Chapter 25
25
“ Y ou should try that one on,” Ellen said.
Alaska looked where her fingers touched the satin material. Her fingers did not seem to go with the silk and elegance of the wedding gown.
“No. I couldn’t. I’m not getting married anytime soon.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s fun to try fancy dresses on. And if I’m going to try one on, you can too.”
Alaska looked at the bridal attendant. “Go ahead. You never know when you’ll fall in love with a dress and want to sock it away for your own wedding.”
“Until I get married, I probably wouldn’t fit in this dress anyway.”
“Tell me your size. If you buy the dress we’ll make sure it fits you, but at the very least, you can feel like a princess for a few minutes.”
The wedding attendant was sweet, and since they were the only ones in the shop, they were getting all of her attention.
Ellen seemed a little uncomfortable with it, and Alaska assumed that was just the way she was. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would want a big fancy gown, but Alaska had to admit she’d been having fun. She almost felt like a kid again.
Although her childhood was so far away, and her innocence so long-lost, that it was hard to remember exactly what being a child felt like.
A little bit of bitterness welled up in her throat. Bitterness at the things that she had been forced to do. Bitterness at how her life turned out. A lot of the mistakes that she’d made she had no one to blame but herself, but she had started down this road because of her home life.
She pushed that aside, and tried to focus on the innocent fun of the day. Her children were in good hands, and she was actually doing something that she never thought she would. Trying on wedding dresses.
The dresses were complicated and difficult, and it was thirty minutes before the two of them were out of the changing areas and looking at each other across the wide room with all the mirrors.
She could see herself, front and back, as the angles of the mirror were situated for that type of view. The gown contained rows of lace and pearls and sequins and was much more frilly and feminine than anything she would pick out. The bottom of it puffed out, like every little girl’s dream, and she truly did feel like a princess. She couldn’t imagine wearing something like this every day, but she believed she could get used to it.
“You look gorgeous in that. Like you were born to wear it,” Ellen said, meeting Alaska’s eyes in the mirror.
“I feel like a princess,” Alaska said, even though the sleeves of her tattoos clashed with the gown. It was sleeveless, and while she had loved her tattoos when she got them, they didn’t really represent who she was now. They definitely didn’t look right with the dress.
“You look perfect in yours,” she said, and she hoped what she felt didn’t come out in her voice too much.
It was true though. Ellen with her pristine skin, looked like she was born to wear the white dress she had on. She looked as innocent as the dress proclaimed her to be.
It made Alaska jealous. Not jealous in that she wanted to hurt Ellen, because Ellen had been nothing but kind to her, but jealous in a way that she wished that she would have had Ellen’s life. If she would have had a start like Ellen’s, she could look like that, too. Instead, she looked exactly like she was, someone who had lived a lot of life, and lived it in places where there wasn’t a lot of love and kindness to go around.
She wanted better for her children. Hopefully, this opportunity that Travis had opened for her would give her the ability to offer a better life for her children. Maybe someday one of them would go into a bridal shop somewhere, try on a gown, and look like they were born to wear it.
She could only hope that was in Alice’s future. She wanted Alice to be like Ellen, not like herself.
“I don’t know. It just feels… Too much.”
“It looks perfect on you. And we wouldn’t even really need to do too many alterations. Maybe a little tuck here, and possibly letting the hem out just an inch or so, depending on how high your heels are.”
“I haven’t decided about that,” Ellen said, a little shyly.
“We have a great selection, and I can bring you some samples.”
“I think maybe I’ll think about it. I really appreciate all the time you’ve put into us.”
The sales lady smiled benevolently, and continued to adjust the long train of Ellen’s dress.
“What do you think?” Ellen asked as she looked over at Alaska.
“I agree. I think maybe I’ve had enough for now, and we need to think about it.”
“I’m starving. Maybe we can have lunch and make a decision while we eat.”
“Food always makes decisions easier,” the sales lady said as she stood back and admired the picture Ellen made as she stood with her dress perfectly arranged. “But I can say this is most definitely the nicest gown that you’ve tried on.”
“It’s also the most expensive,” Ellen said, with a self-conscious laugh.
“That’s true. Quality isn’t cheap,” the sales lady said, and to Alaska it sounded like a rehearsed comment.
It was another forty-five minutes before they had the gowns off and their regular clothing back on and they walked out of the store.
“You could afford to buy any gown in there,” Alaska said. She didn’t know exactly how much money Travis had, but the rumor around town was that he was a multimillionaire. Perhaps a billionaire, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Ford Hansen was a billionaire. Travis was practically his son. Everyone knew it.
“I don’t know about that. I suppose Travis could. And I guess he’d probably buy it for me if I wanted him to. But… I don’t know. That just seems like such a lot of money to spend on a dress I’m only going to wear once. And, I don’t really care about the dress.”
“You don’t want to look beautiful?”
“Oh. That’s not true. I love looking like a princess. Feeling like a princess. But…there just seems to be so many other more worthy things to spend money on. I just don’t want to waste it on a dress. Not that kind of money.” Ellen hooked her arm in Alaska’s, and they walked down the street together.
“What kind of food are you hungry for?” Ellen asked as they strolled casually, looking in the store windows at the displays of dresses and business suits and nursing uniforms, passing other shoppers who carried armfuls of packages, and chatted excitedly with the friends they strolled with.
Alaska couldn’t remember if she ever walked on the street and had nothing more to do than just look at the windows and have not a care in the world.
“I’m so hungry I really don’t care. Anything sounds good to me.”
“I think there’s a Chinese place up ahead. Will that work?” Ellen asked.
“Sure.”
“I guess I do have to wear a dress. I’m just not sure —” Ellen cut off in mid sentence.
Alaska looked at her, and saw that her gaze was caught by something across the street.
Alaska followed her gaze over and saw that she was looking in the window of a second hand store, where a wedding dress was prominently displayed on a mannequin in the window.
“That one is pretty,” Ellen said. She nodded across the street. “Do you see it?”
“I do. Do you want a used wedding dress?”
“Sure. Why not?” Ellen said, tugging on Alaska’s arm as they went to the crosswalk and crossed to the other side.
“I don’t know. It’s… A wedding dress. Isn’t it supposed to be just yours?”
“I don’t think so. Is there some kind of etiquette law that I don’t know about?”
“Well, just… Someone else might have said vows in that dress.”
“And so it’s broken in. It knows what to do. Just in case I faint, the dress can handle the rest of the ceremony for me.”
They laughed together and Alaska had to bite her tongue. Ellen could afford any dress she wanted, and she was going to seriously consider one in the window of the second hand store?
Not only did she seriously consider it, but after they went in and tried it on, Ellen purchased it. She paid less than a hundred dollars for it, when the ones that they had been looking at in the bridal shop were in the five figures.
The store clerk didn’t even have a proper bag to package it in, so she ended up putting a garbage bag over the top of it and poking the hanger through, and then folding up the bottom of the dress and putting it in another garbage bag and tying the two together.
“You have your wedding dress in a garbage bag,” Alaska said as they walked out of the store. She had to admit, she thought that Ellen was a little bit…too good for her. Too classy. But, seeing what Ellen had just done had made her much more relatable.
“I do. And, this makes me so much happier.”
“A cheap, used, wedding dress and a garbage bag makes you happier than the brand-new beautiful dresses that we tried on earlier?” She wasn’t sure she understood that.
“Yeah. This doesn’t offend my… I don’t even know. But it just makes me happy to think that I have a pretty dress that didn’t cost more than some people’s cars.”
“Well, I have to keep that in mind, if I ever seriously need a dress of my own.”
“Well, you know I’ve got one if you need it, and I’m not overly attached to it, so if you want it, it’s yours.”
They had been about the same size, although she was a little taller and slightly broader in the shoulders than Ellen.
Still, Alaska felt like she was having a girls day out with someone who was not out of her league after all.
This was the kind of wedding dress that she could have afforded. Although having a wedding dress was not something that she ever really thought about. Chalmer had promised her that he was divorcing Shanna and would marry her, but of course that was a lie, just like everything else that he ever promised her.
It was almost too good to be true that she could be away from him for good and safe as well.
She never met this Ezra person that Travis talked about, but Travis had seemed so confident in his ability to take care of her that Alaska hadn’t even questioned it. At the very least, she could get herself and her children there, get back on their feet, and maybe move to a different state. Somewhere where they would leave Chalmer and those problems behind. Somewhere where she wouldn’t be recognized for the things that she had done.
She wouldn’t want her children to suffer because of the choices that she’d made. Even if she felt like she had no choice at the time.
Of course, some of the things that she’d done were a lot more socially acceptable than they used to be. Maybe her children would suffer more because she decided to turn her back on all those things and go down a different path…choosing Jesus. She almost laughed at the irony.
Regardless, she tried to pull her mind away from those things, and enjoy her lunch with Ellen. She almost felt like she and Ellen really could be friends.