The Secret Lives of Dresses (25 page)

 

Dora looked up from the story, startled by a rapping on the counter. From the impatient sound of it, whoever it was had been there for some time.

“Dora.” Uncle John always said things as if he dared you to contradict him.

“Oh, Uncle John.” Dora hardly ever thought of Camille as her aunt, but Uncle John never lost the “Uncle” in front of his name.

“I understand the service is tomorrow, and that Mimi chose cremation.” Uncle John managed to cram both his disapproval of Dora and Mimi and his obvious displeasure in not being consulted into one sentence, accompanied by a disdainful look.

“Yes, that’s what Mimi wanted.” Dora wasn’t going to add that it was what she wanted, too—Uncle John wouldn’t have taken that into account at all. Uncle John looked as if whatever Mimi wanted didn’t matter, but he let it pass.

“I brought some documents with me.” Uncle John carried an old-fashioned leather briefcase, meticulously maintained. Dora imagined him saddle-soaping it on Saturday afternoons, listening to college football on the radio.

He seemed to expect Dora to do something. She hurriedly cleared off the counter. Uncle John looked around as if he expected a chair to miraculously materialize, then sniffed a little when he realized he’d have to stand.

“I didn’t draw up Mimi’s will,” he said. “Since I’m a beneficiary, that would be improper. A colleague of mine did it.”

Dora hadn’t thought about Mimi’s will. Of course she would have one, just as she had had a living will, and flood insurance, and a warranty on the hot-water heater: all the trappings of responsibility.

Uncle John waited patiently. Dora let him wait, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking her curious.

“It’s very straightforward, but I wanted to talk with you about it before the service, when . . . emotions will be heightened.” Uncle John couldn’t have heightened emotions if he suspended his from a crane, but Dora let it pass.

“The house was left to you in my care as your guardian, although, since you are of age, guardianship is now not necessary. There’s life insurance, as well. The insurance should keep you comfortable while you complete your education.” Uncle John looked as if he wanted to add the words “such as it is,” but he didn’t. “Camille mentioned you were applying to grad school—and the house can be sold, although it won’t fetch much in this market, and of course it’s a bit small.”

Uncle John and Camille lived in a six-bedroom McMansion, with an exercise room, mudroom, gift-wrapping room (never used), and a separate sauna.

“There are some other bequests, mostly small sums to charity. Her jewelry, silver, and china goes to you, of course. We can arrange for storage when the house is sold. The store has been left to me.”

Dora couldn’t believe it. Mimi left the store to Uncle John? Suddenly she felt completely adrift.

“Camille has expressed an interest in taking it over—with Tyffee’s help, of course—and I’m sure they’ll make something of it.” He looked around, and sniffed again. “I did not agree with Margaret when she decided to turn it into a secondhand store.”

Secondhand store? Dora flared to anger, and resisted the urge to throw the stapler at Uncle John’s head.

“Was there any . . . provision . . . made for Gabby?”

Uncle John coughed a dry little cough. “This will was made before Mimi’s . . . association . . . with Gabby.”

Dora counted back. “That means it was made when I was thirteen! Or even earlier.”

Uncle John nodded, a movement he made so slow and so ponderous Dora wondered if his head might break right off his neck and fall to the floor.

“A good bit earlier. It was when the store carried more . . . contemporary merchandise.”

“She couldn’t have meant for Camille to run the store now, then,” Dora said, almost to herself.

Uncle John was offended. “Your aunt Camille is a known tastemaker in Fayre. Certainly she is more suited for running the kind of trendsetting boutique this store could blossom into than someone not even out of college.” He sniffed again. “You couldn’t have expected that Margaret would leave her business to a young girl. You don’t even have a business degree.”

“Fine.” Dora took her keys out of her pocket, pulling the store keys off the ring. She dropped them on the counter. “It’s all yours. Call Camille, and tell her to come back.” She calmly picked up the secret life and put it in her pocket. Shouldering the bag crammed with the others, she headed for the door.

“I didn’t expect you to be so grasping, Dora,” Uncle John said in a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger voice. Dora assumed he practiced it every day, the better to bamboozle juries with. “I think this conduct is very unbecoming, given the circumstances.”

Dora turned to face him. “Oh, you mean more unbecoming than Camille swooping in this morning and turning the place upside down? Before we’ve even had the service? You might want to ask her—strictly to assess liability, of course—where she found the ‘contemporary merchandise’ she tried to bring in here this morning.”

Dora let the door jangle shut behind her, satisfied by the puzzled look on Uncle John’s face. Camille was not going to enjoy explaining to her husband what Dora had meant.

She drove recklessly all the way home, not caring if she was honked at or not.
Camille had better not be here
, she thought, as she opened the door. She slammed it behind her like a warning, knocking the mail off the hall table.

Dora bent and picked it up. A circular, the water bill, and an official-looking letter forwarded from Lymond, the last addressed to Dora.

She opened it. “We’re happy to inform you that you have been selected for the Master’s Program in Liberal Arts at Lymond, pending your completion of your undergraduate degree. Please come in for a placement interview. . . .”

The interview was scheduled for the following Monday. Dora tried to feel happy. She tried to feel anything, even anger at Camille and Uncle John, or sadness at missing Mimi, but she only felt tired.

Dora dropped the letter on the table and headed upstairs. Maybe she should just lie down for a minute.

It was hours later that she woke up, in the dark gloom of the late afternoon, to the sound of the doorbell chiming. Dora waited to see if Gabby was home to greet whoever was coming by to drop off another casserole—but there were no footsteps, no voices. Just the insistent chime of the doorbell.

Dora stumbled down the stairs, her dress crumpled from her nap, her hair beyond fixing. She opened the door.

It was Con.

“I went by the store to check on you, and you weren’t there. Just Camille, and Tyffanee, and some really stern-looking guy who was yelling at them.” Con looked at her with concern. “Are you okay?”

Dora didn’t know what to say.

“Wait, sorry, that’s a stupid question.”

Dora almost smiled. “Come in.”

Con looked uncertain. “I don’t want to intrude,” he started.

“You’re not, really. Come in.”

Dora led Con into the kitchen, and put the kettle on.

“Does it feel this way for a long time?” she asked, as she got down the mugs and found the sugar bowl.

Con looked serious. “Like you’re in a fog? Slightly numb? Nothing seems real?”

“Exactly.”

“It lasts a while. I can’t say how long. It gets easier, eventually, but it’s never gone.”

“I figured. I mean, I didn’t think you were going to say, ‘You’ll be fine by next Tuesday at three o’clock, four at the latest.’”

“I can say that if it makes you feel better.”

“Not sure what would make me feel better.” The kettle sang. Dora poured hot water over the tea bags.

“Trashing Camille might be a start. Why were they in the store? I know she’s your aunt and all, but Camille looked like a hooker at the opera. And who was that guy? Was that your uncle? He looked like he thought he was the most important person in a thousand-mile radius.” Con put four lumps of sugar into his tea.

“That’s my uncle John. Mimi’s brother. Well, half-brother. He’s always thought he was the most important person in a five-thousand-mile radius, I’m pretty sure. Mimi didn’t talk much about how it was when they were growing up, but I got the impression that he was the golden boy, and she was Cinderella. After her father died, I’m pretty sure her stepmother spent her share of the insurance sending John to college, and then on to law school.”

“Wow. And she still talks to him?”

“She said it wasn’t his fault—he was probably too young to realize what his mother was doing. Anyway, she must have forgiven him, because she left him the store.”

Dora stared into her mug. “Which means it’s Camille’s new toy now.”

“Wait—Mimi actually left the store to that stuffy guy?”

“Her will was made a long time ago. I don’t think he was such a jerk back then. I think he probably wasn’t doing very well, at the time. He kept moving to smaller and smaller towns, I remember, until he found the right-sized pond to be a big frog in. I was just a kid when she drew it up, so it probably made sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense now.”

Dora shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ll just go back to school.”

“You could take an incomplete, you know. Graduate in the spring, like normal people.” Con tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I can still graduate now . . . and I should. I got a letter today. I got into that master’s program I applied to—if I graduate. And if I don’t mess up the final interview.”

“Oh.” Con looked at her. “They’ll cut you some slack, what with everything. When’s the interview?”

“Monday. And I don’t want to tell them. I couldn’t bear the fussing and all that sympathy.” Dora shuddered.

Con nodded. “Monday is soon.” He took a deep breath. “I know you haven’t asked me, but I don’t think you should go to grad school. I think you should try to keep the store.”

“Uncle John was right. What do I know about running a store? I’ve got no experience. I’m a liberal-arts major who can make industrial-sized pots of coffee and sell doughnuts.”

“Experience is just paying attention as time passes. You have something more than that—you love that place, don’t you?”

Dora shrugged. “People love things they can’t have all the time.”

Con looked angry. “It just doesn’t seem fair to me. You could fight—I bet your uncle John wouldn’t like the fuss, and people talking.”

“He might back down, except that it’s something Camille wants. He’s never said no to Camille—or Tyffanee, either.”

“There’s always a first time,” Con offered. “You won’t know unless you try.”

Dora frowned. “Do you have any other clichés you’d like to hand me? Like maybe ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn’?” Her voice rose. “If Mimi thought I was capable of running the store, she would have changed her will. She didn’t. And Mimi was always right.”

“She wasn’t always right,” Con said mildly. “Nobody’s always right. Maybe she didn’t have time. You haven’t even graduated yet. She knew you were thinking about grad school. Maybe she didn’t want to burden you.”

“Mimi didn’t believe in burdens. She always thought people were capable of more than they thought they were—and that nothing was worse than whining. ‘You walk the road in front of you,’ she always said.”

“How did she feel about giving up?”

“I don’t think going to grad school is giving up.”

“Maybe not for some people. But for you? That’s the road in front of you?” Con’s voice was soft, sympathetic. Dora couldn’t stand it.

“I’m really grateful for all your help this past week, Con,” Dora said flatly. It was a dismissal. She’d known this guy for a week; who did he think he was? “You’ve been very kind.” Dora stood up and took her mug to the sink.

Con looked as if he wanted to say something else. “I’m glad to do it,” he said. “For Mimi.” He stood up. Dora walked him to the door.

“I’ll check in tomorrow. See if you or Gabby need any help.” Con hesitated. Dora did not.

“Good night.”

Dora closed the door and leaned against it. She felt like crying again, only not about Mimi this time. She called Maux instead.

“So—change of plan,” she said when Maux answered.

“You need me to come over before the service tomorrow?”

“No,” Dora said. “Change of life plan. I’m not going to take over the store.”

“Oh.” Maux stopped. “I thought . . . What changed your mind?”

“I didn’t. Mimi did. She left the store to my uncle John.” Dora stopped.

“That jackhole. He’s a lawyer! What the fuck does he want with a vintage store?”

“He doesn’t. But Camille does. With Tyffanee’s help, they can ruin it in just under twenty-four hours. They brought in stolen clothes today, by the way. I went in and caught them at it.”

“Oh my God. Dora, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too, Maux—this probably means you don’t have a job, either.”

“Like I’d work on the same block as Camille. That woman makes my fucking teeth hurt.” Maux sighed. “I’m just sorry for you, kiddo. Are you going to go back to school?“

“Well, I got into that grad program today.” Dora tried to make her voice sound hopeful, but it stayed relentlessly flat. “If I don’t screw up the interview on Monday.”

“You won’t. You couldn’t. They will love you.”

“Yeah, I suppose it’s for the best. I mean, if Mimi thought I could run the store she would have left it to me, right?”

“I don’t think Mimi deliberately left it away from you—I think she just wanted to give you space to be who you wanted to be.”

“Too bad it turns out that who I want to be is Mimi,” Dora said.

“Who wouldn’t want to be Mimi?” Maux tried to make a joke out of it.

“You never told me how your wedding talk with Gabby went.” Dora changed the subject. Maux let her.

“She seemed okay. Maybe a little daydreamy, but that could have been just fatigue. It’s hard to tell, given everything that’s gone on this week. She was hell-bent on getting you into a sea-foam-green bridesmaid’s dress, so watch out.”