“Mom, what am I going to do? Grandma really thinks she’s going to make my wedding dress.”
Camille slid her safety goggles over her forehead and turned off the torch. She had to finish the autumn-leaf pattern in the fire screen by the end of the day. Her client was counting on it as a wedding gift.
Lately everywhere Camille turned, somebody was getting ready for a wedding. And, like the client who had ordered the fire screen, they were pouring in the cash as though there were endless tomorrows. The artist who made the perfect wedding gift could name her price.
In the name of common sense, the mother of the bride was determined to do the same. At the very least, she would name her limit.
“You don’t want her to?” Camille asked, nearly achieving the desired artlessness in her tone.
“I’m not looking for Vera Wang or anything, but I don’t want a homemade dress.”
Jordan had sense to spare, and there was nothing common about it. It suited no one but her. She had her own sense of style, of direction, of timing, of what was right and wrong for Jordan. In any given situation she was able to zero in on what mattered to her and let go of the rest. Clearly the wedding dress stood at the top of Jordan’s list of what mattered, which was exactly where it was for her grandmother. Rosemary’s list had to be even shorter and narrower than Jordan’s. But it was to be Jordan’s wedding, Jordan’s dress.
This would not be an easy compromise to negotiate.
“You’d have a handmade dress,” Camille said calmly as she pulled off her gloves. “Made by the hands of your grandmother. She may not be a designer of haute couture, but she used to be quite well known as one of the best tailors in the Twin Cities.”
Jordan began circling, one sidestep at a time. “She makes quilts, Mother, and it’s been a while since she’s even done that.”
“There was a time when people would bring your grandma a picture or even a sketch and she would copy it perfectly, make them something better than what they could buy in a store.”
“But not a wedding dress.”
“Why not a wedding dress? A dress is a dress.”
“This is my wedding dress we’re talking about, Mother.”
“We’re also talking about your grandmother, who’s made all kinds of dresses.” Camille took her daughter by the arm and led her to the cushioned settee she’d made to resemble climbing roses tumbling over a fence. “You’ve seen the pictures of her wedding dress.”
“And I’ve seen pictures of me wearing those frilly little dresses you said she made for me, and they looked cute, but, Mom…” Jordan lifted her plaintive gaze and obediently sat. “A wedding dress? She’s not up to anything like that now.”
“Like what? What do you have in mind?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t want it to look…” Jordan shrugged off the temptation to presume something unflattering. “She’s not well enough.”
“She seems to think she is.”
“What if she’s not?”
“Then you might have an unfinished dress and a dead grandmother, Jordan. Which part of that picture screws up your plans more?”
Jordan glared. “That’s not fair.”
Granted, but under the circumstances, the judicious pulling out of certain stops was a mother’s prerogative.
“Okay, put it this way.” Camille shifted toward her daughter, knee to knee. “Which part of the picture is irreplaceable?”
“She screwed up your wedding, didn’t she?” Jordan challenged, choosing to ignore the question. “If she hadn’t hated Dad so much, you wouldn’t have had to go to a justice of the peace.”
“She didn’t hate him, honey. She didn’t know anything about him except that he was a musician.”
“And an Indian.”
“Well, that’s all water under the bridge. They made their peace when you were born. Your dad and I did it our way, and you and James will do it yours. It’s easy for me to support you, because I’ve known James since he was born. I like to think I’d back you no matter what, because I know you. But maybe that’s not fair.” She shrugged and glanced away, grateful to go untested.
The rift between Camille and her mother had been painful. One of those “I’ll never treat my daughter the way my mother treated me” lessons on the one side, “May you be cursed with a daughter just like you” on the other. Time and the birth of a child had brought new perspectives to both of them.
“So I’m braced,” Camille declared with a stiff smile. “What’s your way going to be?”
“We won’t go overboard. I know you think it’s a waste of money, but, Mom, James and I are going to be married. Married. It’s such a big step.”
She nodded, gratified that her daughter saw it that way. Camille believed in marriage, believed in marrying for love and loving the marriage enough to preserve it as long as it would last. She hoped her daughter’s would last forever.
“It’s not the money, Jordan. It’s the way—”
“Our way is to do it once and do it right,” Jordan said, firmly enough to cause a sting. “Make it special. It’s important to me to mark the beginning of our married life by celebrating with the people we care about. I want it to be a day that we’ll all enjoy and remember.”
“Have you been shopping already?”
“Without you and Grandma? Of course not. But I can’t ask Grandma to go shopping with me for my wedding dress when she’s bound and determined to make it herself.”
“Are you bound and determined that she can’t?” The answer was in Jordan’s eyes. “Are you going to tell her this?”
“I was hoping you could talk her out of it,” Jordan pleaded softly, slipping back a few years, taking her turn at glancing away.
“All you have to say is that you don’t want her to make your dress.”
“It’s not that I don’t want her to.” Jordan’s eyes challenged her now. “Any more than it’s not the money.”
“I don’t know how long she’s been gathering books and pictures and fabric swatches.”
Jordan groaned.
“She’s waiting for you to find the time to look at them with her.” Camille laid her hand on Jordan’s bare knee. “Honey, this is her gift. Her talent, her special skill.”
Jordan stared at the work her mother had set aside. Camille could almost hear Jordan processing the guilt she’d unabashedly piled on, filtering it through her secret hopes and dreams, coloring them with lackluster shades of homemade.
“How long has it been since she did anything like this?” Jordan asked finally, beginning to resign herself to the first compromise.
Disappointment already, Camille thought. Jordan was bracing herself to settle for less if her mother had the first say. Because Jordan’s wish had always been her father’s command, it could never be her mother’s. Camille had held the line on spending for so long that it was ingrained in her, embedded in every decision. When Jordan had asked for Nike or Guess, Camille would find something that looked almost the same at half the price. But “almost” didn’t count for anything but disappointment.
And now Camille’s push was on for less wedding.
Not that Jordan couldn’t buy her own wedding dress. She’d been buying her own clothes since she’d started working. But money was not the object in this instance. Maybe it had been with the Nikes and the Guess, but not with the wedding. She had told her to put her savings toward the future purchase of a home. She truly wanted her daughter to have a nice wedding, but she wasn’t sure Jordan believed that completely. To Bridget and Lauren, “nice” meant “expensive,” and Jordan was about to become a Mayfield.
Jordan would still be Jordan, Camille reminded herself. Headstrong, a bit willful sometimes, but good at heart. She didn’t understand the extent of Rosemary’s skill, but she understood that refusing her grandmother’s offer, no matter what the reason, would hurt.
But if Jordan accepted, what then? How long had it been?
“You’ll have to ask her,” Camille said. How did that old hymn go? Faith of our fathers? How about faith of our mothers, in our mothers? Living faith, against all odds. “Tell her what you have in mind. If she can’t do it, she’ll let you know.”
Please, Mama. If you can’t do it, say so.
“What if she thinks she’s up to it and it turns out she’s not?”
“We’ll buy a dress.”
“You can’t just walk in and buy a wedding dress, Mom.”
“You look great in everything you try on, Jordan,” Camille said with practiced patience. “You’re not hard to fit. And you’ve never been this hard to please before.” Not quite true, but it sounded good.
“I’ve never been a bride before. What if she makes something that turns out looking…” Jordan’s grimace said it all. “Well, homemade. I’ll have to wear it, won’t I?”
“Boy, that’s a tough one, Jordan. It would have to be your call.”
The grimace gave way to a sick smile. “Thanks.”
“And I would have to sit back in silence and watch you make it.”
“Is that what they call the mother’s moment of truth?”
“It wouldn’t be the first, would it?” Camille laughed. “Remember the Cabbage Patch debacle?”
“You mean when we got the last doll in the store, and that other kid was bawling because her sister had snapped up the second-to-last one?”
“That poor little girl. That was their shopping trip with their weekend dad. He offered you an extra seven dollars, which was all the money he had.”
“Oh, Mom, they were working on your obvious weaknesses. Long faces and great bargains.”
“I left it up to you because I was sure you’d let the little girl have the doll.”
“After we’d been to at least a hundred stores that were sold out of Cabbage Patch dolls? You didn’t see me bawling over it, did you? No, I sucked it up and kept on hunting. Once I got mine, I wasn’t letting her go for seven dollars or seven hundred.”
“You wouldn’t have taken seven hundred?”
“From that poor man and his pitiful little girl?” Jordan laughed. “They say that God doesn’t give us more teachable moments than we can handle.”
“Or more kids,” Camille said, delivering a parting pat on the knee as she stood. “You work this out with your grandma.”
“I need your help, Mom. I can’t say no to her.”
“If you can say no to that sad little girl…”
Jordan groaned.
“And her poor dad’s last seven dollars…”
Jordan growled.
“Little girl, I know you’ve got unselfish bones in that woman’s body of yours. You’ve just got to drink more milk to strengthen them up.”
“Be serious, Mother. I really need—”
“I’m completely serious,” Camille claimed.
But she was laughing. She didn’t know why. She really didn’t know which way Jordan would jump on this dress thing, but it was up to Jordan. Camille had seriously given herself complete leave not to worry about it, to let Jordan handle it herself.
“A little milk, a little trust,” Camille mused as she headed back to her metalworking. “You’ll be amazed at how far you can go.”
Her mother was turning into one of those insufferable wise women in her old age. Jordan would have to settle the wedding dress issue on her own. She wanted to get straight to the point, but when Grandma looked up from her magazine and smiled, she decided to take a small detour.
“What are you doing this weekend, Grandma?”
“I’ll have to check my calendar.” Grandma scooted closer to the arm of the living room sofa and patted the space she’d left all warm and sunken in. “Are you still planning on going to hear Creed’s band this weekend?”
Tight-lipped, Jordan nodded.
“You ought to get your mother to go along.”
“What about you? I was thinking maybe you’d like to join us for a while.”
“I have to go to the clinic tomorrow. That always wipes me out, but if I bounce back in time, I’d love to go. Either way, try to drag your mother out of the house. She loves listening to him sing.”
“What if he’s got someone else there, listening to him sing?”
“What if he does? They’ve been divorced almost as long as they were married. At this point they can probably handle it, both of them.” Grandma patted the sofa seat with added insistence. “Come sit with me for a few minutes and tell me about the most beautiful dress you’ve ever seen in your life.”
“The most beautiful dress?” She’d know it when she saw it, but the politic response to her grandmother was to shrug innocently and take a seat. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m always wearing jeans and slacks.”
“How about your prom dress?”
“Oh, God!” Jordan hooted. “That was a disaster. I liked the idea of that dress, with all those sequins and that cutout back. I thought I was going to make quite a nice little splash in it. Maybe they’d even try to kick me out of the dance for exposing too much skin.”
“Wouldn’t that have been exciting?”
“More exciting than the prom turned out to be. Boy, what a letdown after all that preparation.”
“But the dress…”
“That thing was so uncomfortable.” Jordan laughed. The mere memory made her boobs itch. “It kept hiking up, and I kept feeling those sequins under my armpits. By that time I had broken up with Paul, but we decided to go to the prom anyway, and I hated having him put his clammy hand on my bare back. And, as it turns out, it’s not so great going without a bra. I felt naked.”
“I’m surprised your mother went along with that.”
Jordan lifted one shoulder. “The dress was on sale.”
“Ah, that explains it. I taught her not to be wasteful. I didn’t teach her to be cheap.”
“It was the dress I wanted,” she explained quickly. “And Mom was willing to overlook the minor drawbacks because we got such a good deal. But by the time prom night rolled around, nobody liked my dress except the guy I didn’t want to be with.”
“So the sequined backless halter dress is not your style.”
Jordan hooted again, then hung her head, wagging it, wondering what had happened to that dress and whether she really had a style, whether she even wanted one. It sounded like a label, something to be known for that was really of no consequence.
“The most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen,” she mused, thinking that was all she wanted. Not a label, not a style, not a look. She wanted to wear a beautiful dress on her wedding day.
“Cinderella at the ball?” Grandma prompted.
“That’s Lauren.”
“Princess Diana? Queen Noor? Madonna?”
“More like Jean Harlow, or Rita Hayworth, or Lauren Bacall,” Jordan decided. She hadn’t thought about it that way before, so the comparison was as much a revelation to her as it was to her grandmother.
Maybe more so. Grandma didn’t look at all surprised. “But not backless,” she said.
“Definitely not backless.”
“I knew it.” Grandma reached across the arm of the sofa and came up with an old scrapbook. “Let’s look at some pictures.”
“What have you got here?” Jordan thought she’d seen all the picture albums her mother and grandmother had ever kept.
“I’ve made some beautiful clothes in my time, Jordie. I used to have a waiting list of customers who wanted something very special, something custom-made.” She opened the scrapbook and started paging through it. “Granted, these clothes are a little dated, but these are some of the things I made. Just to show you that we’re not talking about your ordinary Simplicity pattern book here.”
Jordan leaned closer.
The scrapbook contained swatches of fabric, sketches, old photographs of ordinary women with brand-new-dress smiles on their faces. No forties drab or fifties kitsch here. The suits and gowns were classics. Had Jordan seen these pictures before? She had the feeling she’d seen without looking, been present without interest. But here were styles reminiscent of the looks she associated with ageless beauty, black-and-white movies, sensuality and grace. Princess Grace. Jacqueline Kennedy. Audrey Hepburn.
“You made these, Grandma?” She could’ve kicked herself for sounding surprised, but her grandmother laughed. “Of course you did,” Jordan said, laughing along. “I knew that. They’re wonderful.”
“I’m not a designer, but I can copy to beat the band.” She offered Jordan a recent bridal magazine. “You show me what you see that you like.”
Ignoring the magazine, Jordan petted a swatch of silk that was glued to a scrapbook page. Her grandmother had made these beautiful clothes a lifetime ago. But still, she’d made them. There would be no saying no. Whatever she made, Jordan would wear.
“Just something simple, Grandma.”
“You don’t want sequins. What do you think of seed pearls?” Grandma would not be sidetracked from her pursuit of Jordan’s dream dress, be it simple or ornate. She flipped pages until she found a style with clean lines. “What do you think of something like this?”
“It’s too complicated, Grandma.” Over her grandmother’s “Pshaw” she added, “Well, look at all that little stuff. Can you buy the material with beads already applied? That would take forever to do by hand.”
“I don’t have forever, but I do have time.” She covered Jordan’s hand over the scrapbook and squeezed, reassuring both of them. “I know I do.”
“Of course you do. I just don’t want you to overdo.”
“Don’t worry about over, Jordie. But please let me do. Let me show you what I do, what I once did and know I can still do. Give me something important to do. You won’t be disappointed.”
“Why did you quit?”
“I didn’t quit sewing, but I stopped doing it professionally. I had my home, my family. And times changed.” Rosemary looked at the dress in the magazine again, smiling wistfully. “I didn’t want to go into the wedding dress business, which is stressful and demanding, more so all the time. There was only one other wedding dress I wanted to make besides yours and mine. But it’s pretty hard to make a dress for someone when you’re not speaking to each other.”
“She didn’t want a wedding dress.”
“I could have made something else—whatever she wanted to wear. I was stubborn. She was proud. It was a missed opportunity, one that you can’t do over again.” Grandma looked up, bright-eyed with anticipation. “Give me a challenge, Jordie. Give me lots of handwork to do, plenty of details to apply. If you make it too easy, I’ll have to take it apart every night so I have something to do the next day.”
“I love the simple lines of your wedding dress, Grandma. But this delicate beadwork is beautiful, too. Do you do this kind of embroidery by hand?”
“Do I ever!” She displayed her hands with new pride.
Ten chewed nails and myriad age spots on shriveled skin didn’t deter from their beauty for Jordan. They were Grandma’s hands. She’d watched them stitch quilts. An infinity of tiny stitches taken in bright, practical cotton. Years ago Jordan had asked for a blue quilt because all those stitches had always reminded her of stars. A bit of fancy applied to something serviceable, worth the effort because Jordan would use it daily for years to come.
She would wear her wedding dress once. All that money spent for a dress you wear for one day, her mother would say.
How about all that work? What if it turned out to be her grandmother’s swan song, the ephemeral notes stitched in diaphanous white? Jordan imagined tiny stitches rising in a trail to the stars. Her throat burned. All that work for a dress she would wear only once. One day only.
“And here’s a blessing I hadn’t thought of,” Grandma warbled happily, flexing her fingers. “I’ve got my share of health problems, but arthritis isn’t one of them. Jordie, you’ll have a dress like no other.”
“An heirloom,” Jordan said.
“Don’t store it in the basement if you live in a flood plain.” She pulled a shopping bag off the floor next to her feet and reached inside. “Your mother picked up these fabric swatches for me, but we’re not limited to these. This silk satin is beautiful. And the silk organza—”
The white strips fluttered across her knees, one at a time. Pure white. Star-bright white. Safe-surrender white.
“Mom shopped for these?”
“They’re just swatches. Of course, there are so many shades of white, you want to get the bolt and drape a large piece…” She traced the drape on Jordan, shoulder to shoulder, then lifted her chin for a look in the eye, age to youth, grandmother to granddaughter. “I can do this, Jordie.”
“So much to decide. I haven’t even looked in the stores yet.”
“That’s a good idea. Try some on for style.”
Jordan nodded. “What about the attendants? I’m thinking I’ll have three. Maybe four. We’ll want a complementary style, won’t we?”
“That’s all up to you, honey. Try to pick girls who have grandmothers who sew.” She laughed as she turned more pages until something caught her eye. “What do you think of this neckline?”
Jordan tipped her head, a noncommittal gesture. One commitment at a time, she thought. She would marry James. She would wear a homemade wedding dress. No, not homemade—handmade.
Handmade it would be.
“Get dressed, Bridget. You’re going out with me tonight.” Camille pushed on the front door, widening the wedge until Bridget stepped back and let her in. “We have a date with destiny,” Camille declared with more cheer than she knew she had in her.
“I’m still married. Maybe after the divorce is final, I’ll try changing my orientation.” Bridget turned away, scuffing across the polished wood floor in slippers and satin robe.
Camille closed the door. “Actually our children’s destiny.” She tossed her coat across one of a pair of foyer chairs. If Bridget wanted it hung up, she could be a little more hospitable. She followed Bridget to her bedroom. “They’re looking at a possible reception facility, and I’m not going alone.”
“You’re going with them.”
“They’re going with each other. Creed’s band is playing at the Countryside Inn.”
“Creed?” Blue funk gave way to curiosity. “What’s he doing here?”
“I just told you.” Camille ducked into the huge, meticulously organized walk-in closet and emerged with a denim shirtwaist. “Wear this. Perfect for pizza and beer.”
“Pizza and beer? Creed’s band?” Bridget grimaced. “The Countryside Inn? They can’t use that place for their wedding reception.”
“My thoughts exactly, but I need some backup. Especially with—”
“Creed being there?” Bridget accepted the dress and held it up for inspection. “Is this mine?”
“It’s in your closet.”
“I’m really not in the mood for country music sung by my best friend’s ex-husband,” Bridget claimed as she disappeared into the closet. “Not that he isn’t good,” she called out. “Ellie’s right about that. I never understood why he didn’t go a lot further than he did with it.”
“Fear of success,” Camille said, screwing up her face at Bridget and the dressy skirt and blouse she carried from the closet. “No, don’t wear that. Too stuffy. Just find some jeans. Do you have jeans?”
“You’re not wearing jeans,” Bridget pointed out. “And Creed never struck me as the fearful type. Why didn’t he give it a shot? There are places right here in Minneapolis where you can make those demo recordings.”
“I don’t know, Bridge. He’s too good for Main Street, but maybe he’s not good enough for Music Row.”
“But maybe he is. You don’t know until you—”
“He’s no longer my problem,” Camille snapped. Then she sighed. Bridget was going to wear that fussy surplice blouse. “At least he wasn’t until Jordan told him she was getting married.”
“Country music at my son’s wedding?” Bridget sank into her satin-tufted boudoir chair with a groan. “I can’t think about this right now, Cam. It’s just one more thing that’s too unthinkable to deal with.”
“I don’t know about the music, but Creed Burke will be part of your son’s wedding. That’s a given, I’m afraid. But I’m not facing him alone again, not tonight.”
“The Countryside Inn.” Bridget thought for a moment, then sat up straight, untying the sash on her robe. “You’re right. We have to be on hand to nip that notion right in the bud.”
“Open mind, Bridge, open mind. This is Jordan and James, not Lauren and Anthony. Different wedding, whole new ball game. We have to keep an open mind.”
“Or the appearance of one.” Bridget slipped into her designer blouse. “You’re not in favor of this place, are you?”
“My preference went by the boards long ago. With my limited experience in the wedding department, I have no idea what we’re in for, but I’m sure it’ll be interesting.”
“We’ll look at their choices, and then we’ll suggest some irresistible alternatives.”
“Practice saying this, Bridge: ‘This is not my wedding. It’s James and Jordan’s.’” Camille glanced at the tall bureau. Bridget and Tim’s wedding picture had been removed, but Lauren and Tony’s remained. “And I’m not taking out a second mortgage to pay for it.”