Chapter 10: The Dress Shop

Marlow & Pine had a gold sign, a marble floor, and a saleswoman who said "Mrs. Strathmore" before Becky had given her name.

Becky had been Mrs. Strathmore for twenty hours.

She followed the saleswoman across the carpet with Max a few paces behind her.

She did not look at the second fitting room, where the curtain was half drawn.

"We've pulled six dresses for the foundation dinner," the saleswoman said. "Mr. Wendell's assistant said you'd like something simple."

"Something I can walk up a staircase in," Becky said. "Do you have green?"

"We have a very good green."

The dress hung on a padded hanger, dark and plain, with a high neck and an open back.

Becky touched the fabric, and a voice behind her spoke.

"That's a beautiful color on you."

She did not turn at once.

She finished touching the sleeve.

Then she turned around.

Vanessa Sholes stood in the doorway of the second fitting room, in a pale trench coat and sunglasses pushed up into honey-colored hair.

Up close she was exactly as soft and pretty as she had been in the photographs.

Her blue eyes were wide and kind, and she held a small velvet pouch in one hand.

"Becky," she said. "I hoped you'd come. I couldn't stand how we left it."

"We didn't leave it," Becky said. "You hung up."

"I was frightened." Vanessa let the words tremble. "Everything happened so fast. I want to apologize properly, woman to woman. May I?"

The saleswoman had stopped breathing and was looking at the floor.

In the corner two customers had gone quiet over a rack of coats.

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