Paige sighed as she hung up the phone on the fourth ‘R Winters’ she’d called that day. There were twenty-four more listed in the White Pages online and she hoped and prayed she didn’t have to call them all. She took a quick sip of her water bottle and then punched in number five. It rang and rang and rang. She was just about to give up when someone finally answered.
‘Hello?’ The voice sounded elderly and a touch out of breath.
‘Hi, my name’s Paige MacRitchie and I’m call—’
‘Do I know you?’ Now the voice sounded wary as if she were searching for a face to put to the name.
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’ Paige laughed nervously. ‘I’m trying to track down a Rose Winters who I think may have worn my mother’s wedding dress. She might have changed her name when she got married I guess, but I’d love to talk to her about her dress. Is she a relation of yours?’
The woman neither confirmed nor denied this. ‘Why do you want to find her?’
‘Well,’ Paige began, hoping she wasn’t wasting her breath on someone who didn’t have any answers, ‘I recently got engaged and my mum is quite sick at the moment. I want to do something special for her and I think she’d get such joy out of seeing me wearing her wedding dress when I get married.’
‘That’s very sweet,’ said the woman, perhaps softening a little.
‘Thank you. But the problem is, she gave it away to charity just after she married my dad in 1988.’
‘What did she give away, dear?’
‘The wedding dress.’
‘Oh, of course, right. And what did you say this dress looked like?’
Paige tried to describe her mother’s dress—its beautiful lace, big bow and lavish train.
‘That sounds lovely. I’ve always been a fan of bows myself. My granddaughter got married last year and she could have done with a few well-placed bows to cover her up a little. Why young people insist on wearing such revealing gowns I’ll never understand. In my day, we left a little to the imagination.’
‘I totally agree, Mrs—? I don’t think I quite caught your name.’
‘Doris,’ she snapped. ‘Doris Winters. Now what was it you wanted with my Rose? She’s overseas at the moment and I need to go watch Bold and the Beautiful.’
‘You know Rose?’ Paige did a little dance on the spot. Surely this had to be the Rose of the fashion parade win.
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘Do you know if she got married in a dress she won at a fashion parade?’
‘I may be old, but I haven’t lost my marbles yet. Rose did get married in a dress she won and it sounds very much like the one you are looking for.’
Paige grinned so hard her cheeks hurt. She could almost feel the dress on her body. Wait till she told Solomon. He’d tell her she should consider a career as a private investigator. If only tracking down a kidney was a matter of following clues like this.
‘Wonderful.’ She managed to tame her excitement long enough to say, ‘Do you have an email address for Rose?’ If she was overseas, email might be better than a phone call.
‘Email?’ The woman asked as if Paige had just requested her daughter’s tax file number. ‘I don’t know anything about emails. She calls me every Sunday at dinner time, but there’s no point you contacting Rose anyway.’
‘Why not? You don’t think she’ll want to sell me her dress?’
‘She can’t sell you something she doesn’t have anymore.’
Paige’s heart sank. ‘What did she do with it?’
‘She gave it away two years ago when her husband ran off with his yoga teacher. Never trust a man who is in touch with his chakras, that’s my advice.’
‘Oh. Who did she give it to?’ Paige asked, clutching at straws.
‘The local Vinnie’s op shop,’ Doris said as if this was obvious.
Paige felt a flicker of hope within once again. ‘And what suburb would that be?’
‘Newtown I think—somewhere on King Street.’
‘Thanks. I’ll check it out.’
‘Oh, I doubt it’ll still be there after all this time.’
Doris could quite well be right but Paige wasn’t one to give up that easily. ‘Thank you so much for your time. I really app—’
‘Darn it. I’ve missed the beginning of Bold.’ And with that the line went dead.
Paige found a parking spot almost right out the front of the op shop Doris had directed her to. If that wasn’t a good omen, she didn’t know what was.
‘Thanks so much for coming with me,’ she said, turning to her friend who sat in the passenger seat.
She’d already asked Karis, Jaime and Narelle to be her bridesmaids—to which they’d all squealed excited ‘yes’es—but Karis was the only one who’d been able to make today’s expedition.
‘Are you kidding? Thank you for inviting me. These kinds of shops are my jam and I’m always up for an adventure.’ Karis, who usually wore beautiful vintage clothes she found in shops such as this one, unclicked her seatbelt and smiled conspiringly at Paige. ‘Let’s do this.’
Paige beeped the Mini locked and then they crossed the footpath to the big shop, passing two large yellow donation bins as they went. As she looked at the window displays on either side of the door—one full of assorted sporting equipment and the other with blankets and mismatched throw pillows—it was all Paige could do not to skip inside. Her pulse raced with anticipation.
Karis breathed in deeply as they entered the large store. ‘Don’t you just love that smell?’
Paige screwed up her nose as Eau de Mothballs with a dash of dusty old paper and floor cleaner greeted them. ‘Love is not the word I’d have used.’
Karis laughed. ‘Okay, so maybe it’s a little musty, but it’s worth it for the potential to uncover treasures.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
A wiry woman, hanging up big woolly jumpers on a rack near the entrance, smiled at them. Her name badge announced her as Miriam. ‘Morning, loves. Can I help you with anything?’
‘Hi,’ they replied in unison as Paige took in the organised chaos around them. There were rows and rows of racks crowded with clothing, interspersed with stands stooping under the weight of hats, handbags, scarves and plastic jewellery. Along the walls at the sides and back of the store were shelves and other storage units, almost overflowing with books and board games. There seemed to be lots of mismatched kitchenware and she even noticed the odd broken birdcage among the bric-a-brac.
Karis drifted over to one of the racks and began rifling through rows of dresses that looked like the costume wardrobe from That ’70s Show. Or at least they would do if Paige tried them on, but Karis managed to not only pull off such clothes but look like she’d just stepped off a Paris catwalk.
‘We’re looking for a wedding dress,’ she said now, loud enough to remind Karis they were on a mission.
‘Lovely!’ exclaimed Miriam, clapping her hands together. Her eyes went to the sparkling diamond on Paige’s finger. ‘We have quite a collection of bridal gowns at the moment.’
‘Great, but I’m not looking for any old dress,’ Paige said, a tad apologetically. ‘I’m looking for my mother’s dress.’
‘Oh?’
She quickly told Miriam everything.
The older woman pressed a hand against her heart. ‘Your poor mother. My husband had kidney disease and was on dialysis two long years. It really messes with your life.’
‘Is he better now?’ Paige asked hopefully. ‘Did he get a transplant?’
‘He did—my son gave him a kidney in the end—but sadly John had a heart attack six months later and we lost him.’
Oh geez. Paige’s heart went out to this sweet old woman. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thank you. It is what it is. We had thirty-six wonderful years together and for that I’ll always be grateful. Anyway, let’s see if we can find your dress.’
‘Karis,’ Paige hissed as Miriam turned to go.
Bringing two summer dresses with her, Karis trailed Paige who followed after Miriam to the far back of the store where a mannequin wearing a meringue-style wedding dress stood on a blue box. Not the dress Paige was looking for but the rack on one side of the plastic woman gave her hope. It was crammed so tightly with bridal gowns that you couldn’t tell one from another.
‘Here, hold this.’ She thrust her bag at Karis and immediately began flicking through.
Nope. Nope. Nope. There were gowns of every style and colour, dresses from the sixties right through to the present day, but Paige’s heart sank as she neared the end of the selection.
Her shoulders slumped and she turned to Karis and Miriam. ‘It’s not here.’
Her friend frowned. ‘Are you sure? You went through them pretty damn quickly.’
‘I think I’d recognise my mother’s dress,’ Paige snapped, fighting tears. It had been a silly fantasy to think that the dress would still be here two years on, but she hadn’t known that eighties wedding dresses were in such high demand.
And she’d wanted it so much.
Without a word, Karis stepped forward. As she went through the wedding gowns much more slowly, another woman joined them.
‘Miriam,’ said the lady with bright rainbow-streaked hair. ‘I’m taking a smoko. Can you man the shop for ten?’
‘Wait a second, Ramona,’ Miriam said, then looked to Paige. ‘Have you got a photo of your dress?’
‘Yes.’
‘Show us. Ramona has been working here so long she’s practically part of the furniture and she has a memory like an elephant. If she was here when your mother’s dress was purchased, she might remember something about the person who bought it.’
Paige was rapidly losing hope but as she dug the photo she’d taken from her parents’ wedding album out of her bag, Miriam gave Ramona the rundown on the situation.
‘Here it is.’ Paige practically shoved the photo at Ramona, then held her breath and tried to read the other woman’s mind as she stared at it a few long moments.
Finally, Ramona clicked her fingers. ‘I do remember that dress. It was a stunner. I don’t love eighties fashion usually, but there was something special about this one. It reminded me of Princess Di’s classic gown. I put it up in the window and in less than an hour, it had sold.’
Paige felt her heart rev. ‘Do you know who bought it?’
‘I remember it was a man. Pretty young. Tall, dark, handsome, in that clichéd movie-star kind of way.’
‘A man?’ Paige and Karis asked in unison.
Ramona nodded as if this wasn’t unusual at all. ‘I’m guessing he wanted it for fancy dress. That’s what most of our wedding dresses are used for. Guys in drag, theatre productions, hens’ night costumes. That kind of thing. Most brides want a new dress, something they can call their own, or they go to a specialist second-hand bridal store where the gowns have been professionally cleaned and made to look new again. Maybe you should try one of them—you might find something similar to your mother’s.’
But Paige didn’t hear anything past ‘Guys in drag’. She shuddered to think of some broad-shouldered sweaty man parading around in her mum’s dress for fun. Who cared if he was good-looking! He’d probably stretched, even ripped it, or spilt beer down the front. She fought the urge to burst into tears.
‘I don’t suppose you remember anything else about this man?’ Karis asked, wrapping her arm around Paige. ‘Do you have sales records? His name perhaps?’
Ramona shook her head and glanced at her watch. ‘Sorry. We might have bank transactions that could give you a clue, but even if we could find something like that from over two years ago, due to privacy, I couldn’t give out any such information. Good luck anyway. I’ll be back in ten,’ she told Miriam before walking away.
Miriam smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m really sorry, love. But I hope you find a dress you love just as much and that your mother gets well again soon.’
‘Thank you,’ Paige managed, still fighting tears. She felt so stupid. Sol had warned her how hard it might be to find the dress, but she’d never failed at anything in her life before.
‘I’m just going to buy these two,’ Karis said, bending to pick up the ugly seventies dresses she’d procured earlier.
‘Okay.’ Paige tried not to be annoyed that Karis would be walking out with two new outfits while she was leaving empty-handed. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’
‘I was thinking,’ Karis began a few minutes later as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘If a guy did buy your mum’s dress for a costume, then he probably didn’t keep it. Maybe he took it back to another shop. So why don’t we check out a few more?’
Paige suspected Karis’s suggestion was more about her love of scouring charity shops than it was about the dress, but clutched at this new hope. ‘Okay, it’s worth a shot, I guess.’
‘That’s the spirit. There’s another one just around the corner, we could walk but they have good parking, so I’ll direct you.’
True to Karis’s word, there was another op shop very close by. They left the car in the car park at the side of the row of shops and went inside. Paige’s eyes immediately found a rack of wedding dresses. But the hope that lit in her heart at the sight was short-lived. There weren’t as many as there were at the first shop and it took even less time to come to the conclusion that her mother’s dress wasn’t among them. Karis forced her to show the photo to a woman manning the desk—‘just in case’—but not only did she not remember ever seeing such a gown, she was cranky about being interrupted in the game of Candy Crush she was playing on her phone.
‘Never fear,’ Karis said, linking her arm through Paige’s as they retreated back onto the street. ‘We’ve barely scratched the surface of Sydney’s opportunity shops.’
But, three hours later they’d scoured every Red Cross, Vinnies, Anglicare, Save the Children, Salvos, Goodwill and Smith Family store they could find in the inner west and Paige was ready to admit defeat. It would be impossible to visit all the op shops in New South Wales and even then she might come up empty-handed.
‘Your mum’s not on Facebook, is she?’
‘No,’ Paige replied. ‘She’s always refused to sign up—says it’s a waste of time, that people don’t show their true selves anyway and if she wants to know what’s happening in a friend’s life, she’ll call them. Why?’
A victorious smile cracked across Karis’s face. ‘I’ve had an idea.’
When Karis just sat there grinning, Paige prompted, ‘Well, go on then, what is it?’
‘You put up a post with a picture of your mum’s dress. Tell everyone you’re trying to track it down and that if they know your mum to please keep it secret from her as this is going to be a surprise. Then you ask people to share it. There’s heaps of different groups and stuff that are all about helping people find lost shit, so you can post in those as well.’
‘Oh my God!’ The heaviness that had been dragging her down since they’d left that last shop suddenly lifted. She felt revived as if she’d downed a can of Red Bull. How many stories had she heard about friends, family, pets and all sorts of other things being reunited through social media? ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
Paige dug her phone out of her handbag. She was a fast typist and within moments, she’d tapped out a spiel. As she posted the wedding dress photo to her timeline, she tried to keep her hope and excitement in check. Even if she did manage to find her mother’s dress, there was no knowing what kind of state it would be in after all these years, all these owners.