Rachelle couldn’t say it was a wedding dress emergency. She couldn’t say it had anything to do with Riccardo’s family’s tremendous wealth.
“I don’t want to leave you in a lurch,” Rachelle said. “I’ll finish out the next two courses and prep as much as I can for the last one. You’ll be fine by the time I leave.”
Diana let her eyes drop back to the task at hand. Thrumming with sorrow and anger at herself, Rachelle pushed herself through the next hour, doing two hours’ worth of work before she removed her chef’s whites and changed into a simple black dress.
“Thank you, Diana,” she called as she hurried through the kitchen. “Let me know how the rest of it goes!”
Diana gave her a look that Rachelle was sure meant:Do you know what you’re doing?But Rachelle didn’t have time to answer it.
The wedding dress boutique was a twenty-minute cab ride from Diana’s restaurant. In the back of the car, her knees clacking together, Rachelle called Valeria and said she’d meet her there. Valeria sounded cold on the phone, and Rachelle was terrified. But before she hung up, Valeria said, “I knew you’d make the right choice.”
It was true that the wedding dress boutique was the fanciest shop Rachelle had ever entered. Only a few dresses were ondisplay, and classical music sprinkled from the speakers, and there was Prosecco on ice and fancy cannoli (that she assumed nobody ate) and fine, tiled floors that shone. Valeria’s laugh came out of one of the back rooms. After that, Valeria’s rapid Italian, which was so often hard for Rachelle to understand, filled the space. Rachelle’s stomach thrashed. It had been a while since she’d let herself eat anything, as she wanted to fit into the smallest possible wedding dress. Italian food was decadent and filled with carbs. But Italian women were meant to be slender, almost nonexistent. It boggled her mind.
Valeria and the designer came out to greet Rachelle with a sense of Italian coldness and formality that frightened Rachelle. But Rachelle was accustomed to serving very wealthy people, so she ran with it. She ignored Valeria’s annoyance about earlier and fell into a conversation about her wedding, about how she imagined everything to look.
“Like an Italian fantasy,” the designer gushed, clasping his hands. “But Valeria has updated me on all the work you’ve done so far.”
Ultimately, Rachelle knew everything was up to Valeria. Riccardo’s family’s money was paying for the wedding, and Riccardo’s family would be in attendance. Inviting the Colemans seemed out of the question at this point, especially now that Valeria thought that Rachelle’s family was “totally out of the picture.” That was what Riccardo had told her. And Rachelle supposed it wasn’t false.
She smiled and let herself be led from dress to dress. Over the course of the next few hours, she tried on a dozen dresses, all of them sensational, all of them worth more than she made in two months at Diana’s restaurant. As the designer and Valeria spoke in rapid Italian about how she looked and what was best, Rachelle smiled and played along and reminded herself howlucky she was. Riccardo was right. She needed to respect Valeria, the process, and the family.
Valeria selected two dresses for Rachelle to choose from. When Rachelle opted for the one that was slightly less expensive—a simple ivory with a swoop neckline—Valeria clucked her tongue, looked at the designer, and shook her head. Obviously, Rachelle had chosen the wrong one. “Or the other one?” Rachelle asked. Valeria nodded. Yes. That one.
“We got your dress!” Valeria cried, popping a bottle of champagne later on, at the family villa. Gia and Teresa were there, as were Riccardo, Tony, and a few other family members. That morning, their great-uncle had arrived, the one who’d spent so much time in America. He was resting in his room, waiting to be called for dinner.
Together, Rachelle and Riccardo’s family celebrated the wedding dress, drinking and laughing. Rachelle checked her phone several times to see if Diana had written back, since she had sent a very formal apology. But Diana hadn’t. Maybe she was too busy at work.
Eventually, Tio came downstairs to meet everyone. He looked world-weary, his eyes dark and mysterious. He shook Rachelle’s hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He spoke English, which was wonderful to hear.
“We speak Italian here,” Valeria reminded her uncle.
Tio smiled and took a glass of champagne. “I suppose we have a series of upcoming parties for your wedding,” he said, switching to Italian smoothly.
“The engagement party is next,” Valeria affirmed.
“How wonderful,” Tio said. “My great-nephew found a great American to pair up with.”
Riccardo pressed a kiss on Rachelle’s cheek. Everyone cheered. “I have the best girl in the world,” he said.
With July coming to a close in a couple of weeks, Rachelle knew that she had to decide on her old restaurant space and whether or not she wanted to keep the lease and try to build it back up, try to repair all the damage, repaint, restyle, and hire everyone back again and reopen. Goodness, it was so much work. She knew that with the stress of the wedding and everything, it would be more than difficult. It would probably rip her in two.
The morning after she’d selected a wedding dress, Rachelle got on the phone with the owner of the restaurant space and committed to breaking her lease. The owner understood, although he was sad for her. “You’ll come back from this, kid,” he’d said. But Rachelle had a hunch she wouldn’t, that she was on track for motherhood and wifedom and tremendous Italian wealth. That was that.
14
Nantucket Island
It was a few days after Remy’s diagnosis, and Darcy and her family were invited to a barbecue at Hilary’s place. “It’s been a weird summer,” Hilary said on the phone. “I think we need to come together and celebrate what we have before time slips away.” Darcy agreed.
Together, Darcy and Steven packed up their things for a day at the beach in front of Hilary’s place. They packed swimsuits, bottles of wine, and plenty of snacks. Remy sat quietly in the living room, watching them as Gavin bounced around exuberantly, making too much noise. The contrast was startling. Darcy scooped Remy into a hug and prayed, again, that Remy would spontaneously get better, that this diagnosis was a fluke. But she knew in her heart that that couldn’t be so.
Of course, they hadn’t told anyone about the diagnosis yet. They wanted to get a handle on next steps, on what they planned to do about Remy’s deafness, before they made all the relevant phone calls and worried everyone sick. Darcy especially didn’twant news of it getting to her mother in Europe. Every time Sam called, there was euphoria in her voice. She had endless stories about France, Brussels, and now Spain. She was having the time of her life.
Sometimes Darcy considered calling Rachelle to talk about Remy’s deafness. But she imagined it all falling on Rachelle’s “deaf” ears. Rachelle was too twisted up in wedding planning to care about anyone else, she knew.
When they pulled into the driveway, Hilary and Aria came out to greet them and help them carry everything in. Darcy clung to Remy, careful to keep her close. She was afraid that somebody would notice how odd she was acting and call her out.
“So glad you could make it!” Hilary said, hugging them both.
