Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning, as Emmy nibbled a toasted bagel with jam, she called her dad.
“Miss me already?” he asked.
“Yes, actually. I do.” She leaned on the windowsill to view the lightly falling snow but then thought better of it when the draft from under the old window chilled her to the bone.
“What’s up?” His soft tone betrayed his fondness for her.
“You know Mom’s drawings you found in the box with her dress?
” She picked up her plate and moved over to the sofa, snuggling into the throw that was lumped beside her.
“There are two names on the back of one of them: Mrs. and Mitchell Augustine. I wondered if maybe they commissioned Mom’s work. Do you know the name Augustine?”
She hung on the tick of silence.
“No, I can’t say I do,” he replied, to her disappointment.
“Mom never mentioned him or maybe his wife at all?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Hm. I was just curious. Other than her designs, I don’t know much about what she did before you two were married. Do you have any stories?”
He cleared his throat. “When I met her, she and I were both studying in Paris, as you know. Even though she wore French clothes, something about her told me she was American. I could never put my finger on it…”
Emmy smiled, the image of her mom fluttering into her mind.
“I was homesick, and she radiated like the sun. I couldn’t understand how someone could glow like she did.
” He chuckled. “Anyway, I knew she was probably the talk of the town and men must be falling all over themselves to take her out. She had lots of friends all over the world from her travels and a handful of old friends from her childhood.”
Emmy covered her legs with the blanket and set the plate in her lap. “That sounds like her. I loved the story of how you two met. I used to make her tell me over and over. But now I wish I’d had her tell me other things about herself. She didn’t share anything else?”
“To be honest, she didn’t really talk much about her younger days.”
“She didn’t tell the love of her life about any of her experiences? That doesn’t sound like Mom.”
“I never pressed her.” He paused as if there was something he wanted to say.
“What is it, Dad?”
“She was more private than you think and had lots tucked away in that mind of hers.”
“Like what?”
“There was one thing she didn’t include when she told you girls the story of how we met.”
“What was it?”
“You know the story of the little café on the corner of her block where she’d have coffee and sketch out her design ideas—that day that I first saw her, she’d been crying.”
“Why didn’t she tell us that?”
“I suppose it wasn’t as romantic, so she left it out.”
He paused, the line buzzing in the silence.
“I couldn’t bear to see sadness in such a stunning woman,” he continued. “I went over to her and asked if she had a minute. I had no idea what I was going to say, but I wanted her attention.”
“What did you say was your reason for needing a minute?”
“I told her I was lost, even though I’d been living in Paris for months. I asked her for directions to the Louvre. It was the first thing I thought of.” He laughed.
“Did you ever find out why she was crying that day?” Emmy asked.
He cleared his throat. “Just a bad day at work. That’s all she told me.”
Emmy could definitely understand a bad workday. But, other than the time she’d caught her mom packing up clothes during her struggle with cancer, Emmy couldn’t remember seeing her mother flustered.
“She must have gone through something awful to make her cry in public.”
“I know. Your mother hated to show emotion in public. She used to tell me that her emotions and her face without makeup were meant for my eyes only. She viewed those two things as intimate. The world was meant to see the external Anne, but only we got to see what was underneath.”
A memory came to mind of her mother, dressed in a long nightgown, her feet bare on the kitchen floor as she giggled with Emmy and Madison, making pancakes in the early morning before school.
Her tangled hair was tucked behind her ears, and she didn’t have a stitch of makeup on.
Emmy always thought that was when she looked the most radiant.
It seemed to be when she was the happiest.
“That sounds like her.” Emmy picked at her bagel. “So was her job why you two just moved to Tennessee together?”
“It didn’t happen quite that way. I saw her again and then, after a while, a day didn’t go by when we weren’t catching up.
I told her I wanted to eventually move home.
I wrestled with leaving after the semester.
Some of the students in my cohort were applying for jobs abroad and I considered it.
I knew I might have to stay for her, but I struggled with being so far away from the small-town culture I grew up in.
Once we began thinking about the future, she rushed in and suggested we ‘get away.’ Those were the words she used.
I thought she meant take a vacation, but she wanted to leave everything behind. ”
“Why? Because of work?”
“Apart from that first day, I didn’t get the idea that she hated her job.
She was a designer for Baudelaire. She was just getting started.
While she worked long hours, she seemed happy.
Then, one day, she said Paris wasn’t where she wanted to start a family.
She wanted someplace where she could hide away, she said.
She wanted a small house where she could garden and a big yard to play in.
So I applied at various architecture firms back here, and when I got a job offer, we made the move. ”
“I’ve never understood why she gave up her talent entirely, though,” Emmy said. “She was studying abroad and designing gorgeous clothes. That doesn’t sound like someone who wants to live in a secluded place.”
“I think when it came down to it, she decided between her love of design and her dream of family. She didn’t want to have a family in the city, but she didn’t feel she could further her fashion career in Tennessee. And the hours weren’t conducive to raising kids.”
“It didn’t matter what Mom did, she seemed so sure of her choices,” Emmy said, wishing she’d inherited that trait.
“Yes. She was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted.”
“I wish I could be more like her.”
“You are. You just haven’t realized it yet.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I hope I realize it soon.”
The buzzer on her apartment door sounded. That was weird. She wasn’t expecting anyone. “Hey, Dad, someone’s at the door. Can I call you back later?”
“Of course.”
She said her goodbyes, abandoned her breakfast, and went over to the peephole to see who it was. A snow-dusted woman stood in view, holding a large garment bag.
Emmy opened the door, leaving the chain lock in place. The woman looked familiar. “May I help you?”
“I’m from The Garnet & Petticoat a couple of blocks over.”
That’s how Emmy knew her.
“We don’t usually do deliveries, but this is a gift. He paid double if I’d drive it over to you.” She held up the garment bag.
He? Emmy unchained the door.
The woman handed her the bag, along with an envelope. “He emailed me this and asked me to pass it along to you.”
“Thank you.”
Emmy shut the door and gasped as she unzipped the garment bag.
The green dress.
She draped the garment bag over her arm, then opened the envelope and read the message.
Emmy,
You lit up so much when you talked about this dress, and I couldn’t let it be sold to someone else. Anyway, I thought it might be good for New Year’s or something. You’ll find a way to get use out of it, I’m sure.
Happy Holidays,
Charlie
Emmy hung up the dress on the outside of her closet door and stared at it. It truly was stunning. What was she going to do with it? She’d missed her work party, and New Year’s was tomorrow. She didn’t have any plans.
She clicked on Charlie’s number and called him. When the phone pulsed, her heart pounded along with it.
“Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Emmy.”
She sensed his smile on the other end from the little breath that came down the line.
“So I got a gift at my door just now.”
“Please tell me it’s the correct dress.”
“Yes. How do you know where I live?”
“Well, I considered asking Madison, but I thought she might spill the beans. I messaged Adrienne. So are you going to wear it somewhere great tomorrow night?”
“Absolutely,” she lied. What else could she say? No, I’m a sad loner, and you’ve wasted your money? “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to.”
Before she could say more, there was a rustling, and he was whispering to someone.
“Hey, I’ve gotta run. I’ll call you back.”
“No worries. Don’t feel like you have to if you’re busy. I just wanted to thank you.”
“You’re welcome!”
She ended the call and plopped down onto the sofa, cradling her phone.
Why had he gone to all the trouble to do that for her?
Buying her a dress was a pretty big gesture.
Had he meant anything by it? Wouldn’t it be so romantic if he surprised her on New Year’s Eve?
Or, in some fantasy land, if she surprised him?
Emmy pulled her laptop off the coffee table and opened her computer to see if there were any flights to Chicago tomorrow, just for kicks.
She searched, but there weren’t any direct flights. Who was she kidding anyway?