Pleating for Mercy

My mother sucked in a breath. “Very bad luck.”

Tessa Cassidy was a firm believer in superstition. She was forever tossing salt over her left shoulder and crossing herself, even though she wasn’t Catholic. I didn’t know if a missing wedding dress was universally bad luck, but sometimes it was better just to nod than to argue a superstition point.

“Their wedding’s in a few weeks,” she said. Her eyebrows pulled together as she eyed me. “What’s she going to do?”

“Twelve days, actually. Her misfortune is my good luck.” I felt a smidgeon of guilt over being happy about the Bridal Outlet going belly-up, and although Josie was out the deposit on the dresses she’d ordered from the store, I firmly believed it was her absolutely good fortune that I was on the job. “She hired me to make them. Her gown and all the bridesmaid dresses.”

Mama placed her palms flat on the table, interlaced her fingers, and stared me down. “Oh, no, Harlow Jane, you can’t do that.”

“Of course I can. It’s an unbelievable opportunity!” I slid into the ladder-back chair opposite her, pushing the vase of flowers out of the way so I could look her in the eye. “So far, everything I’ve designed and made has been for myself, an assignment, or based on someone else’s vision. If I lay eyes on another Maximilian dress with the artsy collar and the structured shoulders, I’ll scream. Bridal gowns. It’s such a niche market. They may be just the thing to put me on the map.”

But my mother was shaking her head. “Making someone else’s wedding dress means bad luck for your own romance.”

I sat back, folding my arms over my chest. “Mama, I’m not going to turn away this contract because you think it’s bad luck.”

“I don’t want the Harlow and Cassidy names to die out,” she said with a frown.

“So that’s what this is about? Grandchildren?”

“I’m not getting any younger, and your grandmother would sure love some great-grandbabies from you.”

Nana spent every waking moment in the company of her goats. I didn’t think she was holding her breath over me producing great-grandbabies for her. “You both have Red’s kids.”

“You know I love those boys to pieces,” she said, a smile ticking up one side of her mouth. My brother’s kids were the apples of the Cassidy family’s collective eye. Cullen was four and Clay was two. “But,” Mama continued, “they don’t have the Cassidy gift.”

“I don’t have the Cassidy gift!” I exclaimed. I’d held out hope throughout my childhood, into my teenage years, and even into my twenties that my charm would make itself known. It hadn’t happened, and I was resigned to the fact that it never would. “Even if I have a daughter someday, she probably won’t be charmed, either,” I added wistfully. “Time to let it go, Mama. If there’s romance out there for me, great, but I’m not going to stop living in the meantime.”

“Your charm will materialize one of these days. It’s in you,” she countered, as if she knew it for a fact. “And your daughters will have it, too.”

I was firmly into my thirties and hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in more years than I cared to remember. And now she had me bearing multiple daughters. Enough was enough. I picked up my sketchbook and opened it to the designs I’d done earlier for Josie and her bridesmaids. “I took the job,” I said, burying my lingering doubts and sliding the book in front of her. “The wedding’s in a week and a half. I’m going to need another seamstress to get it all done in time.” I batted my eyelashes at her. “Will you help me, Mama?”

Chapter 6

My love of sewing had started when I was nine years old and had spent an October weekend at Mockingbird Lane with Meemaw. She’d laid out a length of blueand-white-checked gingham on her cardboard cutting board, pinned McCall’s pattern pieces onto it, and cut it apart with shiny silver shears. I’d watch in awe as she sat at her Singer, telling me step by step what she was doing, and before I knew it, the day was gone and Meemaw had created a dress identical to Dorothy Gale’s from The Wizard of Oz. I’d worn it for Halloween that year, and nearly every day after that until my mother had looked at me sideways and said, “Should we make another dress so you can give that one a rest every now and again?”

My eyes had gone wide and excitement bubbled inside me. “Will Meemaw make me another one?”

“I’m sure she will,” Mama said, “but I think we should teach you how to do it. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”

I’d stared at her, not understanding what fish had to do with sewing, but I understood now. Meemaw had made me a dress and I felt like a princess when I wore it. Mama and Meemaw had taught me to sew and from that moment on I had been a queen. When I’d made a mistake and cried, Meemaw had said, “Darlin’, there are no mistakes in sewing. Only opportunities for design.”

Those were words I still lived by today.

“These are beautiful,” Mama said, flipping through the pages of sketches I’d done for Josie. She tapped the book with her index finger. “This is your gift, Harlow Jane.”

It wasn’t a Cassidy charm, but if I’d been a peacock right then, my feathers would have spread with pride. “Thanks to you.”

“Pshaw!” She waved away the credit. “Meemaw and I gave you the foundation. What you’ve done with that is damn impressive.”

A sound from the sink caught my attention. The faucet was suddenly dripping, slowly at first with a steady plop, plop, plop. It grew faster, changing until it sounded like yep, yep, yep. I jumped up and adjusted the rusty handle until it stopped dribbling. “This place needs a lot of work,” I said. I penciled “leaky faucet” on my list of things to repair—right next to “doorstop” and “hole in workroom wall”—and sat back down at the table. “Meemaw wasn’t great at maintenance, was she?”

“She was on past a hundred. No surprise that the old house needs some TLC. I’m sure she knew you’d take care of it. She did have someone come in to do odd jobs every now and again,” she added. “He’ll be by before too long, I’m sure.”

Mama pointed to the lines angling up the bodice of Josie’s dress. “Is this pleating?”

I nodded. “At first I thought I’d do inset seams or darts, but the more I looked at Josie and saw what she liked in my design books and the bridal magazine she brought, the more I thought the inset seams would be completely wrong. This is so her. I feel it in my bones.”

“It’s fine work,” Mama said, “even if it is a weddin’ gown.” She ran her fingertips across the fabric swatches I’d stapled onto the page with the final design. I’d selected White French satin, Diamond French silk, Ivory organza, and Ivory Duchess taffeta. “Which one do you like?”

I leaned over and touched each one, feeling the differences in texture and weight and noticing the variations in sheen. “The silk,” I said finally. It would drape beautifully, and the tone of the ivory would make Josie’s skin glow. I glanced at the clock. 8:03. “Josie and her maid of honor are coming by again at eight thirty. If she likes the design and picks a fabric, I’ll do a rush order on it while I work on the pattern and the mock-up.”

She nodded with approval. “It’s perfect for her. She’ll look like a million bucks.” She turned the page. “What about the bridesmaids?”

“They’re so different. One’s really tall and thin. One’s shorter and a little round. And one—” I conjured up an image of Nell, trying to reconcile her incarnation as Daisy Duke, her pricey accessories, and the fact that she was Josie’s boss and a business owner. “One I haven’t quite figured out yet. I decided to go with different looks for each of them.”

Mama flipped through the next few pages, commenting on the details of the designs.

“I just hope Josie likes the idea.” We’d brainstormed styles, but left the bridesmaid dress designs undecided.

“She’s easygoing,” Mama said. “She’s always mighty friendly. With the weddin’ so near and no other options, she probably won’t care all that much what it looks like.”

My head snapped up. This was the third time she’d made a reference to Josie as if she knew her.

“Mama,” I said, “how exactly did you say you know Josie?”

Her olive irises clouded and her eyes narrowed into what I could only describe as an expression of alarm. She