19. Lucille #2
It’s nothing like the soft, romantic things I usually design. This dress is a statement. This dress says I am here and I will not be ignored.
Hugo hasn’t seen it. I’ve been keeping it hidden at the studio, working on it during hours when he’s not around, because I want the reveal to be perfect.
The night of the ceremony, he comes to the studio to pick me up. I can hear him in the reception area, fidgeting with his cufflinks, making awkward small talk with my assistant.
“She’s almost ready,” my assistant says. “She’s been back there for an hour.”
“An hour? Should I be worried?”
“You should be patient. Trust me.”
I make one final adjustment to my hair, swept up in a sophisticated twist that shows off my neck, and call through the curtain.
“Hugo? I need help with the zipper.”
His footsteps approach. The curtain moves.
He pushes through and stops.
Just stops, in the middle of the doorway, his hand still holding the curtain aside. His mouth opens but nothing comes out. His eyes move from the hem of the gown to the dramatic train to the structured bodice to my face, and what crosses his expression makes my breath catch.
“Give me a second,” he says, his voice rough.
“For what?”
“To remember how to breathe.”
I turn to face the mirror, and he comes to stand behind me. Our eyes meet in the reflection, him in his perfectly tailored tuxedo, me in crimson silk, the two of us framed like a photograph.
“You made this?” he asks.
“I made this.”
“Lucille.” His hand reaches out, hovers over my bare shoulder, then drops to the zipper at the small of my back. His knuckles brush my spine, and I shiver. “I’m not talking about the dress.”
“I know.”
He zips me slowly, inch by inch, and I watch his face in the mirror, the awe shifting to hunger, to a heat that makes warmth pool in my stomach.
“We don’t have time,” I whisper.
“I know.” But he doesn’t stop looking. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I get to walk into that room with you on my arm.”
“We really don’t have time.”
“I know.” He leans down and presses a soft kiss to the nape of my neck. “Later.”
“Later,” I agree, though my voice is shakier than I’d like.
He steps back, and I turn to face him. For a moment, we just look at each other, the country music star in his tuxedo, the designer in her crimson gown, two people who almost lost each other and somehow found their way back.
“I have a gift for you,” he says.
“Hugo, we really need to leave…”
“This will only take a minute.” He pulls a small velvet box from his jacket pocket. “My mother gave me these this morning. She said I’d waited long enough to deserve them.”
He opens the box, and I gasp.
Inside are earrings, vintage art deco, delicate gold filigree set with small diamonds that catch the light like captured stars. They’re exquisite. They’re old. They look like they belong in a museum.
“These were my grandmother’s,” Hugo says. “She wore them at her wedding. My mother kept them for whoever I ended up with.” He looks up at me. “She’s been saving them for twenty years, waiting until I found someone worthy.”
My eyes are blurring. “Hugo…”
“Can I?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He takes out the first earring and fastens it carefully to my ear, his fingers gentle against my skin. Then the second. When he’s done, he steps back and looks at me in the mirror.
“Perfect,” he says softly.
I touch one of the earrings, feeling the cool metal against my fingertips.
“Your grandmother’s,” I whisper.
“Yours now.” He wraps his arms around me from behind, careful not to crush the gown. “Florence said to tell you that she always knew. From the moment she met you, she knew you were the one.”
“She barely knew me.”
“She knew enough.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “She saw what I was too blind to see. That you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I turn in his arms and kiss him properly, a soft, sweet kiss that’s full of promise.
“We need to go,” I say against his lips.
“One more thing.”
He pulls away and produces a vintage Polaroid camera, the kind that spits out photos you have to shake.
“Hugo, what…”
“Stand there.” He positions me in front of the mirror, where the light is best. “I want to remember this moment.”
“We’re going to be late.”
“We’re going to be fashionably late. Big difference.” He raises the camera. “Smile.”
I don’t smile. I just look at him, at this man who’s spent months learning how to see me, who’s wearing my grandmother’s earrings in his own way, who thought to bring a Polaroid camera to capture a moment that might otherwise slip away.
The flash goes off.
The camera whirs and produces a square of white that slowly, slowly begins to reveal an image.
Hugo takes the developing photo and tucks it into his jacket pocket, right over his heart.
“For luck,” he says.
“You don’t need luck. You’re nominated.”
“The luck isn’t for the nomination.” He offers me his arm. “Ready?”
I take it.
“Ready.”
The venue is chaos.
Red carpet photographers, entertainment reporters, celebrities in designer gowns and tailored tuxedos. The flash of cameras is constant, almost violent, and the noise is overwhelming after the quiet intimacy of the studio.
But Hugo’s arm is steady under my hand, and we walk into the chaos together.
“Hugo! Lucille! Over here!”
“Can we get a photo?”
“Hugo, any comment on the Derek situation?”
“Lucille, who are you wearing?”
We pose for the cameras, answer the easy questions, deflect the hard ones with practiced smiles. I’m wearing Adler Design, I tell every reporter who asks. My own label. My own work.
The pride in Hugo’s face when I say it makes everything worth it.
We’re almost at the entrance when he leans close, his mouth brushing my ear.
“Whatever happens tonight, I need you to know this is for you.”
I turn to look at him. “What?”
“All of it. Everything I’m about to do is for you.”
“Hugo, what are you…”
But we’re swept into the crowd before I can finish the question, carried along by the tide of people flowing into the venue, and the moment is lost in the chaos.
I spend the next hour trying to catch his eye, trying to get him alone long enough to ask what he meant, but there’s always another handshake, another conversation, another industry contact who wants a moment of his time.
He’s planned a surprise.
I don’t know what.
But as we take our seats in the audience, his hand finding mine in the dark, I realize I trust him enough to wait.
Whatever he’s about to do, whatever he’s been planning, it’s for me.
And now, after our two years of marriage, I believe it.