Chapter 9
Kylie called on Monday while Summer was taking a tray from the oven. Summer let the phone ring out, then called back from beside the freezer. She kept her apron on; she meant to make this quick.
“I owe you an apology,” Kylie said. Her voice was subdued, with none of the ease it had held through the half-open door. “Several, probably. I shouldn’t have talked about your marriage.”
Summer leaned against the freezer. “I heard you telling him he didn’t have to marry me. What did you expect him to say?”
Kylie gave a small breath. “Jonah’s explained how it sounded,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel you weren’t wanted.”
“How did you want it to sound?” Summer asked. She could hear her own pulse in the silence afterward. “You said he’d never leave somebody in that situation.”
“I meant he’s a good person.” Kylie’s voice tightened before she caught it. “I’m trying to apologize.”
Summer waited for Kylie to go on. At the other end of the phone there was silence, then a breath that sounded impatient.
“You said you thought there’d be another chance when you came home,” Summer said. “I didn’t misunderstand that.”
“I was upset.” Kylie spoke more quietly now. “Things have changed.” She paused. “I don’t want to lose this friendship over something I said badly.”
Summer looked toward the kitchen, where Macy was waiting to ask a question. She couldn’t stand here all morning making Kylie say the same thing differently, and part of her was relieved to have a reason to stop.
“I need to get back to work,” she said. “Please don’t talk about my marriage like that again.”
“I won’t.” Kylie sounded close to tears. “I really am sorry, Summer.”
That evening Jonah told her he had spoken to Kylie before the call.
He had said he wasn’t waiting for another chance with her, had not been waiting when he met Summer, and wouldn’t discuss what his marriage might have been under different circumstances.
Summer listened without asking to see the messages.
Later, when he fell asleep beside her, she found herself wondering whether Kylie had cried during his call too, then turned toward him and hated that she had wondered.
Lorraine accepted the quote on Wednesday, choosing ninety-six cakes instead of the hundred and twenty Summer had priced first. Half apple, half ginger, no cream, collection at four on Halloween by someone from the society.
She paid the deposit before Summer had finished transferring the details to the order book.
Beneath the email was a separate line asking whether Summer had found her dress, and Summer replied to the business part before admitting that she had not.
By Thursday, Summer could hear customers’ questions even while washing her hair: were the ravens for sale, would the cakes survive a long flight, did they validate parking?
She was almost hoping Jonah had forgotten their shopping plan when he arrived with the address and crackers to keep them going until dinner.
She ate three before taking off her apron.
The shop sold party clothes at the front and rented costumes from a separate room at the back.
A woman in a long cardigan asked them which they wanted, and Summer, who had looked at the same six photographs online every night since Sunday, found herself unable to answer.
She wanted to wear something beautiful and frivolous.
Saying so seemed likely to affect the price.
“We’re going to a masquerade,” she said. “I’d like a long dress. One with a big skirt.” She looked toward the nearest rail, where a green sequin sleeve had caught the light, and added, “But one I can still sit down in.”
The woman took them to a row of gowns arranged by color. Most were in protective covers, with small handwritten tags threaded through the hangers. Summer began checking the tags before looking properly at the clothes. Jonah had drifted toward a rack of vests with mild interest.
She tried a dark green dress first. In the changing cubicle its weight felt promising, but in the mirror outside it narrowed her to a column, with nowhere for her hands to go.
Jonah said the color suited her. She waited for him to say something else, then turned back to the mirror. No, she still didn’t like it.
The saleswoman watched her tug at the skirt. “Too narrow? I’ve got some fuller ones over here.”
“Yes, more skirt,” Summer said. She held her hands out farther than she meant to. “Possibly quite a lot more.”
The next dress was blue, pale enough to look silver where its folds caught the light. It had a square neckline, no sleeves, and a full skirt gathered into a fitted waist. There were no beads or flowers, and when she took it off the hanger, the fabric made a soft rustle.
She stepped into the blue dress and drew up the back zipper until her shoulder refused the last few inches. The fabric lay comfortably against her ribs. She tried once more before giving up. Then she turned toward the curtain.
“Jonah?” She opened the curtain a few inches. He was sitting on a low chair with a vest across his knees and stood before she had finished asking for help.
He came into the cubicle and she turned her back to him.
His fingers brushed her skin as he found the zipper, and she became acutely aware of the woman moving hangers on the other side of the curtain.
She had undressed beside him almost every day of their marriage.
This small, fully clothed dependence felt curiously more exposing.
“There.” He fastened the little hook at the top, then moved his hands to her shoulders. In the narrow mirror they could see only the upper half of the dress, his face above hers. “Go out where I can see the rest.”
She did, lifting the skirt farther than necessary to clear the curtain.
In the outside mirror her work boots looked absurd beneath the pale sweep of fabric.
She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
She had been about to point out the boots when Jonah came into view behind her and went still.
His eyes moved from her shoulders to the gathered waist, then back to her face.
Summer turned again, slowly, and watched the skirt follow her.
“That one,” Jonah said, and she turned from the mirror to face him. He stepped aside to let her pass, although she hadn’t asked him to move. “Can you walk in it? Come this way.”
“You haven’t seen the others.” She was smiling now, unable to help it. The skirt followed a fraction behind her turn and settled against her legs with a weight that made her want to move again.
“Try them if you want,” he said. “I’ll stay here. But don’t let them put that one away yet.” He lifted the vest from the chair he’d left it on, making room for her to sit.
The woman brought shoes and checked the length. Summer walked to the mirror and back, then sat down, watching the skirt spread over her knees.
“Is it a rental?” she asked. She checked the tag again while the woman shook her head.
“It’s for sale. I’ll fix this bit of lining before you take it.” The woman lifted a loose section of hem. “We can find a mask while you think about it.”
Jonah was examining a black vest with covered buttons. Summer looked back at the price: less than the cake order would bring in, more than she had spent on clothes for months. She was already imagining the woman hanging the dress up for someone else.
The first mask had feathers at one side that trembled whenever she spoke.
Jonah could barely hold back his laughter, then tried unsuccessfully to deny it, and she took it off before they both offended the woman.
The second was plain silver with a shallow raised pattern around the eyes and narrow gray ribbons to tie behind her head.
Summer lifted her hair away from the silver mask’s ribbons. “This one. I won’t spend the whole night sneezing into feathers.”
Jonah selected a black mask after rejecting one that pinched his nose.
He tried the vest over his shirt and stood beside her while the woman held a small mirror so they could see the backs of the ties.
His tuxedo jacket would go over it, he said.
Summer liked the combination, the familiar width of his shoulders above the severe little buttons.
“What are we, then?” he asked. He turned toward her with the mask still on, and she could hear how close he was to laughing.
“People with tickets,” she said. “Your mother can put something more impressive in the photograph captions.”
He laughed. Summer told the saleswoman she would take it and asked for a garment bag.
While Jonah changed out of the vest, she asked whether the shop sold wraps.
There was a plain gray one, light enough to fold into her bag when the ballroom grew warm, and she added it before she could begin a separate argument with herself about the cost.
In her own clothes again, she felt plainer and dumpier.
The woman sat behind the counter to secure the lining while they paid, making quick, unobtrusive stitches Summer could barely see.
Jonah took a photograph of the dress hanging from a hook beside the mirror.
Summer asked him to take one of them too, wearing the masks over the clothes they had come in, and laughed at how little the silver one went with her sweater.
They ate late at home, the garment bag draped across the spare chair at the new table because Summer didn’t want to leave it in the car. Halfway through their meal Jonah’s phone lit beside his plate. He read the message, then set down his fork.
“Kylie didn’t get the museum thing,” he said. He turned the phone so Summer could read it without reaching across his food. They’ve offered me an internship instead. Apparently I interviewed well enough to work for nothing.
Summer remembered Kylie’s folder on the bakery table and the damp paper bag she had tried to keep away from it. “Is she going to take it?” she asked.
“I hope not.” Jonah picked up the phone to answer. “She’ll end up doing everything they haven’t got anyone else to do.” He typed for a moment, stopped, then showed Summer his reply before sending it. That’s miserable. Do you want to talk tomorrow?
She watched him carefully, surprised by how completely he had forgiven Kylie.
Summer still had a heaviness in her stomach when she thought of their friendship, but Kylie had been right about one thing; Jonah was a nice guy, and he was the sort of person to completely forgive someone and move forward.
She loved that about him, the way he held no grudges, the open-handed generosity that had drawn her to him in the first place, even if in this moment it felt like the sting of betrayal.
The thought seemed ungenerous and petty, and so she pushed it aside.
After they had cleared up, she carried the dress upstairs.
Their bedroom wardrobe was crowded enough that she had to move Jonah’s jacket and two of her own hangers to make a space, and even then the skirt pressed against a basket of shoes.
The little room had more hanging space. She stood on the landing with the garment bag against her shoulder, thinking of its cupboard and what Jonah had told her was in there.
He came upstairs carrying the masks in their paper bag. “I can move the shoes,” he said when he saw where she was standing. He reached past her for the basket in their wardrobe.
“Would you get the parcel?” She had not decided to ask until she heard herself. “The one Kylie sent.” The garment bag slipped against her arm, and he took it from her before answering.
“Now?” he asked. Summer nodded.
He hung the dress from the hook on their bedroom door and went into the little room.
Summer followed as far as the threshold.
The ironing board stood folded against the wall, and the bag of clothes was where she had left it.
Jonah opened the cupboard, moved a boxed wedding present, and took out a small brown parcel from behind it.
They sat on their bed to open it. Her name and Jonah’s were both on the label, the letters crowded together to fit on one line. The paper had softened at one corner. Summer slipped a finger beneath the tape and lifted it slowly, while Jonah rested his hands on his knees and let her.
Inside was a white box containing a small yellow cardigan.
The sleeves were folded across the front, with tissue beneath them to make them hold their shape.
Summer touched a button first, then lifted the whole thing, surprised by the slight weight of it.
She had known a baby would be small. Here was something made to fit one, with six buttons somebody had expected a person to fasten.
“It’s lovely,” Summer said. She laid the cardigan across her lap, keeping one little cuff open with a finger. Jonah stayed beside her while she smoothed the sleeve flat again.
Beneath the tissue was a card congratulating them both. Kylie had written that she could not wait to meet the baby. Summer read it twice, then laid it beside the box with its ordinary, hopeful words turned upward.
“I bought socks,” Summer said. “Little striped ones. They’re in my drawer.
” She looked at Jonah, remembering the day she had bought them and how she had carried the small paper bag through the bakery as though it contained something she had no right to show anyone yet.
“I was going to give them to you. Then I thought it was a silly thing to make a present of.”
“You should have given them to me,” he said. “I’d have liked that.” His fingers came to rest on one of the cardigan’s buttons. Summer got up to find the socks.
The socks lay beneath a folded camisole, still held together by their paper band. Summer took them out and brought them to Jonah. He smoothed one over his open palm before placing them beside the cardigan in the box.
Jonah left the lid off. “Is this where you want them? We can leave them in your drawer if you’d rather.”
“Yes.” Summer folded the tissue over both and placed Kylie’s card on top. “But not behind the wedding things.” She cleared a space in the bottom of her own wardrobe, moving the shoes herself this time, and set the box where she could see it when she opened the door.
Jonah brought the dress over. With the basket moved, it hung without catching, the blue skirt faintly visible through the garment bag. Summer fastened the bag at the top. Before she closed the wardrobe, she crouched and tucked a loose corner of tissue inside the little box.