The register woman turns to me with a firm smile. “There’s a chair by the window. Can I get you anything? Water?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
“You sit tight.”
I sit tight. From across the shop, I watch them work. Another customer leans over to her companion and whispers behind her hand. A younger woman near the back is already staring at her phone, almost certainly texting someone about the barefoot bride in the boutique. By nightfall, the entire population of Opal Creek will know about this.
Fifteen minutes pass before the fitting room curtain opens.
Piper steps out in jeans, a soft sweater, and simple canvas sneakers. The wedding dress is folded over her arm. Her hair is down now—she must have pulled out the rest of the pins—and she looks, for the first time today, like someone wearing clothes that truly belong to her.
“Better?” I ask.
“Yes. Thank you.”
The older woman is already gathering the remaining items and folding them at the register. She glances at me. “She’ll need a few more things. I’ve picked enough for two days.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I mean it.
The total is rung up. Piper shifts the wedding dress to her other arm and reaches for the bag she doesn’t have.
“Shit,” she mutters, her face going red. “I don’t have—I left everything. I don’t have my—”
I hand my card over. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Griffin, I’ll pay you back, I swear, I’ll—”
“Piper.” I look at her until she stops. “Knowing you’re sleeping somewhere tonight instead of a car is payment enough.”
She looks down at the dress in her arms, then back up. The red is still in her cheeks, but there’s relief there too.
As she slides the bag across the counter, the older woman in the back speaks up. “Congratulations?”
It comes out as a question. The only correct instinct.
Piper turns. “We’re not—”
“Thank you,” I say at the same time.
We look at each other. The shop assistants look between us.
“It’s a long story,” Piper says to the shop in general.
“Isn’t it always?” the woman behind the register replies.
Outside, the afternoon has gone soft, the light low and golden. Piper stands on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street.
Neither of us mentions that she’s still clutching the wedding dress. I reach out and take it from her anyway, folding it over my arm. She watches me do it with an expression I don’t examine too closely.
“There’s a hotel two streets back,” I tell her.
She nods.
I hold the dress and look at the street, contemplating bridges and how they’re built to withstand pressure, but even they have a breaking point if not maintained. I don’t think about the way she looked when the shopkeeper said, “Oh, honey,” and I definitely don’t think about how long it’s been since someone has cared for her properly.
Twelve
Piper
