Page 61 of I'm Not Yours
“The order is for eight bridesmaids’ dresses,” Leoni said. “The bride said she saw the dresses you made for her friend, Dahlia. She didn’t even want to talk to you first, said her mind is made up. You’re the wedding dress designer for her, her words. Her credit card has been charged and it went through.” Ah, Dahlia.
“Who can forget the bride Dahlia Parker and the dahlia bridesmaids’ dresses?” Estelle said. “The walking, talking flowers.” She fluffed out a gold skirt she was sewing. “Looking at Dahlia’s dresses was akin to looking at Alice in Wonderland versus the War of the Flowers. An epic battle for the meadow.”
“They adored them,” Leoni said. “Dahlia cried. Remember how she said to the other girls, ‘Now we’re all dahlias’ and how they cheered and danced around our studio in their Dahlia dresses?”
I put aside the mermaid wedding dress and flipped a page in a scrapbook on my desk. I have all my clients send me photos of themselves and their bridesmaids on their wedding days. Each bridesmaid in the Dahlia wedding had a different vibrantly colored dress in fuchsia, lavender, burgundy, lime, you get the point. There were eight of them. The dresses were form-fitting to the waist, then flared out under netting, the hem cut into the shapes of delicate, multicolored dahlia petals. We spent hours cutting out and sewing on delicate dahlias over one shoulder strap and down past the waistline.
Dahlia herself wore a white dahlia dress. I went to that wedding and I actually heard the guests gasp when they saw her walking down the aisle.
“They were gorgeous, earthly, garden-y,” Leoni said, her eyes soft, lost in flower land. “Blooming flowers of eternal love. Admit it, Estelle. We outdid ourselves.”
“I dreamed of dahlias chasing me and smothering me with their petals,” Estelle humphed. “It went on all night. They were evil dahlias, cursed and cursing.”
I chuckled, then drew a finger down the dresses in the photo. As strange as the design sounds, the dahlia flower dresses were a hit. In fact, the state newspaper featured them on the front page of their Style and Fashion section.
“What does this bride want?” I asked Leoni.
Leoni pushed a stray lock back into her bun. “She wants her bridesmaids to be dressed in her favorite color.”
“What is her favorite color?”
“Bright orange, like an orange.”
I almost choked on a pin. “Orange?”
“That’s right. She wants a smidgeon of black squiggling through the dress, too.”
“I feel a headache coming on in my cranium,” Estelle droned. “We have a boopsy bride. A pumpkin bride. A melon.”
“Orange and black? Is it a Halloween wedding?” I asked.
“No. It’s in July.”
“And cramps. I think I have cramps,” Estelle droned again. “Me. Way past menopause. But cramps.”
“Is she an Oregon State Beaver football fan?”
“I asked that, too,” Leoni said. “No, she’s not. She has an affinity to orange because it reminds her of Popsicles and she embraces black because she has an aunt who’s a witch.”
“A witch?”
“Strike me down dead with a spell,” Estelle groaned. “Down dead. Why do we get all the bridal wackos?”
Estelle knew why. We specialized in nontraditional bridal wear.
“Yes. A witch,” Leoni said. “She wants to honor the witch aunt. I don’t know if she calls her Aunt Witch. I didn’t inquire further.”
“Orange and black,” I said. At first I balked, then I stood and opened the French doors and admired the ocean, the breeze cool, the sun golden candy in the sky. It would be a spectacular summer sunset.
The sunset would have orange in it. Flowing, bright, soft, creamy, dramatic, and romantic . . . orange. My imagination took off. I thought of sherbet, roses, and Costa Rica. I grabbed a pad of paper and five different shades of orange-colored pencils.I worked for fifteen minutes, not realizing that Estelle and Leoni were peering over my shoulder.
“Every single time,” Leoni sighed. “Every time, my imagination bows to yours when I watch you work, June. Your mind is a mass of color. I could tell you we had an order for bridesmaids’ dresses in dark brown and blah green, and those girls would wear dresses you’d see inVoguemagazine.”
“You’ve got a hole in your brain where talent was poured in,” Estelle said. “We get a witchly order from a half-cocked, ditzy bride, and you turn it into elegance. No sign of a witch or a spell or a black cat anywhere.”
Estelle and Leoni worked for me, had for twenty-two months, but they were friends, too, and I became a bit snuffly with their sweet compliments.
Leoni patted my back. “Be gentle on yourself. Kind to your soul.”
