For one dizzying second, Poppy felt like she was floating above her own body, watching three versions of herself at once: the Poppy who was in the bridal shop playing the role as supportive friend and soon-to-be sister-in-law to Frankie, the Poppy who was secretly mourning a relationship that was over before it started with said new SIL’s brother, and the Poppy who was terrified she’d never find her place in the world that her sisters were given on a silver platter of the perfect job, the perfect home, the perfect man, the perfect life.
“She is still baby!” Yaya grabbed her cheeks and smushed her face together until her lips puckered like a fish. Poppy blinked in shock at the abrupt invasion of personal space. “You have whole life ahead of you. Five, maybe six more careers. This is only one life. You try everything! I was showgirl. I was resistance fighter. I own tobacco factory. I was mother. I was artist. I was?—”
“Hold it! Pause!” Zion’s hand flew up in the air. “You were a showgirl?”
“Yes. Showgirl, you know. Sequins. Feathers. Sexy. Before war, when I was girl.” Yaya was a force, a hurricane of Balkan opinions and memories, and Poppy could only blink as Yaya’s hands continued their assault. “Pretty, like you. Only eighteen. I have beautiful legs. I perform in cabaret show. I was star. I sing. I dance. I travel all Europe. Then, poof.” She flicked her hands open.
“Poof?! What happened?” Zion looked at Yaya as if he’d discovered a secret passage in his childhood home. “What poof?”
“Poof, I see Frank. My heart, it stops. That is it. No more shows.”
“He didn’t want you to perform?”
“No!” Yaya slapped Zion’s arm. “Frank never tell me what to do! No. Never. I never want to be far from him. I don’t travel when I meet him. No.” She shook her head. “No more shows.”
“Do you have photos?” Zion pressed his palms together, begging her. “Please say you have photos?!”
“Photos. Yes, of course.” Yaya nodded. “I tell you. I am beautiful. You come for dinner. I show you.”
A wide smile spread on Zion’s face. “It’s a date.”
“And you were a resistance fighter and owned a tobacco—” Poppy’s inquiry was cut off when the door to the private fitting room swung open, and Frankie emerged at the threshold like a reveal on a home makeover show.
There was a round of gasps, then a hush fell over the room. Yaya’s eyes instantly filled with tears. The A-line dress clung in all the right places, a patchwork of silk and lace that seemed tailored not just to her body but to the exact design of her personality. The lace sleeves grazed her wrists, delicate as moth wings, while the bodice dipped in a V that was suggestive but not scandalous, very Frankie. The skirt flared out from the hips, whispering over the floorboards like rainfall.
For a moment, the room existed only in that hush, all the oxygen sucked into the vacuum created by the vision of their friend. Even Zion, who had probably seen every conceivable wedding dress in his years working as a photographer, looked awestruck.
“Wow,” Cora, Frankie’s mom, whispered quietly, and the word seemed to fill the space.
“Are you kidding?” said Phoebe, adjusting Bristol higher on her hip. “You look like the goddess of spring getting married ina Greek cathedral. All you need is a laurel crown and a lightning bolt.”
Yaya, always the critic, sniffed with tears in her eyes. “Yes, you look beautiful. Turn. Let me see.” Frankie rotated, and Yaya lifted the glasses that hung from a band around her neck. She examined the train, the seams and the line of the waist. She made a noise of approval. “Good. You have hips. Don’t hide. Emphasize.”
Zion was less restrained. “Holy shit, Frankie, I’m actually crying! Like literal tears.” He dabbed theatrically at his eye.
Poppy didn’t trust herself to speak, partly because she, too, had been ambushed by a wave of emotion that left her throat tight and her eyes prickling. Something about seeing her friend so incandescently happy, so fully realized, made her own losses and uncertainties seem both smaller and more poignant.
Frankie’s mom, Cora, hovered nearby, her own face a study in barely contained pride and nostalgia. “Liam is gonna…”
“Cry,” Poppy offered. She knew her brother. He would cry.
“Yep,” Phoebe co-signed.
The women all agreed, and the seamstress began working on the last-minute tweaks when Yaya sprang from her seat like a Jack-in-the-box, her purse and scarf in hand.
“Okay, I go, I go, I go! My ride is here!”
“Your ride?” Frankie questioned as her grandmother walked over and kissed her cheeks.
“Your brother.” Yaya waved her hand dismissively as she walked towards the front of the shop.
Frankie wrinkled her nose. “Which one?”
“AJ!” Yaya shouted back as the bell chimed, indicating the door opened.
“Tell him I said—” The door chimed again, indicating it had closed. “—hi.” Frankie turned back towards us. “I didn’t even know AJ was coming into town today.”
Everyone returned to their regularly scheduled programming except Poppy. Her entire body reacted to the news that AJ was in Hope Falls. Not just in Hope Falls, he was parked outside the shop she was in.
