Page 111 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘Neil thought so, anyway,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘And we were very happy, even if we didn’t have long together. We both wanted a second-hand bookshop, so when we opened Fallen Idle we were living the dream. Simon was living nearby with his girlfriend when we first moved here, and working for his grandmother, although before that he’d been with a well-known hatmaker in London. His girlfriend missed the bright lights, however, and went back to the city.’
‘And after that, Thom came?’
‘We used to see him before he moved here permanently, when he came to work with Bruno from time to time. Then later, he and Simon were so kind to me after Neil died and we became such good friends …’
‘I could see straight away that they are both very fond of you.’
‘And I’m fond of them,’ she said, turning the stem of her wineglass round and round, then looked up at me. ‘I just hadn’t realized until last Thursday that Simon feels differently about me. It never even entered my head until we were at the waterfall. I don’t know if you noticed anything?’
‘I thought something had changed between you and, yes, I’d realized he had strong feelings for you.’
‘It was a bit of a shock, somehow, as if the familiar ground suddenly became shaky underfoot, and I’m not sure I’m ready for any kind of new relationship yet.’
‘I’m sure Simon won’t try and rush you into anything, but I do think he loves you.’
She sighed. ‘I need time to think about it all, because whatever Neil said about my finding someone else, it still feels a bit as if I’m being unfaithful to his memory even thinking about the possibility.’
‘Maybe you should have a talk about it with the Rev. Jo-Jo?’ I suggested. ‘I baredmysoul to her the other day, when I ran into her in the Pink Elephant, and I felt a whole lot better for it.’
‘You know, that’s a really good idea! I could ask her to come and have coffee with me,’ Pearl said, and tactfully refrained from asking me what I’d wanted to talk over with the Rev.
‘I hope you’re going to take the day off tomorrow,’ she said, changing the subject.
‘Just the afternoon, I think, because I have a few odds andends to clear up first. What I’d really like to do in the afternoon is go on a hunt round some charity shops for a second-hand wedding dress.’
I explained about my idea of displaying a wedding dress in the foyer, and how it had to be one that didn’t matter if the light faded it, or visitors touched it.
‘That would be fun and I’d love to go with you! Ormskirk would be the perfect place, because it has a really good dress agency as well as several charity shops. It’s their market day too and it’s a much bigger one than ours.’
‘How do we get there? Is there a bus?’
‘There is, but you’d have to change and it’s quite a way, so it would be so much simpler to rope in Thom or Simon to drive us.’
I didn’t think Simon would take much persuading, but when she rang him, he said he had to wait in for a consignment of hats to be collected, and even from my chair I could hear he sounded disgruntled about it.
But Thom, her next port of call, said he’d be delighted and would treat us both to lunch.
‘Is that OK?’ Pearl asked me, looking up.
‘Never refuse a free lunch,’ I said, and I could hear Thom’s laughter.
35
Scouted Out
I completed my work on the green cotton dress, finishing with a little cautious steam pressing, but then replaced it on the dummy to air a little more, in the hope the last faint smell of mothballs would finally vanish.
It looked less of a wreck than it had before, even if the signs of wear and tear and the holes were still there.
I pinged over the updated catalogue entry to Honey and then went back to the cottage for a quick coffee, before changing into smarter jeans and comfortable trainers, because I suspected we’d be doing a lot of walking during our charity shop wedding dress quest in Ormskirk that afternoon!
I’d been really looking forward to it, and it wasn’t a huge surprise that Simon had managed to change the collection slot for his hat consignment to slightly earlier, so he could come with us.
Ormskirk was a busy little town and the large open market enticing, but over a quick sandwich and coffee lunch, we decided to concentrate on the real reason we were there and we started on our search.
It turned out that Pearl was a connoisseur of charity shopsand knew them all, but after three I was starting to despair that we wouldn’t find what we were looking for.
It wasn’t that we didn’t discover any wedding dresses, because the second shop had three, but two of them were so hideous I dismissed them instantly, while the other was a beautiful vintage silk dress that was just too good for our purpose.
