The Gown(41)

“And you wouldn’t have to deal with his tit-talking at the office Christmas party,” Sunita added. “Or his awful neck massages when you’re working late.”

“There is that,” she agreed. And then, through a mouthful of fried calamari, she added, “I’m thinking of taking a vacation.”

“That’s the spirit! Where are you thinking?” Michelle asked.

England, she thought.

Until that very moment it hadn’t occurred to her. Thirty seconds ago she’d been thinking of the beach, or maybe a few weeks at her parents’ cottage up north.

“England,” she said. “I want to see if I can find out about Nan. Remember those embroidered flowers she saved for me, and how we had no idea where they’d come from? I finally did some digging, and I know it might be wishful thinking on my part, but I think she might have worked for Norman Hartnell. I think she might have worked on the queen’s wedding dress.”

“Holy shit!” Tanya burst out. She owned a vintage clothing boutique, the sort of place that sold fifty-year-old designer dresses for thousands of dollars, and the expression on her face reminded Heather of a little kid at the front gates of Disneyland. Michelle and Sunita, on the other hand, looked mystified.

“Oh, come on,” Tanya chided. “Hartnell was the British dress designer back in the day. His stuff wasn’t what you’d call cutting edge—he was no Alexander McQueen, that’s for sure—but he did design some fabulous things for the queen. Hold on a sec.” With that, she pulled her smartphone out of her purse and began to type away.

“Here,” she said, and handed her phone to Michelle. “This is from 1954. Just look at this dress—you can’t tell me it isn’t gorgeous. For that matter, look at the queen. We think of her now as this little old lady, but she was really beautiful back then. And Hartnell knew how to make clothes that really suited her.”

Their main courses arrived just then, so Tanya took her phone back and they all dug in, and it was a few minutes before conversation resumed.

“So what’s the plan?” Michelle asked. “Will you go to London and see if you can find out anything more about Nan?”

“Hartnell died a long time ago, but maybe you can find someone else who worked there,” Tanya suggested.

“I may have already,” Heather allowed. “Have you ever heard of Miriam Dassin?”

It was Sunita’s turn to be astonished. “The artist? Of course I have. I love her work.”

“I’ve got two photos of her and Nan together, and in one of them they’re sitting in a workroom around embroidery frames. I couldn’t find any mention of her having worked at Hartnell, but there isn’t much about her personal life out there, anyway. A few interviews from the fifties, and then some short things that are tied to anniversaries of the end of the war. The fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Ravensbrück—that kind of thing.”

“Is there any way of getting in touch with her? Just to find out more about Nan?” Tanya asked.

“I tried, but she doesn’t have a website or email address that I could find. I did email the gallery that used to sell her work, but they said she’s retired and they can’t pass on any inquiries or messages.”

“Even if you can’t track her down,” Tanya reasoned, “it’s not as if there aren’t other reasons for you to visit England.”

“You’re right. I can still see her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the queen’s wedding dress is on display at Buckingham Palace this summer. I definitely don’t want to miss that. And maybe see the places where Nan worked and lived? If only so I can take some pictures for my mom.”

Michelle extracted a notepad and pen from her bag and wrote Heather’s Big London Adventure across the top of the first page. “Okay. Let’s make a list of everything you want to see and do. There’s your flight, your hotel—”

“You have to stay at that little place in Soho that I discovered last year,” Tanya insisted. “Wall-to-wall antiques and the building itself has got to be three hundred years old. The rooms all have their own bathrooms and most have a fireplace, too. I’ll email you the details.”

“Oooh—I’m adding it to the list,” Michelle enthused. “Anything else?”

“Tons,” said Tanya. “But first we need to get the waiter’s attention. We’re going to need another bottle of wine.”

AS SHE LAY in bed that night, Heather’s spirits were light, and it wasn’t because she was tipsy; she’d stuck to water after her second glass of wine. Losing her job had been awful, it was true, but she refused to feel depressed about it. Her friends had been awesome, they’d helped her plan the trip of a lifetime, and now she had something to get her through the next few weeks, something exciting ahead of her, and she could figure out what she was going to do with her life when she got back. Not now, not tomorrow. Not anytime soon.

She lay in bed, Seymour at her side, his steady purr endlessly comforting, and she let her fingers sweep over the wispy warmth of Nan’s blanket. Everywhere she’d lived, on every bed she’d called her own, she’d always had the crocheted blanket Nan had made for her tenth birthday.

She’d been going through a super-girly phase, so Nan had used something like ten different colors of pink wool in the granny squares and trim that ran around the border. It was pretty ratty now, and the corner where Seymour liked to nest was covered in orange fur, but if her apartment was burning down it was the first thing she’d save after her cat.