Page 114 of A Dark Fall
As I walk over toward a white silk chaise, a young sales assistant offers me coffee or champagne. Coffee has become my life force this week; it won’t let me down now. Plus, I’m driving.
While I wait for Rob, I look around the huge, modern space, which is all hardwood floors, red brick, and gorgeous dresses on contemporary displays. Some of the dresses are incredibly beautiful, and if I were feeling even remotely human I might even try a couple on for fun. I’ve always imagined myself in something simple, maybe vintage, which I don’t see here, but I never tried on a single wedding dress the entire time I was engaged to Ben. Maybe because deep down, I always knew I was never going to need one.
From literally nowhere, an image of Jake waiting at an altar for me flickers through my mind. He looks beautiful and strong in a dark suit, his body pulled up tall. Across his eyes comes a flicker of nerves before his mouth tilts up at the side to smile his cocky, canine-flashing smile. I rub a hand over my eyes in an attempt to banish the vision entirely. What the hell is wrong with me?
I hear rustling to my left. I turn my head, and my mouth drops open. I gasp aloud as Rob comes toward me in a vision of strapless, slim-fitting ivory silk. There’s the faintest hint of delicate lace around the hem and bodice, but it’s mainly soft, buttery silk. It’s divine. The perfect silhouette for her elegant figure. Her shoulder-length blonde hair is down now in semi-waves about her face, and she has one side of it pinned up loosely with a diamond comb. For the first time in days, I want to cry with something other than despair. She looks utterly breathtaking.
“Oh my god, Rob,” I say as I rise slowly from the couch.
“What do you think?” She sounds tentative and uncertain, and I try to scramble for the words she wants to hear. Except I’m practically speechless. She’s picked a wedding dress that could only have been made for one person. Her.
“It’s perfect. So you. It’s so beautiful, babe. You look stunning ... my god.” I bend down to place my cup on the table by the chaise before going toward her. At her feet, I kneel, running my hand over the lace of the hem and under it, stopping to wipe a tear away from my cheek. “It’s as if it were made for you.”
She beams at me. “Oh, god, I love it too. I was so worried, you know. But yes ...” She turns around to appraise herself in the floor-length mirror. Down the back and to the end of the short train is a stream of delicate lace buttons. It’s classic but stylish at the same time. Dan is going to have a fit when he sees her in this. “Yes, I love it!” she exclaims as she swishes around. “Yes, I do. I’m so glad I love it! I remember why I loved it!” She jumps up and down a few times, making me smile.
The smidgen of excitement and happiness inside me grows and isn’t even half-fake anymore. It’s the only warm thing I’ve felt in days. Seven, to be exact.
“It’s stunning, babe. I honestly couldn’t have imagined you in anything more perfect. And I don’t even think it needs altering either,” I say as I run my hand along the top and kneel again to pull down the hem, which sits a few inches long. In heels, it will be a perfect length.
“I know, right? It is a perfect fit!” She squeals with delight as the assistant kneels beside me and confirms she doesn’t think it needs altering either.
We discuss the shoes at length until she settles on an ivory peep toe with a lace design. She’ll wear an off-white veil belonging to her grandmother, which she’s having a flower crown sewn into.
We leave a short while later with the dress covered in a metallic, armor-like hanging bag and the shoes packed and wrapped neatly in silk tissue paper inside a gold and yellow box. She asks if I’ll keep them safe at my house to stop Dan’s prying eyes, and after laying them delicately in the boot of my Mini, the dress flat on the back seat, we walk to a nearby Japanese restaurant she finds on her phone for lunch.
“So, you’re bringing Jake to the wedding, obviously,” she says halfway through lunch.
I was counting myself lucky she hadn’t mentioned him the entire afternoon and thought I might be able to get away without mentioning him too. No such luck.
“We booked an exec room for you anyway because you’re my bridesmaid and pianist, and because you deserve it, so if he’s coming, you can both have a magical night at Illeam Castle on us! It’s the next best room to the bridal suite. And it has a hot tub, I think.” She winks.
I can’t hold her eyes and so look down into my half-eaten bowl of ramen soup instead.
“What? You have asked him, right? I mean, I was going to on Friday, but I didn’t think it was my place. Wait—what? What is it, Alex? Oh no ...” she says, and it’s then I realize the tears are rolling pathetically down my face.
I wipe at them angrily with the back of my hand. Christ, I thought I was done crying. Iwantto be done crying. Isn’t there supposed to be a next phase I should be at by now?
Rob comes to sit next to me on my side of the booth and turns me to face her.“What happened? What did that bugger do?”
I shake my head because I can’t even think of where to start.
“Oh, I knew he’d be bloody trouble. The ones who arethatgood in bed always are.” She puts an arm around me and pulls me into her.
At this point, the tears seem to dry up, so maybe that was the last of them.
“It’s complicated.” I sniff. “He’scomplicated.”
“Really? They’re normally so easy to figure out too,” she says.
“He has a son, Rob,” I blurt. I watch as her eyes go wide. “A little boy he didn’t tell me about. Can you believe that?”
She looks speechless for a moment. “Why? Why didn’t he tell you?”
“He thought it would complicate things. Then he said he wanted to, but he was a coward.” I shake my head.
Her mouth is open and her eyes still wide. “Wow. And so how did you find out?”
“Because I went over to his place the day after your dinner party, and some woman answered the door. I thought he’d slept with her, but no, he just has a child with her. She was just the mother of his secret child.” I laugh a little hysterically then, but it dies out immediately. When I look up, Rob looks confused, so I tell her about Vicky and how they don’t have a thing, and about how she means nothing to him.