The Wedding Dress(65)

“You should see a doctor.” Emily stepped around so Taffy could finish the hem.

“White girls see doctors. Old colored ladies kneel and pray.”

Emily gazed down at her. “I wish I had your faith and courage.”

“That’s what I’ve been praying for you to have, Miss Emily. Courage and faith.”

Emily peered over her shoulder into the mirror. The back of the gown scooped down her shoulders. The skirt fitted smoothly to her hips and flowed like milk over the stool to a chapel train. She felt as if she could float in this gown. She never wanted to take it off.

“Courage and faith, you say?” Emily gave her attention to Taffy. She’d need both, no doubt, to marry Phillip, the stubborn man. She’d realized since their engagement it would be no small task to bear the Saltonstall name. Women like Emmeline didn’t care a wit about marital vows. They’d always bat their eyes and shove their bosoms at men like Phillip. “. . . He’s too much about himself, too stupid, not to be flattered.”

“Come again, Miss Emily?”

Her cheeks burned. “Just talking to myself.”

Taffy grinned and plucked another straight pin from her lips. “I talk to myself all day long ’round here.”

“Taffy, why do you think I’ll need courage and faith?”

“Because . . .” The woman exhaled as she pinned the last length of hem. She stood to her full height and gazed into Emily’s eyes. “You’ll need it to marry the right man.”



Soft pockets of mud sloshed over Emily’s shoes and dotted the hem of her skirt as she cut through the neighbor’s yard toward her own kitchen door. Big Mike had dropped her off at Taffy’s but he couldn’t stay. Father had a list of chores for him to attend so she rode the trolley home.

“Aye, there you are, miss.” Molly pushed through the kitchen door, her brow arched. “The missus has been looking for you. Decide to take a romp in the mud, did you?”

“I walked from the trolley.” Emily started for the back stairs. “Where’s Mother? Can you launder this before she sees it?” Emily unhooked her skirt and stepped out, stepping around the pantry door in case Father’s man, Jefferson, walked in while she was in her bloomers.

“Leave it in your dressing room. I’ll come for it.” Molly dropped a mound of bread dough onto the work table. “And just where were you this afternoon?”

Emily blushed under Molly’s quizzical stare. The woman knew her better than some of her school friends. “I went to Taffy’s. She sent word the dress was ready for hemming.”

“Why didn’t you tell her to come here? You know how your people feel about you going to the colored neighborhood.”

“She wasn’t feeling well.” Emily walked over to the worktable. “Besides, I had to make sure Taffy made a wedding dress, not an evening gown as Mother insisted. I’m going to figure out a way to wear Taffy’s gown at my wedding, Molly. You watch. When I tried it on today, I actually felt . . . loved.”

“Loved?” Molly made a face. “Are you not loved, miss?”

“Mind your tone, Molly.” Since Charlotte’s confrontation with Phillip over her first visit to Taffy’s four weeks ago, he’d become the most attentive and affectionate fiancé. His passions were tempered and controlled, as if he remembered whose lips he kissed. His future wife’s. Not a subservient mistress who served to quell his lusts. “I’m loved, certainly. It’s just that the dress makes me feel . . . so good. So clean.” Emily struggled to find words to match her feelings.

“Ah, the kind of feeling I get at church when the Spirit moves.”

“What does the Spirit do when He moves?” Emily stood by the kitchen stairs, eyes fixed on Molly. She’d heard of signs and wonders in some of the churches. Her minister passed it off as emotionalism. But Molly was a steady girl, not given to demonstration.

“What does He do? Whatever He wants, miss. Do you know how you sometimes have to take all the linens out of the drawer to get it straight and orderly again? The Spirit sometimes does the same with our sins.”

“Put all your sins on display?” How horrifying. Emily shivered from the idea. And from the cool evening air seeping into the kitchen from the window Molly kept cracked open.

“Only to you. Not everybody. But a person might weep. Or shake. Or blubber for forgiveness. Then in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, the Spirit has righted things and the person is back in business, all clean and orderly inside. Joyful.”

Did Emily feel clean and orderly inside? Joyful? “Don’t tell Mother I went to Taffy’s.” When was the last time she laughed? Really laughed. It was with Daniel that time he—

“What if Mr. Phillip’s people saw you again?”

“I was careful.” Emily had counted the cost, but now that she was home, cold shivers wrapped around her torso. “He’ll just have to understand. I needed the dress fitted and hemmed.”

“Emily, are you in here?” Mother emerged from the other side of the kitchen door. “Mercy, you’re in your bloomers. What have you done to your skirt?”

“Mud, Mother, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Certainly not. But why is your skirt covered with it?”