35. Alessia
— ? —
Alessia
Now - Tuscany
The bridal shop in the village has one mirror, one fitting room with a curtain that doesn’t close all the way, and Signora Bruni.
She pinned my mother’s wedding dress in this same shop years ago, and she hasn’t stopped talking about it since I walked in.
The silk, the lace, the way my mother looked like an angel walking down from heaven.
Signora Bruni remembers every detail, and she’s determined to share all of them whether I want to hear them or not.
Two women from the village are pretending to shop for christening gowns and very obviously listening to everything we say. One of them whispers la figlia di Sartori to the other, and the other one crosses herself.
I ignore them.
Euridice is sprawled on the velvet bench with a glass of Signora Bruni’s terrible prosecco, watching me turn in front of the mirror.
The dress is simple - an ivory slip, nothing like the elaborate gown I wore the first time.
No train. No veil. Just silk that skims my body and makes me look like myself instead of someone playing a part.
“Turn round again,” she says.
I turn round again.
“Slower. I want to see the back.”
“Euri.”
“You dragged me out of a vineyard with purple hands and no notice, I am going to see the back of the dress.” She drinks her terrible prosecco. “Why today, exactly?”
“Because he’s been unbearable for three weeks. Sneaking off with Simon. Coming back smelling like the village bakery, which he claims to hate. So I’d like to be a step ahead of him for once.”
“That’s very presumptuous of you.”
“I’ve married the man once already. I think that earns me a little presumption.”
Euridice laughs into her glass.
“Do you know what he’s planning?” I ask her.
“Why would I know anything?”
“Because your ears are doing the thing.”
Her hand flies to her ear. “They are not doing a thing.”
“They’re pink right now.”
“It’s warm in here.”
It is not warm in here. I let her have it anyway, because I’ve learned there’s no point pulling on a thread she’s decided to hold onto with both hands.
I turn again, and the silk goes cold and then warm against my legs. Whatever he’s planning, I’ve decided I’m not going to feel guilty about wanting to look like this when it finally happens.
She puts the glass down on Signora Bruni’s little table and comes and stands behind me, and the two of us look at me in the mirror, barefoot, with the two gossips reflected over my shoulder, still staring.
“You look like her,” Euridice says. “You know that.”
“I know.”
And that’s the moment my throat goes, not on the vows and not on the dress, but on my cousin saying that in a shop that smells like dust and old lace.
She lets me have about four seconds of it, and then she sighs and pulls me into a hug that smells like prosecco and her expensive French perfume, because Euridice has never once in her life let anybody cry at her for longer than that.
“If he hurts you again,” she murmurs against my hair, “I’ll kill him myself.”
My whole body goes cold.
I pull back sharply, my hands gripping her shoulders. “Don’t.”
She blinks. “Ally, I didn’t mean-”
“Don’t say that word. Not about him. Not in this family.” My voice is harder than I mean it to be. “Not after what Papa did to his uncle.”
Her face falls. Understanding dawns, followed quickly by horror at what she said without thinking.
“God. Ally, I’m sorry.” She reaches for my hand. “I didn’t think.”
“I know you didn’t.” I squeeze her fingers. “Just don’t.”
She nods, chastened. The silence stretches for a moment, awkward and heavy. Then her eyes narrow at the dress in the mirror.
“Are you buying it?”
I look at myself one more time. Barefoot in ivory silk, with the two gossips still not pretending very hard anymore.
“I’m buying it,” I say. “Whatever he’s planning, I want to already own the dress by the time he gets around to it.”
Euridice chokes on her prosecco.
“That’s either very confident or very stupid.”
“Can’t it be both?”
She laughs, and doesn’t answer the question I didn’t get to ask, and I let her have that, because something in the way she won’t quite meet my eyes tells me I’m going to like the answer whenever it comes.