Chapter 7 #4
I can’t, she says. I booked an appointment.
Then cancel it. We’ll go somewhere else for the day.
Oh yeah? Like where?
He lifts his shoulders in a shrug, his hands returned to his pockets.
Paris, he says. We’re near St Pancras, aren’t we? And you like croissants?
He is teasing, she thinks, but he’s looking at her as though he’s not, and she feels a flush of heat, despite the cold air.
Let’s go, she says, turning to the shop door.
To Paris?
To where we planned, she says, as she rings the buzzer.
Her words hang there as if they’re a pointed reference to the past and she regrets it for a second but pretends not to; stands back, waits.
He is silent. Eventually a tall, thin woman opens the door, dressed in every shade of beige possible.
Nude lipstick, taupe shoes, camel-coloured jumpsuit.
Ms Harper? she says, and they’re ushered inside, told to leave their wet coats, please, on the hooks by the door.
They both do as they’re told. Shoes off, too, if you could, the woman says, which is more unexpected, but they remove those as well.
Could be in Paris, Bren says to Nora in an undertone as they walk down the ramp to the shop floor, and Nora hits him lightly on the arm, says he’s just sore she didn’t bring him a croissant.
It’s funny until the beige woman turns to them with her arms crossed.
Like they’re whispering schoolchildren, not showing the dresses their due respect.
These are the gowns, she says, and Nora looks past her to the five rails standing atop the polished wood floor, spotlights illuminating the silk and chiffon and lace, suspended like skins.
All pre-loved, but still of the highest quality with no repairs required, the woman says. Please keep in mind that we don’t provide alterations or returns.
Nora rather thinks she sounds as if she’s reeling off a script she recites several times a day; but there’s an edge, too. Not boredom, exactly. Contempt.
Everything you see is labelled up at our very best price, the woman goes on, not making eye contact with either of them. So please don’t try to haggle me down further if you find one that you like.
Oh, says Nora. I wouldn’t –
They’re all old season, of course, all with a unique history behind them, so if you want brand new, or something that can be nipped and tucked to fit your figure – she looks Nora up and down, at this – then I suggest you go elsewhere.
A beat, then. Bren is frowning.
No, Nora says, I want something sustainable, definitely. Second-hand.
We prefer the term Vintage Couture, the woman says, and Bren says what’s the difference, and Nora talks over him, says sure, sorry, thank you.
Nod from the woman then, press of her lips.
The dressing room’s over there; she’s got another customer in an hour, so take a look at what you’d like to try; she’d recommend three, four if you’re quick.
Then pop these on the hangers – she hands Nora a set of wooden pegs – and once you’re down to your underwear I’ll help you into your choices.
Please don’t touch the dresses without my assistance.
Wouldn’t dare, Bren says, and the woman looks at him properly for the first time.
Are you the groom, she asks, eyeing him the way she’d eyed Nora. The air seems to tighten, somehow, even though Nora had fully expected this question, at some point; she tenses, folds her own arms.
Nope, Bren says. I’m the best man.
The best man? I’ve had brothers in here, before. Friends. But never the best man.
He’s my best man, Nora says. Not the best man.
Depending on your perspective, Bren says.
I see, the woman says, though Nora is not sure that she does. Her lipstick is the exact shade of her skin, she realises now, which is just one shade lighter than her jumpsuit. Everything considered, orderly. No room for blurred lines; best men of brides, or the muddied feelings that might stir up.
I’ll give you fifteen minutes to browse, the beige woman says, gesturing to the dresses behind her.
I’d suggest starting at the front, here, and working your way through each rail, even if you think you know what you want.
Most women do, but then their body shape dictates something entirely different.
You’re a pear, aren’t you, she says, with another glance at Nora’s waistline. So I’d suggest a fuller skirt.
Thank you, Nora says, though she’s not quite sure what she’s thanking her for, and then the woman is clacking away in her beige heels when Bren says wait, sorry what?
Told you, she murmurs, and it’s meant to be light, uncaring – remember the judgement I knew was coming – but Bren says no, excuse me, raising his voice so that the beige woman stops walking, turns around.
What just happened, he asks her.
Bren, Nora says.
Why did you just compare her to a pome fruit, he asks, and the woman stares at him. A star, maybe, or the fucking sun, sure, Bren goes on, and there’s that warmth again, blazing in Nora’s chest. Her clam-heart, broken open.
The beige woman keeps staring at Bren for a long, hard moment, and then at Nora, who says sorry, it’s – it’s fine. Tilt of the woman’s chin, then, before she turns once again and crosses the floor to the glass office in the back. Shuts the door.
Charmed, Bren says, but Nora is rattled now. Because of the dress thing, but also the Bren thing; the melt of her, at what he’d just said.
I think we should go, she says. This doesn’t feel right.
Bren turns from the office and looks Nora’s way, and his eyes are alight with an outrage she’s seen before, when they were young. When some guys from his school woofed at her, in some moronic reference, probably, to her mismatched irises. Calling her Collie Dog, or something, she didn’t care.
But Bren did.
He always did, even if, back then, he wouldn’t say it.
I think it feels right enough, he says. You wanted to try on wedding dresses, didn’t you? And we’re in a room full of them.
But I –
Let’s find you the best dress in the goddamn room, Bren says, and then not buy it, out of principle, and send that woman a crate of mouldy pears to thank her for her services. Unless you legitimately find the best dress on the planet, in which case we can swallow our pride.
He is trailing past the gowns as he speaks, touching the hangers as if they’re books on a shelf. These look good, he says, stopping at a colourful section near the back. You don’t want to wear white, do you?
She said we should start at –
Oh, live a little, Nora, Bren says. Start wherever the hell you want.
And despite how he had defended her, just then, she senses that he’s angry with her, too, and not only the beige woman. Avoiding her eyes as he moves through the rails, and she stands there, with her split-open heart, wondering whether she should leave.
What about this, Bren says, before she can speak, and he pulls out a lace slip with off-the-shoulder straps, in an almost-gold, definitely-not-white. It shimmers under the shop lighting, the fabric reminiscent of sunlight.
He looks at it, then lifts it off the rail.
Strange sensation, then, like a flower opening inside her. Because it is beautiful. And because he knows her. And because he is here, for her, for this, holding out an olive branch made of fabric and dainty, near-invisible stitches, the sort of thing she’d have chosen herself.
So she doesn’t leave.
She looks at the dress on the hanger.
Maybe, she says, as if daring herself to say it. Maybe … something like that.
Then peg it, Bren says, holding it out towards her.
And she does.
_
Bren taps his foot against the wooden bench outside the dressing room. The beige woman is in there, to begin with, helping Nora into the first dress, and then the telephone rings, sharp and high from behind the glass office door so she retreats, heels clicking. Good riddance.
She put a bag over my face, Nora says through the curtain.
She what?
She put this shower cap-style bag on my face so I wouldn’t get make-up on the dress, Nora tells him. Even though I told her I’m not wearing any.
Crazy, he says, weddings make people crazy, and Nora does not respond to that. He keeps tapping his foot, scrolls briefly on his phone. Alone, now, on the shop floor, only the shuffle of clothing audible while he waits.
Mouth dry. He wishes he had water. Weren’t they meant to drink champagne or something, at these things, cheap wine at the very least?
The adrenaline of the morning – the push-pull of not wanting to be here, but wanting to be here for her; his fury at the woman, seeping into a fury with Nora he’s not quite managed to let go – is waning.
Instead he feels stupidly nervous, like Nora did before they came inside.
Surprised by the jitters in his chest as he reminds himself that this is just his friend in an outfit, and he’s seen her in plenty of outfits before.
Pyjamas. School uniform. That red dress she wore when they were sixteen, some sequined thing she’d found in a charity shop which meant he couldn’t look at her, all night, didn’t know what to do with the feelings it unleashed.
I don’t know, Nora says to him, from behind the curtain.
Don’t know what?
I don’t know what I think about this. I’m not sure that it feels like me.
Well good, Bren says. Else you’d get married in your rainbow poncho.
… you remember my rainbow poncho?
Just come out, Nora. Let me see.
A pause then.
The moment, before it happens.
And then she pulls the curtain back and she’s standing there, and despite his prolonged preparation, like a long-haul flight, like a dozen years of talking himself out of this, Bren is not ready for what comes over him, right then.
Seeing Nora, in that dress. In this soft, flowing fabric that is also somehow fitted around her hips, sheer and stretchy and almost blush in colour, like the inside of a strawberry; like her cheeks, when she is pleased, or self-conscious, or shy.
The lace stops just beneath her shoulders, and he’d never thought about that part of her body before.
Never noticed them. She is not an apple, or a pear, or a person from his past. She is here. She is now. She is … perfect.
What, Nora says, as Bren stares at her.
It’s not right, she says, is it? I’ll try the next one.
No, Bren says, and he clears his throat. Leans forward, says it again: no. Come out of the changing room, at least, he says. Walk about in it.
Nora glances back at the mirror, then concedes. No socks as she steps out of the dressing room, towards him, and he isn’t tapping his leg any more and he also isn’t breathing.
She stops a few feet in front of him, shrugs with her palms up.
And even though she is not looking at him, she seems to know he can’t stop looking at her, because her strawberry cheeks are back.
And he can’t believe he is looking at her in a wedding dress when that was never the plan but at the same time, he can’t believe that he is not the guy who gets to stand beside her while she wears it for real.
He will not get to stand at the end of an aisle with the birds singing and clouds criss-crossing the sun, because they’d get married outside, now that he thinks about it, and she’d walk towards him through the grass, with her bare feet and long hair and her wild heart that should have been his.
She cannot marry Robin.
It is a clear thought that moves through him, as if from elsewhere, like a sudden wind, and he simply accepts it, like all of the choices he’s made, all the reactions he’s had and not thought about over the last twelve years.
Something to live with, and not work against. Something to trust, because you can’t trust much in this world, but his gut, his sense of what has to be done; that is something he can rely on.
Nora is looking in another mirror now. Smoothing her hands down her waist.
Maybe it’s okay, she says to her reflection, and Bren says Nora. It is more than okay.