Lethal Love novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: Fifth Avenue

"In the street," Dom said.

"In the street." Gran pointed the brush at the curb. "His people and our people. Nobody's renting a hall."

"Signora, it's December."

"Then it's May," Gran said. "I said I'm doing the hems. I didn't say I was fast."

On the last Saturday in May, I woke up in Gran's spare room with the window open and the radio already going downstairs.

Cosima was sitting on the end of the bed in a green silk dress with a coffee in each hand.

"Maid of honor," she said. "I've been up since four. I made eleven trays of eggplant and I'm wearing lipstick for you. Drink this."

I drank it.

Downstairs the shop smelled like steam.

My gown hung on the dress form in the window, turned so nobody on Fifth Avenue could see the front.

It was fourteen thousand dollars of ivory silk, cut on the bias so it moved.

Long sleeves, a plain round neck, and no buttons anywhere.

I'd had enough of buttons.

Inside the hem, where nobody would ever look, I'd embroidered nine small dates in ivory thread.

Gran was on her knees in front of it with her pincushion on her new wrist.

"You told me it was finished," I said.

"It is finished. I'm checking."

The ladies came at nine with their hair done and the rugelach.

The retired teacher handed me an envelope from the mail on the mat.

The return address was the women's jail on Rikers Island.

I knew the handwriting from twelve years of notes passed behind my back.

I opened it at the cutting table.

There was a square of navy wool inside, folded in a sheet of lined paper.

It was a sample, two inches of hem, sewn in a slip stitch.

Every stitch was the same size.

The letter was six lines long.

"I pled guilty in April. Sentencing is in July. The lawyer says eight years.

My father's trial is in the fall. I'm testifying.

They let me work in the sewing room here. I do the uniform hems for the whole block.

I heard you're getting married today. I won't write again unless you write first.

It's straight. Measure it.

O."

I laid the tape measure along the hem.

It was straight.

I put the square of navy wool in the pocket of my gown, where nobody could see.

At four o'clock the barber and the baker set out sawhorses at both ends of the block.

The long tables went down the middle of the street, end to end, covered in white paper.

Cosima's trays of eggplant. The baker's cake, five tiers, with a tape measure in sugar running down the side.

The flower man had strung carnations along every parking meter.

Dom's family came from Carroll Gardens and Bensonhurst in their good suits.

The block came out of every door in its church clothes.

The old capo came on his cane in his camel-hair overcoat, in May, with his second button sewn on in brown thread.

He took a seat in the front row of folding chairs and patted the chair beside him for Gran.

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