Chapter 5 #3
Lara did not touch the wedding binder. She did not answer phones.
She did not cook unless invited. She asked before lighting candles, then stopped asking and simply did not light them.
She spent evenings on furniture websites, and video calls with friends who were apparently relieved enough by the apartment news to begin advising her on rugs.
Noah kept turning toward Ella.
At breakfast, he asked if she wanted to look at the seating chart that night, and when Lara quietly took her tea upstairs, he did not ask her opinion.
When Margaret called, he put the phone on speaker and said, “Ella and I are working on that.” When Bethany emailed, he forwarded it to Ella with a note: Your kingdom, my queen.
Ella laughed when she saw it.
Wednesday’s fitting passed. Thursday’s florist invoice passed. Friday’s workday dragged. By Saturday morning, the house felt almost normal except for the labeled moving boxes beginning to stack in the guest room.
Almost normal was such a relief that Ella mistook it for normal.
The bridal shower was Sunday.
Ella had resisted having one at all because the phrase bridal shower made her think of games involving toilet paper dresses and women pretending not to be competitive about them.
Carolina had taken this as a personal insult and arranged a brunch instead, declaring it “a civilized assembly in honor of your ongoing legal merger with a man I tolerate.” Margaret had offered her country club.
Ella had declined with a level of diplomacy that deserved a state department position.
They settled on a private room at a bright little restaurant downtown, with pale wood and plants and mimosas.
Lara was invited.
That had never been in question.
On Saturday afternoon, Ella came downstairs with the dress she planned to wear to the shower draped over one arm.
It was soft green, wrap-style, flattering without seeming to try too hard.
She had bought it months earlier with Carolina, who had said, “That color makes you look like you drink enough water and have never searched an ex’s Venmo transactions. ”
Ella loved it.
She wanted to steam it before hanging it on the back of the bedroom door.
The steamer was not in the hall closet.
Ella checked the laundry room. The bedroom. The guest room closet, after knocking and finding Lara out. The linen cupboard. Back to the hall closet.
No steamer.
She stood in the hallway, dress over one arm, irritation building out of proportion to the situation.
It was a steamer. Things moved. Noah used household objects with the confidence of a man who believed all items magically returned to their natural habitats. Lara had been packing. Ella herself could have moved it.
She took out her phone.
Ella: Have you seen the steamer?
Noah replied from the office.
Noah: I have neve knowingly interacted with a steamer. What does it look like?
Ella: Like a steamer.
Noah: Cruel but fair.
A minute later, Lara texted.
Lara: I used it Thursday for my blouse. I put it back in the hall closet, top shelf left side. Did it escape?
Ella looked at the top shelf, left side.
No steamer.
Ella: Not there.
Lara: Weird. I’m at Target. Want me to grab one? I need a shower curtain anyway.
Ella stared at the message.
Helpful.
Useful.
Solving the problem.
Ella typed, deleted, typed again.
Ella: No, don’t buy one. It’s somewhere.
Lara: Okay. Sorry if I misplaced it. I was sure I put it back.
Ella: No worries.
She searched another twenty minutes and found it eventually in the basement laundry sink, cord wrapped neatly around the handle, empty.
Noah appeared at the top of the basement stairs. “Victory?”
“Yes.” Ella held it up. “Basement.”
His forehead creased. “Why was it in the basement?”
“I don’t know.”
He came down a few steps. “Did Lara put it there?”
“She said she put it in the closet.”
“Maybe I moved it?”
Ella looked at him.
He held up both hands. “I don’t remember doing it, but I don’t remember doing many things.”
That was true enough to make her smile faintly.
“Maybe,” she said.
He studied her. “You okay?”
“I am deeply emotionally invested in garment care.”
“That is what drew me to you.”
“Not my beauty?”
“That was third. After garment care and your threateningly organized email folders.”
She laughed because he was trying and because it worked.
But later, while steaming the green dress in the bedroom, Ella kept seeing Lara’s text.
I was sure I put it back.
Maybe she had been sure.
Maybe Ella had moved it herself. Maybe Noah had. Maybe the steamer had been in the basement for days and everyone was misremembering.
Steam rose from the dress in soft clouds.
Ella smoothed the fabric with her palm and tried to let the thought evaporate with the wrinkles.
The morning of the shower, the green dress was gone.
Ella stood in front of the bedroom door, looking at the empty hook.
For a second, her brain refused to process it.
Then she turned in a slow circle, as if the dress might have migrated six feet to the left out of whimsy.
It had not.
“Noah?”
He came out of the bathroom, half dressed, towel in one hand. “Yeah?”
“My dress was here.”
He looked at the empty hook. “The green one?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
Do not snap, she told herself.
Huh was a reasonable response from a man who had not yet had coffee and did not understand that women’s clothing could walk away unassisted.
“It was right here,” she said. “I steamed it yesterday.”
“I saw you.”
“Did I move it?”
“I don’t know.” He looked around, then opened the closet. “Maybe you hung it up somewhere else?”
“I would remember hanging it up.”
The sentence came out sharper than she meant.
Noah glanced back.
Ella closed her eyes briefly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’ll find it.”
They checked the closet. The bathroom. The laundry room. The hall closet. The guest room door was closed.
Ella stopped in front of it.
Noah stood behind her. “She’s probably still asleep.”
“I know.”
“We can knock.”
“It’s not in there.”
“Maybe she borrowed the steamer again and took it with?—”
“The dress?”
“No. I don’t know. Sorry. That was stupid.”
Ella knocked.
There was movement inside, then Lara opened the door wearing a robe over pajamas, hair mussed, face creased from sleep.
“Is everything okay?”
“I can’t find my green dress,” Ella said.
Lara blinked. “Your shower dress?”
“Yes.”
“Oh no.” Lara opened the door wider. “Come in. Maybe it got mixed with my packing somehow?”
Ella did not want to go into the guest room.
She went in anyway.
The room smelled like Lara’s vanilla shampoo. Boxes sat neatly along one wall. The closet was open, Lara’s few hanging clothes inside. The bed was made, except for one folded blanket at the foot.
No green dress.
Lara began checking behind the door, inside the closet, around the boxes. “I’m so sorry. I don’t think I touched it.”
“I’m not saying you did.”
“No, I know, but things have been weird with stuff moving. The steamer yesterday, and now this.”
Ella froze.
Noah, behind her, said, “What do you mean, things have been weird?”
Lara looked from Noah to Ella, immediately concerned. “Nothing. I just mean wedding stress weird. Objects are sentient when you’re on a deadline.”
It was a joke.
A bad one.
Ella turned and walked out.
She found the dress ten minutes later in the coat closet downstairs, hanging behind Noah’s winter parka in a dry-cleaning bag.
A dry-cleaning bag Ella did not remember putting over it.
“There,” Noah said, relief in his voice. “Found.”
Ella stood with one hand on the hanger.
Lara hovered behind him, wringing her hands. “Thank God.”
Ella pulled the dress free. It was fine. Unwrinkled. Better protected than when she had left it.
“Did you put it there?” Noah asked.
Ella looked at him.
His face was open. Genuinely asking. Not accusing.
That almost made it worse.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Lara said softly, “Maybe you were trying to keep it away from the steam after you finished?”
Ella turned toward her.
Lara’s expression was gentle. Helpful. “I do stuff like that all the time. Put something somewhere clever and then forget because the cleverness makes sense only in the moment.”
Noah nodded slowly. “I’ve done that.”
Of course he had. Everyone had.
Ella looked back at the dress.
The dry-cleaning bag whispered beneath her fingers. Maybe she had done it.
She had been distracted after steaming it.
Noah had made her laugh. Her phone had rung.
Carolina had texted about arrival times.
She might have carried the dress downstairs for some reason.
She might have thought the coat closet was safer.
She might have covered it because she did not want it to wrinkle.
Was that possible?
Yes.
Was it likely?
She did not know.
That was the part she hated.
“Great,” Ella said. “Found.”
“Are you okay?” Noah asked.
“Yes. I need to get dressed.”
She took the dress upstairs and shut the bedroom door a little too firmly. For a moment, she stood with her back against it. Her heart was beating too fast.
This was ridiculous. Losing a dress was normal. Finding a dress was good. No one had done anything to her. There was no injury, no accusation, no villain.
Only the unsettling sensation of being unable to trust the small map in her own head.
She put the dress on. It looked beautiful. That almost made her cry.
When she came downstairs, Noah was waiting in the entry with her coat. His expression softened as soon as he saw her.
“Ella,” he said.
The sound of her name in his voice steadied her.
“Good?” she asked.
“You look incredible.”
She believed him.
Then Lara came out of the kitchen carrying a travel mug.
“Oh,” she said softly. “That color is perfect on you.”
Ella managed a smile. “Thank you.”
“I made coffee for the road.” Lara held out the mug, then stopped herself halfway. “Sorry. Do you want it? You don’t have to.”
Ella looked at the mug.
The travel mug, stainless steel with a dent near the bottom.
“Thanks,” Ella said, taking it.
Lara looked relieved.
Noah opened the door.