Chapter 24
T he house had been quiet since Saturday’s screening.
Too quiet, Drake felt. For the last three mornings, Ellie’s office door was already closed when he got up.
He couldn’t blame her for throwing herself into her work.
It was probably a nice distraction from everything.
Right after seeing Ben’s death, she’d watched Melinda and Drake fall in love.
And he’d declared that love for the first time at The Garlic Bread Place.
Drake hadn’t been trying to repeat his own history by bringing Ellie there.
His excuse was much more innocent: The Garlic Bread Place seemed like the kind of under-the-radar restaurant she would love.
He had wanted to impress her with amazing food.
Drake had tried to explain his rationale as they left the cinema that night, but Ellie darted outside, and the rules forced his silence.
She was left with a story that lacked context.
This morning, something was different. The door to Ellie’s office was open, and her desk chair was empty.
She wasn’t downstairs, either. In the kitchen, a couple sheets of paper waited for him on the table.
They were still hot from the printer. Drake sucked in a deep breath.
He knew, based on the title alone, what he was about to read.
The Place Where the Dresses Talk
My Mother’s Shop isn’t a shop. A shop suggests a choice.
Inside a shop, you pick out a little round pair of goldrimmed spectacles that perch on the bridge of your nose and make you feel studious.
Out to dinner that night, you lean forward into the conversation with the air of an Ivy undergrad.
Your gaze in the mirror lingers a second too long.
You look good. There it is, staring you in the face. Your choice.
At My Mother’s Shop, you don’t get a choice.
The dresses choose you. They’re polite about it, sure.
Each dress is spaced ten inches apart on beautiful copper racks that line the edges of the room like ballet bars.
Fabrics are shaded in Painted Lady row home hues: cream, dusty rose, violet.
The swirl of tulle and lace brings to mind hundreds of blushing girls posed for a cotillion.
When the front door swings open and a breeze inspires them, the girls start to dance.
Ellie made Melinda’s idea of a dress shop sound like a romantic endeavor.
Really, it had been a strategic business decision.
Drake had turned over late one night to find Melinda reading a book called Small Business: An Art Form .
“Specificity is key,” the first chapter said.
Also, “have a niche.” Despite becoming a known presence in the community, her mother had struggled to find regular customers for her antique shop.
Was there a way to focus on one thing? Melinda had wondered out loud.
She’d spent the next few weeks writing down niche ideas on a yellow-lined pad. Then, when one of their former teachers brought in her old wedding dress and asked if she would want to sell it, Melinda wrote down a new niche and underlined it: Previously loved dresses .
Drake scanned the next section.
There are wedding dresses and party dresses, tea dresses and Sunday-afternoon dresses.
There are “this old things?” and picnic-in-the-park dresses.
None of them try to hide that they’ve lived.
When a garment comes in—usually by way of the shop owner, Melinda, herself—it is revived by hand with love.
Melinda waits for a whisper to tell her what to change and where to embellish.
Then, she writes a note for the next wearer based on what that whisper tells her.
It’s a written game of telephone, if you will.
On the front counter of My Mother’s Shop, a candle burns that’s worth a visit in itself. Cinnamon and sage bubble inside a handsome cauldron.
Melinda was still burning those candles.
Drake had started the long lineage. Liquid Gold, they were called.
The wax was poured inside fancy jelly jars.
He’d bought the first Liquid Gold from Clara’s, their town’s only gift shop.
Clara herself had helped him pick out a gift for Melinda.
“This one,” she’d said, tapping her spindly finger on the top of the lid. “She’ll love it.”
Apparently, Melinda did love it, or maybe Jamie had the same great idea.
The scent has a melody that washes over you as you wander the racks and stop to admire the handwritten lavender notes tucked inside each dress.
“Your wish comes true at midnight” the first one says.
Reading the words etched in calligraphy, one can summon an author with tousled blonde curls, the presence of a grandfather clock ticking its way through a wicked, late night, and a Louisa May Alcott book hinged on the edge of an antique desk.
The note, fittingly, is paired with a traditional white bridal gown.
Pearls hug a sweetheart neckline that begs to be worn by someone who believes in romance, the kind of love that ran through meadows and pledged itself to someone in an oath.
A cheekier dress with a seafoam beaded bodice tells the wearer to find the best man at the wedding. It knows its audience.
A plum silk dress with a plunging neckline and soft flutter sleeves kindly requests: Meet me in a reverie.
Pause, now.
Zoom out for a second.
Imagine you’re standing in the textbook definition of an idyllic small town.
A towering old-fashioned clock tower tells the wrong time, making everybody a few minutes late to their appointments.
That kind of thing is okay here. The streets of this traditional block are theme-park clean, and the trees that line those pristine streets are named for the folks who live there.
One of them, a spruce called Mayor Steve, is dedicated to a man who ran for mayor years ago and just missed the mark.
They named a tree after him to smooth over any friction.
If Ellie had found the tree assigned to Drake for his ambitious community service efforts, she didn’t mention it.
When you see people at the grocery store and ask about their families, you care about those answers.
You feel the reward of buying an incredible scented candle at the one gift shop in town, knowing you’re truly supporting local businesses because you saw for yourself the way that the owner, Clara, was able to expand into a bigger storefront.
Zoom back in.
The dress shop is nestled right in the heart of all that.
The door jingles as you enter. It gets stuck when it’s half-way open.
Jamie, Melinda’s husband, might run over to give it a pull like it hurt your feelings.
On my first visit to My Mother’s Shop, Jamie disappears into the attic apartment above us.
Then, Melinda explains the truth about the surroundings.
She is fascinated by giving previously loved things a second chance.
She believes that old items passed to a new owner are a reminder that we should appreciate the imperfect versions of ourselves.
The dresses represent all the lives we’ve lived.
Even though we’re different than we used to be, evolving is safe in this space. Sacred, even.
“Go explore now.” Melinda waves from behind the counter. Jamie returns to her side. They drink peppermint tea with honey sticks, each reading their respective hardcover books behind the desk. When Jamie laughs at a line, Melinda turns to smile at him like she’s the luckiest.
Drake didn’t love reading about Jamie. He wasn’t jealous, but did anyone want to read about their ex and the person they ended up with?
Beyond that laugh, though, and the crinkled books turning to a new page, the store is silent. It’s designed that way. Because if you listen closely, the girls will start to chatter.
“Lift up my train on the stairs, won’t you?”
“Take me out to a garden, I want to see the roses.”
“Somebody, buy me a pony.”
“I. Want. To. Tango!”
“Let me be your muse.”
And then, you’ll hear the voice that’s meant for you to chime in, a little louder than the rest. It might be a voice you didn’t know you needed to hear. She offers you a piece of advice. The whole thing feels monumental, so much bigger than shopping, than a dress.
“You picked well,” Melinda tells me, returning us to the illusion of choice. I’ve learned better in my time here. She rings up my dress and places it into the safety of a dark travel bag with a silver zipper on it. “By the way, I wrote the note on that one myself.”
The dress I’m buying tells me this: When things get hard, think of the very first time you met them. The very first time.
So, I close my eyes. I grin. I do.
Drake set the story down. When he looked up, Ellie had come through the back door. Nancy’s leash was still in her hand. “Well,” she said eagerly, sipping a latte from the coffee shop she never went to before ten. “What do you think?”
“I love it,” Drake said. There were details about his town he would’ve tweaked for accuracy, but it was well written. “It’s well written.”
Ellie slid into the chair across from him and unbuckled Nancy from her restraint, leaving her to tuck her nose into all corners of the kitchen. “Okay,” she said. “Good. What else?”
Drake wasn’t sure what Ellie expected. He worried there was a trap here, a catch, some hidden statement she was waiting for him to make about Melinda.
“I think,” he said, patting her coat, which resembled the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, “I think you really captured the town …” Tread carefully, he reminded himself.
“The store,” Drake told her. “And the town.”
Drake could feel Ellie struggling on the other side of the table.
This was the first work she was proud of in a while, a story people were going to read and enjoy.
It was also a story that would tie Ellie’s and Melinda’s names together.
He felt for her. Yes, she’d looked up Melinda and tracked her down, but she hadn’t known where this would all lead.
“Did you find my tree?” Drake asked her. “When you were walking around Main Street?”
“I …no!” Ellie said. She perked up. “They named a tree after you?”
“Yeah. It was for community service. Really, I just ran around fixing a lot of things. People would come by Melinda’s shop to find me whenever something broke.”
“Wow, Drake,” Ellie said. Her expression started to sour. He should’ve known better than to mention the shop. “It seems like there’s so much I still don’t know about you.”