Three Little Words (Fool's Gold #12)(22)
Dakota poked him in the stomach with her index finger. “You better not be lying.”
He rubbed the spot. “Is this how you act with your patients?”
She ignored the question. “Fine. We’ll tell Mom what you said. But if she finds out this is all an act to get us off your back, you are in such trouble.”
“I’m trembling.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Not now, big brother, but you will be.”
His sisters walked away. He told himself the sound of the front door closing didn’t at all sound like the gates of prison. Because he had bigger problems than sibling threats. He had to figure out how to convince Isabel to play along.
* * *
ISABEL IGNORED THE GROWING sense of concern. Her appointment that morning was with a new bride named Lauren. The twentysomething had brought along a disinterested younger sister and no friends, which was never a good sign. Lauren also had handed over pictures of her favorite dresses. While Isabel could duplicate the look, she knew that the styles wouldn’t look right on Lauren’s larger frame.
But she’d done as the bride requested. As her grandmother had taught her, better to let the bride figure out that the dress she wanted looked awful than tell her in advance. Only after the wrong dress had been discarded could the right one be selected.
Thinking of her grandmother relaxed her and made her smile. The older woman had loved Paper Moon. Making brides happy had been her life’s work.
Despite the passage of time, the store looked very much as it had then. The basic setup hadn’t changed in fifty years. There were displays in the large windows and samples on mannequins up front. A separate room housed bridesmaid and prom dresses. Mothers of the bride had their own space and separate dressing rooms.
Three beautifully carved antique armoires displayed veils, while a fourth had shelves for headpieces, including combs and tiaras.
Madeline appeared at her side. “It’s not going well. She won’t come out of the dressing room.”
There were no mirrors in the bridal dressing rooms on purpose. The true beauty of the gown could be seen only from an array of mirrors arranged under perfect lighting. Isabel’s grandmother had believed every bride was beautiful and had done all she could to make sure that happened.
“I’ll get her,” Isabel said, wishing Lauren had brought along a friend or another relative. The baby sister showed no interest in her sister’s plight. The teen was curled up in a plush chair, texting on her phone.
Except for the technology, she could have been Isabel herself, fourteen years ago. Isabel hadn’t been interested in Maeve’s wedding gown, either, although the reasons had been different. She’d been in love with Ford and desperate to avoid thinking of him marrying her sister. She suspected Lauren’s sister was simply bored by the process.
Maybe, in time, they would grow closer. Not that she and Maeve ever had. Perhaps there were too many years between them, or it could be because their lives were so different. Regardless, she and her sister were more like distant relatives than siblings.
Now that she was in Fool’s Gold, that could be changed, she thought, telling herself to give Maeve a call in the next few days.
She knocked on one of the three large dressing rooms. “Lauren, honey, come on out so we can see how you look.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Let’s have a look.”
Lauren made a small, unhappy sound, then flung open the door.
“I’m hideous,” she announced as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I look ugly. I love Dave and I don’t want to disappoint him.”
Isabel hated to admit that Lauren was right, but it was painfully obvious that the dress she’d picked wasn’t flattering on her curvy figure. The layers of ruffles only added bulk where it wasn’t needed and the stark white color made her look pale and sickly. Mouse-brown hair and small eyes didn’t help.
“This is the third dress I’ve tried on and they’re all awful.”
Isabel glanced toward the pictures carefully torn out of a bridal magazine. “Your choices are really lovely, but I have some different ideas. Would you mind if I picked a couple of dresses for you to try?” She smiled. “Trust me, Lauren. I know how to make your bridal dress dreams come true.”
Lauren sniffed. “It doesn’t matter. Dave is going to change his mind when he sees me in this dress.”
“He’s not, but it doesn’t matter because I won’t let you buy that dress. No bride is allowed to buy a dress here at Paper Moon unless she loves it and looks like a princess. My grandmother was very strict about that.”
Isabel unzipped the dress, then handed her a thick terry cloth robe. “Put this on and meet me outside.”
Three minutes later Lauren appeared. The robe looked as bad on her as the dress, but as she wasn’t wearing it down the aisle, it wouldn’t matter.
“This way,” Isabel said, leading her to a small alcove to the left side of the dressing room. She guided Lauren into a chair in front of a mirror.
“Open that top drawer. You’ll find mascara samples. Put some on. You get to keep the sample, by the way, so let me know if you like it. I can tell you where to buy it.”
Lauren leaned toward the mirror and dried her eyes, then applied the mascara. Isabel got a brush from a drawer and ran it through the other woman’s shoulder-length hair. With a few well-placed pins, she managed a fairly nice twist that added a little volume on the sides.