now . . .”

I moved in front of her, adjusting the horizontal pleats. “How long have you and Nate been together?”

“Eight months.”

The three pins I’d stuck between my lips fell when my jaw dropped. “That’s not very long.”

She allowed herself a small smile. “When you know, you know,” she said.

But did she know? I wondered as I picked up the sharp pins.

She stared out the window toward Nana’s goat dairy, lost in thought. Finally she said, “Do you know Miriam?”

“I used to know her.” Once upon a time.

“She comes into the bead shop all the time.”

“Really?” Miriam Kincaid hanging out in a bead shop made about as much sense as her mother cleaning her own windows. The Kincaids’ only daughter had always seemed pretty levelheaded, but she also didn’t strike me as a do-it-yourself costume-jewelry kind of woman. “I thought they were more into diamonds and rubies, not plastic.”

“Nate’s mom is, definitely, but not Miriam. She’s more like Nate, pretty down-to-earth.”

“And she makes her own jewelry? With beads?”

“She tries. She’s taken a few classes with her daughter, Holly.”

I remembered hearing that Miriam had married and divorced right after college. Guess I’d forgotten she’d had a baby, too. “How old is her daughter?”

Josie pulled her hair back, holding it away from her face, fanning herself with her other hand. “Fifteen. She’s a nice girl. I asked them both to be in the wedding. I thought Miriam should be the maid of honor.”

I’d wondered about that. It had seemed odd to me that Nate’s sister wasn’t a bridesmaid. As we chatted, I made a mental note to adjust the vertical darts underneath the pleating. They shot up like arrows from the waist, ending just under the breasts, giving shape to the bodice.

The fabric slipped. Josie dropped her hair and pressed her palm against the muslin to hold it in place, answering my question before I could even ask it. “She was going to be in it, but then she came into the shop about a week ago and something happened. I remember it so clearly. She was fine, you know? Chatting with everyone and laughing. She picked out beads to make Holly a key chain. The next day she came by again and told me she couldn’t be maid of honor. Couldn’t be in the wedding at all.”

I’d stopped pinning. “Did you ask her why?”

Her forehead crinkled, like it was a strain to remember. “She said she just couldn’t do it. That was it.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know what happened. She stopped coming to the bead shop after that. It’s like she doesn’t even want to talk to me. Derek’s the same way. He’s never given me the time of day.”

“That’s not surprising,” I said with a grimace. “From what I heard, he pretty much fell off the face of the planet.”

“Off the planet and right into the oil business. He travels a lot, but he comes back pretty regularly. I’d hate it if Nate traveled like that. Why even be married?”

I completely agreed, but not everyone saw it that way. “Works for Nate’s mom.”

Josie smiled, the first genuine smile all day. “Money, money, money,” she sang. “Must be funny, in a rich man’s world.”

“Abba is so wise,” I said with a laugh, but decided to add the question, Why did Miriam drop out of the wedding? to the list in my sketchbook.

I finished the darts and moved on to the back of the bodice. “Does Nate get along with his siblings?” I asked.

She thought about it, taking her time answering. “They’re all different, you know, but Nate and Miriam get along pretty well. Not lately, since the bridesmaid thing,” she said, “but usually. Derek’s different. More like his dad, I guess.”

“How so?”

She hesitated. “They’re going to be my family.”

I’d wanted to hear her take on the Kincaids, but their reputation painted a pretty clear picture of them. “I think I know what you mean. It’s all image and who has the most money and the biggest diamond and the fastest car—”

“Which he does, in case you were wondering. A GranCabrio.”

I raised my eyebrows in question.

“A Maserati.” She dropped her voice as low as it would go, mimicking a man’s voice. “Canvas hood. V8. Aerodynamic.”

“A little fancier than Loretta Mae’s pickup.”

She laughed. “It’s like the gene pool was divided and the everything’s-about-image genes got concentrated in Derek.”

All the money talk reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Gina at the bakery. She’d said Nell met with a lawyer. I slid another pin into the fabric. “Did Nell have a will?”

Josie shifted on the milk crate and the pin met the resistance of her hip, pricking her. “I . . . Oh!” She jerked, tottering on the makeshift platform, nearly losing her balance. “I don’t know,” she said, righting herself.

We were distracted by the jingling of the bell on the front door of the shop. A girl stepped in. Her owlish brown eyes lit up as they zeroed in on Josie and me in the workroom. She looked like a typical teenager: jean shorts, flat-soled flip-flops, tank top, dewy and freshfaced like the girl-next-door image, but she could barely contain the excitement oozing from her pores. She waved, her arm making a back-and-forth half-circle motion like she was on a parade float. “Are you Harlow?” she cooed.

She left the door open slightly, practically skipping across the room until she was by my side.

I waved back at her. “That’s me. Would you—” Before I could finish asking her to shut the door, the bell jingled again and it closed. I peered around her.

Will Flores was back, swagger and all. Nobody could pull off a goatee, black V-neck T-shirt, jeans, and black cowboy boots like a true country boy, and Will had the look down solid. He probably slept in those boots. “Don’t be shy,” he told the girl, propelling her into the workroom.

I looked from him to the girl and . . . Oh, my God. In my mind, I’d imagined his daughter to be ten years old or so. This girl was practically grown up—give or take a few years. I straightened up from my crouched position, momentarily tongue-tied. I’d already mentally mapped out basic sewing instructions for a little girl. I quickly regrouped, shifting my ideas to something easy but more grown-up.

I found my voice again and extended my arm. “You must be Gracie.”

She looked at my hand like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Okay, maybe not quite grown up. Finally she shook it. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’m Gracie Flores. Nice to meet you.”

She had her father’s coloring, a beautiful olive skin tone, high cheekbones, and shimmering highlights in her hair. But whereas his eyes were dark and sparkled with mischief, hers were bigger and . . . I looked closer. Oh, I’d thought they were brown, but seeing them close up, I realized they were jade green with golden brown flecks. Or were they golden brown with jade green flecks?

Either way, she was ethereal, shining from the inside out. This, I thought, is what a fairy looks like.

A ray of light from the window bathed the room in a warm glow. Gracie smiled and it hit me. I’d been tossing around the idea of an autumn fashion show. If she could work an outfit and stay upright in high heels, she’d rock the runway. If her mom and dad would let her be a model for a day.

“Any more unexplained drafts, Cassidy?” Will settled back on the heels of his boots as Josie scurried behind