“How did you manage that?” Sylvie asked as gentle hands assisted her to her feet. “He’s the only dog I groom and board who ignores my commands. But really, in spite of it all, Oscar’s a loveable oaf.”
“He obviously knows you think so.” Joel recovered the flashlight that still shone across the fallen fence and thrust it into Sylvie’s hand. “I can’t see well enough to shore this up tonight. Can you corral Oscar in the house until daylight?”
“Uh, sure.” She played the light over her broken fence. “It needed new posts. My fault. I’ll pay,” she said, and was surprised when her neighbor said they’d share the cost.
TOWARD THE END of the week, around 11:00 a.m., Sylvie pinned the bodice of her best friend’s wedding gown. The lace curtains were half-open, and Oscar was safely outside in her yard with its newly repaired fence. Kay Waller, who was there for a fitting, began to fret about her approaching marriage. “Sylvie, I’ve never been this nervous about anything. Do you think it’s wrong to marry David so soon after my ex-husband had the gall to walk his pregnant girlfriend down the same church aisle?”
“Mmfff.” Sylvie had a mouth full of pins.
“I simply can’t believe Reverend Paul agreed to perform their service when he already had my wedding date on his calendar. It’s a slap in the face. I suggested postponing our service a month, but Dave says I’m being silly.”
Sylvie carefully removed the pins and stuck each one in the wrist pincushion she wore. “Hold still, Kay.”
“You’re not being any help. What’s a best friend for?”
“Honestly! Why are you worrying over what people will say? Is that what’s caused you to lose so much weight? This dress is inches too big around the middle and I only put in the last stitch yesterday.”
“I do care how people talk about me. I don’t have your nerves of steel when it comes to pretending I don’t hear their whispers.”
Sylvie’s fingers stilled on a new dart she’d pinched in the satin fabric. “Me?”
Kay nodded, her focus shifting to the draped dress form in the corner. She stabbed a finger at it, and the diamond ring circling her third finger glinted in a ray of sunlight. “Don’t pretend I’m the only bride who’s begged you to let her wear that special gown you keep under wraps. You and I have been best friends since the cradle, Sylvie. And if it fits you, I’m sure it’ll fit me. Please, Sylvie. If word traveled about town that I got to wear a bona fide Sylvie Shea design—and not any design, but the dress—my wedding would be the end-of-summer highlight. Not a footnote to the way I’ve been upstaged by Eddy and his…floozy.”
Sylvie sank back on her heels. She felt both palms go damp. “There are no more Sylvie Shea gowns, you know that, Kay. My ad clearly states that a prospective client must bring me a pattern of her choice. I’ll sew any gown a bride wants. Friend or not, you accepted my terms, Kay. Your dress is gorgeous, and it’s so you.”
The other woman admired the two-carat solitaire on her slender finger. “It’s the mystery surrounding the dress. There’s not a woman in the valley—well, an engaged woman—who isn’t dying to be the bride who’ll wear your secret gown. Me, most of all.”
Sylvie scrambled to stand, but was startled all the same by what Kay had said. “The only mystery to me is why people would covet a dress they’ve never seen. That’s just silly, Kay. How often have you heard me preach about bridal gowns needing to fit a bride’s unique personality?”
“Yeah, but it’s not silly. Anyone who knows you is positive that dress has gotta be spectacular. Your sisters say you’re always working on it, and we’ve all seen your previous designs. Mandi Watson claims you’re keeping this one for your own wedding. Is that true, Sylvie?”
“Right!” Sylvie shook her head. “So when am I supposed to have time to work on anything for me, let alone find that mythical husband? If and when I ever get married, I’ll probably end up with a dress off the rack. Don’t you know it’s the plumber’s wife who has a clogged sink, and the shoemaker’s kids who go barefoot?”
Sylvie impulsively gave her friend a hug. “Your wedding will be featured in our weekly society page, Kay. You’ll be the most beautiful bride of this season. Who else will have eight bridesmaids, two candle-lighters and three flower girls? And your patterns came from France. Each one is an original. I’ve sewn all fourteen dresses with my own bleeding fingers over the past three months. I guarantee the guests will weep, you’ll be such a vision,” Sylvie said, laying it on a little thick. But she did have plenty of history with Kay, the drama queen. “If you’d relax, you and Dave will have lots of wonderful memories. People will say Eddy who? if that jerk’s name ever surfaces.”
Kay compared her soft fingers with Sylvie’s callused fingertips, and had the grace to blush. “I’d have given you more notice, but David wanted that day. And you could’ve cut the dress count by one,” she pouted, “If you’d let me buy the dress.”
“I guarantee this gown suits you best,” Sylvie said. “Come on, I have something to show you.” Walking away, she looked quickly at the covered dress form in the corner. The unfinished gown beneath the sheet represented all that was left of her hopes and dreams, she thought, opening a cabinet and lifting out an old notebook. “Recognize this? It’s the notebook I kept in high school home-ec.” Her eyes misty, Sylvie flipped several pages, then handed the book to Kay. “This was your dream gown in tenth grade. See how closely it resembles this one? I knew your marriage to Eddy Hobart was doomed from the minute his whiny mother insisted you wear the dress she’d worn at her own wedding.”
Kay snickered. “It was ghastly. And so is Flo Hobart.”
Sylvie shut the book and returned it to the drawer. “Zero taste. Hold out your arms. I’m going to unbutton you. We need to get you out of this without losing my marker pins—and without sticking you.”
They had the gown off, and on a padded hanger, when through the side window came the sound of furious barking.
“Oscar, Anita Moore’s Great Pyrenees,” Sylvie said nonchalantly. “I’m boarding him until Anita and Ted get back from Tennessee. Can you let yourself out, Kay? That’s Oscar’s ‘I treed a cat’ bark. I have to rescue my new neighbor’s cat…again. Sounds like this time she’s gone up my big dogwood.”
Kay stayed with Sylvie. “I meant to ask about your neighbor, Syl. I hear he’s a real hottie.”
“Who said that?” Sylvie stopped abruptly.
“You mean he’s not?”
She shrugged. “I suppose, if looks is all you’re interested in. He’s a bit of a grouch. Which you’ll hear if I don’t get out there and save his daughter’s cat. He’ll throw open an upstairs window and order me to corral my damned dog. And after Dory and Carline’s husbands repaired our adjoining fence, too. For free,” she added.
“Mercer has a daughter?” Kay ignored everything else. “Wow, I don’t think the gals at the salon know he’s married. A couple of them are drawing straws over him already.” Kay worked at Nail It!, the local beauty parlor.
Sylvie didn’t mention that she had yet to see a wife show up next door. Nor would she admit that Joel Mercer was better to look at than a chocolate fudge sundae. All Sylvie needed was for her mother or sisters to get
