The Little French Bridal Shop Read online

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  In memory of my mother, Kathe Hill Dupee

  PART I

  FALL

  CHAPTER ONE

  The house, a stately brick Colonial, stood at the peak of a grassy hill, the slope of its great rolling lawn dotted with graceful elms and sycamores, on the easterly side of the tiny seaside town of Kent Crossing, on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Perched on high as it was, overlooking the beach on one side and the quiet and compact Main Street on the other, it gave the impression of omniscience, as though it were guarding something. No wonder, Larisa thought. She hadn’t told anyone yet, but she’d come to prepare the house for sale. She’d taken the train up from Boston that day, Saturday, arriving early afternoon and walking with purpose through the center of town—Main Street being the only street that really constituted “downtown”—past Duffy’s Hardware, Antonio’s Italian Bakery, and Sunshine Cleaners on the left; St. John’s Episcopal, Shea’s Tavern, and the Little French Bridal Shop on the right, leading on to the two-pump service station, just before the rise in the road that led to Elmhurst. Clutching the key the estate lawyer had sent her by FedEx, she had lingered for a moment in front of the trussed-up window of the bridal shop, taking in the puffed-up skirt and ivory satin corset of the showpiece dress, a mannequin’s hand splayed out to the side, her head tilted slightly up and back in a pose of effortless elegance.

  “I’m never getting married,” Larisa had declared before continuing on her way, suitcase in hand. She said this frankly, without bitterness. Despite the looming pressure of turning forty the following summer, marriage was not on her mind. She hadn’t had the burning desire, as some women had, she knew, to walk triumphantly down that aisle, tie that proverbial knot, fuse herself to another until death did her part. But given the fallout from her recent fight with Brent—the things she had said, those unforgivable things—her status as single did suddenly feel much more final. And now, as she approached the house, the rise and fall of its great lawn mimicking the undulating ocean beyond, she felt a tinge of sadness, a longing for things to be in alignment. But then, she reasoned, she always felt an attack of nostalgia when she came home—not to the actual childhood home she had shared with her parents—but to this, her hometown, and to the house owned, until now, by Aunt Ursula.

  She gripped the key more tightly as she stepped slowly up the sweeping drive, aware of the house peering down. The great elm for which the house was named arched up around her, its boughs gray brown and sleek, like the curve of a woman’s neck turning to look. Larisa could hear the roar and hiss of the ocean, which lay beyond the lawn to the back and left side of the house. She smelled the salty air and was reminded of her father walking the craggy bluff overlooking the sea, its edges bordered with beach roses, their round buds and splayed leaves like royal crowns, the air around them in spring and summer always infused with that strong, sweet smell.

  “Rosa Rugosa,” he’d sing, referring to the Latin name of the shrubs, “there’s no Rosa Rugosa here. Who’s she?”

  Larisa, as a small child, would giggle and skip ahead, plucking a flower, sucking in its delicious fragrance. But it wasn’t spring now, and though she could smell the ocean and could feel its mist on her cheeks, she couldn’t smell the beach roses; they weren’t in bloom. Instead the air smelled musty, of wet leaves tinged with the smoky ash of chimney fires. Sniffing and surveying the landscape, Larisa felt vaguely pleased, as she often did in the fall, that her auburn hair blended so nicely with the autumn leaves, their burnt orange and golden hues contrasting sharply with the clear crisp blue of the sky. Still, the air was just a little too cool, cooler than was comfortable, causing her to hunch her shoulders beneath her camel-colored wool coat.

  She paused on the stoop. It felt so odd to be arriving for the first time without her great-aunt to greet her. Larisa had been back for the gathering after the funeral, of course, but the atmosphere had been different then. At age ninety-six, Aunt Ursula had lived a very full life. She’d gone quietly in her sleep, hadn’t endured months of pain and suffering, hadn’t broken her hip or contracted pneumonia. And so the mood had been respectful but not quite as somber as it might have been. There was a full turnout—the butcher, the baker, and yes, the candlestick maker—and everyone had stories to tell, either about Aunt Ursula or about not much at all. Larisa, perched on the arm of the couch, next to her parents, had found it hard not to laugh at how predictably provincial it all seemed. This town is full of people making shit chat, Aunt Ursula would say. You mean chitchat, the family would correct her. No, she meant idle shit chat. The funeral reception had been nothing but: commentary on the weather, the newly paved roads, the traffic light that had finally been put in at Four Corners. And even some actual shit chat about the new septic system going in under the library, the original pipes from 1910 having been infiltrated by a full system of tree roots from the neighboring maple. So much shit chat, they didn’t know how not to be full of it anymore. It went on for hours—the new cement subfloor being poured at the police station, the skylights cut into the roof of city hall, the new fire hydrants installed up and down Main Street, the family of squirrels that had to be ousted from the barn attached to the historical society, what a ruckus they had made, squirrels being so family-oriented.

  It went on like this all afternoon and into early evening until it became almost Zen-like for Larisa. Closing her eyes and leaning into the couch, she felt herself falling into a shit chat trance, settling into the hum around her, absorbing the buzz without really hearing the words. Then, finally, the clock in the front hall struck five and people collected their casserole dishes and apple pie plates and took the cue to head home to dinner. And after the crowd had thinned out, after the leftovers—cookies, cut vegetables, tea sandwiches—had been sealed up under plastic wrap, that was when she had gotten the ring: a square-cut sapphire encircled by diamonds, handed to her unceremoniously by her father, knowing Aunt Ursula, his father’s younger sister, had been anything but sentimental about the family jewels.

  “She would have wanted you to have it,” he said.

  “Would she?” Larisa gave him a half grin, eyebrows raised.

  He had shrugged. “Well, who else would we give it to?” Then he padded back down the hallway to the study, where he continued sorting through Ursula’s papers.

  Now, as she slotted the key into the lock, pushed open the heavy oak door, and passed over the threshold into the foyer, the place seemed very still. Too still, even for Aunt Ursula’s liking. Larisa would know, for she had visited almost every week from the time she had turned ten, when she was old enough not to be a nuisance, and until she turned seventeen and headed off to college. This house, once so familiar to her and now mostly just nostalgic, had a feeling about it that she couldn’t find anywhere else, reminding her a bit of the industrial age, a bit of the board game Clue. Not quite as ornate, not quite as British, but with the same formal layout: a grand winding staircase leading to the second floor, a large living room to the left with a camel-back sofa and an upright piano, a stately dining room to the right. There were skylarks in the front-hall wallpaper, a bathroom under the stairs, an old-fashioned ice grinder mounted on the wall of the prep kitchen, a stack of metal blueberry buckets Larisa had once used on berry-gathering trips as a child with her babysitter and the other neighborhood kids. A butler’s pantry, a laundry chute, a formal library with a rolling ladder on a metal track. There was even a conservatory, like in the game, a great glassed-in greenhouse sort of thing where, usually, sat Aunt Ursula herself—her hair pinned up, her eyes the color of French lentils—eating quiche or lemon yogurt, blanched asparagus or deviled eggs, the things that nobody ever ate anymore. There were bells wired into the walls for the maids, and even though Larisa knew those bells didn’t work anymore, she liked to push them just to see if anyone would come running. Nobody ever did.

  She moved up the stairs now, her eyes meeting those of her ancestors displayed in framed photos hung on the wall that followed the staircase up. A young man in a frilled shirt and knickers, a pert smile teasing the corners of his lips. A group of three girls, sisters, mounted on tall horses, arranged by height. There were some newer photos mixed with the old—an overhead shot taken from the rooftop at a family reunion; a shot of Larisa herself, her arms around Aunt Ursula. Then came one of Larisa’s favorites: a sepia photograph in an oval frame, featuring a small girl in a white dress with long puffed sleeves, her hands folded neatly on her lap, a quiet expression on her tiny face, an enormous bow in her cascading hair. Larisa imagined it—the hair—to be red, like her own. Her eyes flitted back to the three girls on horses, their adult faces already beginning to emerge. She paused,
thinking. Hers had been a family of strong women. Women who spoke in formal niceties and euphemisms but still always managed to get what they wanted. When Aunt Ursula called to say it was a shame she hadn’t seen Larisa in several weeks, that meant Larisa was to come over immediately to pay her respects. When Grandmother Lydia, who had died much younger than her older sister-in-law, commented that Cousin Edward certainly had a healthy appetite at dinner, that meant he was overindulging. Was she a strong woman as well? La-risa didn’t know. But exploring the house, running her finger along the brass bedposts, flicking the curtain tassels, palming the glass paperweights, she knew one thing: she could pretend to be strong even if she wasn’t.

  Working her way back downstairs, scanning the wall again, she paused for a moment to take in a photo of her parents, fingers entwined, emerging from the church on their wedding day, gazing deeply, lovingly, at each other as they still often did. Her father was dressed in a full morning suit with a top hat, her mother in a classic long-sleeved gown, clutching a modest bouquet in her free hand.

  Larisa swallowed. I want my mother, she thought, and then inwardly chastised herself for the childish yearning. Her parents felt so distant, and not just in proximity, her mother having battled dementia now for several years, her father the sole caretaker with limited support from their retirement community in New Hampshire. Larisa knew she was partly to blame for the distance. She didn’t visit as much as she ought; she didn’t offer the support she should. But she didn’t want to admit it was happening. She couldn’t stand to see her mother deteriorate and fumble for words. Her mother, who had always been so caring, so capable. Larisa felt a surge of anger that she—Larisa—had no one left to care for her but herself. Then she felt immediate guilt. Thank goodness her father was so patient, so kind. Larisa could never live up to the level of care he provided. She didn’t have to, did she? She was the child, not the spouse.

  She left the photos behind and headed down the stairs to the dining room. She smiled, as she always did, at the wallpaper: a heavy navy blue imprinted with a repeating pattern of tan and white pheasants glancing over their shoulders, apprehensive. The pheasants looked so silly, startled out of their forward momentum, that she couldn’t help but laugh. But her smile shrunk when she turned the corner and spotted a large strip of the paper peeling away from the wall above the fireplace, dangling like the tongue on a cartoon dog. “Crap,” she whispered to herself. If her mother had been more with it, it was the sort of project they might have tackled together, a mother-daughter do-it-yourself special. Fixing up the house and taking occupancy. But no, it was too big to manage. Best to just make the repairs and sell the place. So, after balancing on a chair and trying, to no avail, to press the paper back into place, she gathered her things, headed outside, and tramped back down the hill toward Duffy’s Hardware, where she hoped to find some wallpaper glue.

  She’d almost made it there when, partway through Main Street, her gaze alighted once again on the mannequin in the window of the bridal shop. She stopped and peered in. The model’s hand, she noticed now, had been painted with a pale pink French manicure and she had a faux diamond adorning her delicately raised ring finger. Larisa snickered, yet something took hold of her, a mischievous and imposturous side of herself that had recently been surfacing, to her surprise and delight. Wouldn’t it be fun, just for a laugh, she thought, to take a peek at those dresses? To pretend for a moment that she was that mannequin or even her own mother, pre-illness, skipping down the steps of the church? How did one feel, she wondered, wearing such a dress? She suspected she’d feel ridiculous, pompous, and over-plumed, like a peacock. But no one would have to know she wasn’t serious. Would she dare? She sucked in a breath and smiled to herself. Yes, she would.

  And so this was how Larisa found herself with her hand on the doorknob deciding, to her own amusement, that perhaps she would go in and try on some dresses, just for the heck of it, why not, what else did she have to do? The wallpaper could wait. And so she stepped in, a little bell tinkling as she pushed open the door, and before she knew it, she stood directly in front of Mrs. Muldoon, her eighth-grade English teacher, who, with clipboard and pen in hand, seemed to be taking inventory. Larisa stood frozen, acutely aware that now was the time for escape. But then Mrs. Muldoon took down her glasses, letting them drop on a chain against her bosom. Looking a little perturbed or maybe just befuddled, she lifted her gaze to her customer.

  “I’m sorry,” stammered Larisa. “You weren’t expecting me. I guess I’m supposed to have an appointment for this kind of thing.” Though it was dim in her mind, Larisa must have heard at some point that Mrs. Muldoon had retired from teaching to open up a bridal shop, and so she wasn’t quite as surprised as she might have been when Mrs. Muldoon’s eyes lit up in recognition and she jettisoned the clipboard to smother Larisa in an all-encompassing hug.

  “Not for a local like Larisa Pearl!” she crooned. “Honey, how are you? I’d heard you might be back, but my word, look at you. Larisa Pearl on my front stoop. Don’t just stand there—come in!”

  Larisa took a step forward so that she stood in the center of the room. The shop was small and square with a display case toward the back and dresses hanging all around the perimeter, some long and sleek, others puffed and gauzy, most of them some tone of creamy off-white. One corner featured a small collection of mother-of-the-bride and bridesmaid dresses—maroons, salmons, teals—while the other displayed an assortment of veils—lacy, piped, patterned.

  “Well, I’m not really back.” Larisa struggled to release herself from Mrs. Muldoon’s hug.

  “Timmy O’Leary saw you coming off the train this afternoon—he and I both get coffee after lunch at Antonio’s—and somehow, don’t ask me how, I knew you’d be by. I had a full-on premonition.” Mrs. Muldoon stepped back and stood grinning at Larisa, hands on hips. “I just knew you’d come visit me at the shop.”

  Larisa nodded, trying to look noncommittal, not sure whether to blow her cover so soon.

  “The gowns, are they actually French?” she asked, glancing around.

  Mrs. Muldoon waved her hand in the air as if swatting a fly. “Oh, no, no, that’s just a gimmick to get people in the front door.”

  They stood there for a moment, facing each other, while Larisa took it all in, her gaze starting at one corner of the shop and working around to the other.

  “So many,” said Larisa, not knowing what else to say.

  Mrs. Muldoon flattened her palms in front of her and pumped them up and down as though halting a moving vehicle. “Now don’t panic. It can be overwhelming. But don’t worry, I can absolutely find something perfect for your special day. I have a knack for finding the right dress.”

  “No, no—” Larisa started again, but Mrs. Muldoon cut her off.

  “Larisa Pearl is getting married!” she chanted, hopping in place on her medium-heeled pumps. “Larisa Pearl is getting married.”

  “Well, no, actually, I’m really just taking a peek at the dresses,” Larisa tried to correct her, but Mrs. Muldoon wasn’t listening.

  “Did you bring a slip? A strapless bra?” Larisa stared, contemplating how to get herself out of the situation, as Mrs. Muldoon waved her hand around in the air again. “No worries, I have extra.” And before Larisa could protest, Mrs. Muldoon had ushered her around the display case, down a small hallway, and into an oversize dressing room, pressing the loaned lingerie and a terry-cloth robe into her arms.

  “Just put these on and I’ll bring in some dresses. Do you have any clippings of what you might like?”

  Larisa shook her head.

  “That’s OK. I’ll bring an assortment.”

  And before she knew it, she was going through with this charade, stepping out of her boots and wool skirt and into the lacy undergarments. There was something, thought La-risa as she stood there nearly naked, about being in your underwear—or someone else’s underwear, really—in front of a relative stranger, that gave one a false sense of intimacy. So she stood there in the borrowed bra and slip and let herself be carried away by Mrs. Muldoon’s enthusiasm. What harm, she thought, could really come of it?