The Grace Kelly Dress Read online

  “I’m going now,” Joanie said, and she didn’t wait for a response. She threw her cover-up onto the beach chair and walked down to the water. It was starting to warm up—the water was always so cold in June and got warmer the closer they got to August—and she stood at the edge for a moment, feeling the ocean water lap at her feet. She watched as the water ebbed in and out, melting her feet farther into the wet sand. Off in the distance, she saw people diving off speedboats, swimming towards the shore.

  She took a step deeper into the water, felt the small shells under her feet. Another step, feeling the water hit her knees, splash her arms. And then, taking a deep breath, she dove right in.

  Sixty

  The seamstress

  Paris, 1958

  Julien hung up the telephone soberly.

  “Another one?” Rose asked. Julien nodded his head slowly. Yes, another one. It wasn’t just Elisabeth who had canceled her wedding gown. It was yet another bride. Like dominoes falling. Another dress order canceled in light of the news that Madame Michel had died.

  “I’m almost finished with Diana’s dress,” Rose said, hoping that news would cheer Julien up. He had been utterly inconsolable. Word had spread like wildfire through high society—Madame was gone, and an orphan seamstress was creating all of the dresses in her stead. Overnight, the shine of a dress custom-made by Madame Michel had faded into nothing.

  Julien studied the ledger after every cancellation, rubbing his temples as the numbers went into the red.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Julien said. “We’ll need the final payment on Diana’s dress if we’re going to keep the lights on for another month.”

  Rose didn’t dare say what they both were thinking: If the Laurents choose to give the final payment. What if they, too, refused to pay because of the subterfuge? They wouldn’t be wrong—Julien and Rose had deceived them. The Laurents had agreed to the price of the dress based on the fact that Madame Michel was designing it. Rose knew that Julien wouldn’t argue with the Laurents, just as he hadn’t put up a fight with Elisabeth’s family, or any of their other clients.

  Rose tried to thread her needle. Her hands weren’t as steady as they usually were; it was as if she had forgotten all of the basics of how to sew.

  “We’ll need to write up a list of instructions on how to get the dress on,” Julien said.

  Rose hadn’t thought of that—they had practiced getting all four pieces of the dress onto Diana’s lithe frame, but Rose had always been there to help. When it came to the day of Diana’s wedding, she would need assistance. “Should I offer to—”

  “No,” Julien said, cutting her off. He knew exactly what she was going to say before she could utter the words, that she should offer to help Diana get dressed on the morning of her wedding. Julien was adamantly against it. Just as he had warned her, the Laurents had broken Rose’s heart. Diana, whose friendship was conditional on the making of her wedding gown. Robert, whose heart was never really open to Rose, even though she had opened hers to him.

  Rose busied herself with the blue ribbons she was planning to sew onto the inside of the dress. Grace Kelly’s dress had little blue satin bows attached to the stiff lace-edged net ruffles on the inside of the skirt, and Rose wanted to give Diana a little surprise to find on her wedding day. She, too, sewed tiny handmade bows onto the underside of the dress support, and left them for Diana to discover on her own.

  Julien saw what she was doing and questioned her: Why spend so much time on a part of the dress that no one will see? That isn’t needed to support the garment? But Rose couldn’t help herself. Just because no one would see what she was doing didn’t make it any less important. It was as if she was sewing her very heart and soul into the underside of the garment, giving the dress a part of herself. With each ribbon that she painstakingly tied into a delicate bow, she was leaving her mark on the dress. She was making the dress her own, telling the world that this was not a dress custom-designed by Madame Michel; this was a couture piece from Mademoiselle Rose. And just as wearing a wedding dress designed by Madame Michel was said to guarantee a happy marriage, so too would a dress from Mademoiselle Rose.

  Oh, the look of delight that would form on Diana’s face the day of her wedding. Rose hoped the ribbons would convey everything she felt for Diana—that she wished only happiness for her, that she valued their time together.

  But of course, Rose would not be there on Diana’s wedding day. She would have to rely on her work to communicate all of this to the bride.

  Rose wondered what Madame would think of everything that had happened since she was gone—of Rose becoming her protégé, posthumously, of the plan she and Julien carried out, of the dress she created for Diana Laurent. Would Madame be proud of her? Would she approve of her work? Rose knew it didn’t matter now. The only opinion that mattered now was that of the Laurents, but that still didn’t stop the thoughts from coming. She’d worked for Madame for so long, had studied at her elbow for so many years, that it was impossible to stop thinking about how Madame would see things.

  “What would Madame think of all this?” she asked.

  Julien rose from his desk and stood at Rose’s side. He surveyed her work, the dress, and clasped his hands together, in front of his face. “She would say,” Julien said, quietly, reverently, as if calling to the spirits beyond, “‘Dear child, you have created a true masterpiece.’”

  Sixty-One

  The bride

  Brooklyn, 2020

  “What girl wouldn’t want to look like a princess on her wedding day?” Amanda asked, a dreamy look in her eyes. “You’re not going to change the dress too much, are you?”

  “The dress is mine now. I’ll do what I want with it.” Rocky motioned to the bartender to bring over two glasses of wine.

  “Just remember, it is a dress that is fit for a princess.”

  “Do I look like the sort of girl who cares about princesses?”

  “Mom cared about princesses.”

  “Princess Diana did humanitarian work that is still important today,” Rocky said, looking at their reflection in the mirror over the bar. Her hair was still lavender, and she liked the way it looked next to her sister’s honey waves. She’d let her own shag dry naturally that morning, and as Rocky looked at their reflection across the bar, she felt that they matched. That a passerby could tell they were sisters.

  “That’s not why Mom put those sleeves on her wedding dress,” Amanda said, looking down at her sister with a smirk. “Those sleeves were not about humanitarian work.”

  Rocky laughed as the bartender set down two glasses of wine and nodded at Rocky. Out of the corner of her eye, Rocky could see him wink at her sister. What’s more, Amanda winked back.

  “Why did she tell you that?” Rocky asked.

  “Tell me what?” Amanda took a sip of her wine, the first sip, and purred like a cat. “Mmm, this is good.”

  The bartender heard Amanda’s murmur and made his way back over. He started to say something about the top notes of the wine, but Rocky cut him off. She wasn’t letting someone interrupt their night alone. She cleared her throat. “About me changing the dress.”

  “All she ever talks about is you,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “It’s annoying.”

  “No,” Rocky said slowly, “all she ever talks about is you.” She pointed to her for emphasis. She would not allow Amanda to make this thing hers.

  “I think she would say that it’s called keeping us all in touch, keeping us in the loop,” Amanda said, all of it in air quotes, as if this very idea annoyed her. “Letting us be a family, letting us know what’s going on in each other’s lives.”

  “Did she say that to you?” Rocky asked, leaning in. She eyed her sister suspiciously.

  “No,” Amanda said, laughing. “My therapist did. But she thinks that’s why Mom always talks to me about you. Mom lost her s
ister when she was young. It’s important to her that we’re close.”

  Rocky turned to look at her sister.

  “My therapist says—” Amanda began, only to be cut off by Rocky’s laughter. “What’s so funny?”

  “Quoting your therapist like that,” Rocky said, taking a slow sip of wine. Despite herself, she let out the same murmur that Amanda did on her first sip. Everything her CFO had told her about this wine bar was right—you couldn’t pick a bad glass. “It’s funny.”

  “Well, I don’t really care what you think,” Amanda said in a way that made clear that the opposite was true—she very much cared what Rocky thought.

  “Yes, you do,” Rocky said with a smile. She edged her seat a little closer to her sister’s. “You absolutely do.”

  “Okay, I do,” Amanda said, throwing her hands up in defeat. “I care what everyone thinks.”

  “Your therapist say that?” Rocky asked, taking another sip of her wine.

  “Yes,” Amanda said, bowing her head in defeat. Then, looking up to face her sister: “But you know, you care what I think, too.”

  “I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Rocky said, flipping her hair off her shoulders. Evidence. Would a person who cared what people thought dye her hair a different color each week? No. Absolutely not.

  Amanda let out a roaring belly laugh. “Of course you do.”

  “No, I don’t,” Rocky said. Once the words left her mouth, she felt embarrassed that she sounded like a petulant child. But she didn’t care what people thought. She really did not.

  “Everyone cares about what other people think, to some extent. Society couldn’t function otherwise. But please don’t fool yourself into thinking that the crazy hair colors, the tattoos, and the combat boots mean that you don’t care. You do. Just in an entirely different way. You may not want to look like a princess on your wedding day, but you care about how you project yourself to the world.”

  “I definitely do not care about looking like a princess on my wedding day,” Rocky said. And then, with her lip firmly pouted: “They’re motorcycle boots, not combat boots.”

  “Grand-mère cared about looking like a princess on her wedding day,” Amanda said dreamily, as if she were summoning up memories of their beloved Grand-mère.

  Rocky took a beat to consider this. “Grace Kelly was an accomplished actress before she was a princess,” she pointed out. “I’m not entirely sure that one counts.”

  “Anyway, princesses are more a metaphor than anything else,” Amanda said. “No one really wants to be a princess, not if they really think about it—the way they made Kate Middleton walk out of the hospital mere hours after giving birth, the way they’ve got Meghan Markle wearing pantyhose. Pantyhose!—but it’s more the idea of what a princess represents. This idea that you’ve found ‘your prince,’ meaning your one true love. It’s more romantic to think that the universe has just one true love in store for you. It’s not romantic to think that lots of different people could have been that mythical one, if only for better timing. And when you’re getting married, don’t you want it to be romantic?”

  “I guess,” Rocky said, considering her sister’s words.

  “And the whole princess thing is really a metaphor for having a happy, charmed life. Who doesn’t want that?”

  “You’re a very good lawyer,” Rocky told her sister, swirling the wine in her glass. “You could basically convince anyone of anything. It’s like an evil superpower.”

  “It really is,” Amanda said, smiling broadly back at her sister. She tilted her head conspiratorially and asked her sister: “Would you like to know the latest victim of my evil superpowers?”

  “Sloan.”

  “Sloan.”

  “Sloan.”

  “How did you know?” Amanda asked.

  “After you fainted, when you came to? You told her you loved her.”

  “Did I?”

  “You did,” Rocky said, and took a sip of wine. “Do you?”

  “I might,” Amanda said. “Think my wedding invite will include a plus one?”

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  “So, what are you going to wear?”

  Sixty-Two

  The mother of the bride, as a bride herself

  Long Island, 1982

  Joanie had to check the address Mel had written down—this couldn’t possibly be the place, could it? There were no floor-to-ceiling windows, no high ceilings, like at the bigger galleries she’d been to before. In fact, this one wasn’t even announced with a sign on the street. They had to take a service elevator to the eleventh floor, and there were handwritten signs directing toward the Red Gallery.

  “You made it!” Mel called out, just as Joanie and Debbie walked in. Joanie gave her sister’s friend, now her friend, a warm hug.

  As Mel walked them through the gallery to see her work, the wood floors creaked. It wasn’t as grand as the gallery that had hosted the group show for Mel and Michele, but it was a solo show, a huge achievement.

  Joanie moved slowly through the space. Mel’s work: traditional paintings, with a twist. She used fluorescent colors, like the clothing sold at Trash and Vaudeville, to create something that felt almost alive. Joanie had never seen anything like it. Each painting was a different portrait. The paintings themselves were a mix of classic styles, but the vibrant colors—neon pink, fluorescent yellow—made them look new and fresh in a way that got Joanie excited.

  When they passed the portrait of Jesse, done in oranges and yellows, Mel said, “He just left. But he’ll be back later, if you want to see him?”

  Joanie shook her head no.

  “You two could be good together, you know. I see the way he looks at you.”

  “I don’t think I could be good with anyone right now,” Joanie said. “I need a little time on my own.”

  Jesse had been a mistake. A mistake that she’d come to terms with—it might not have been the way she’d always envisioned losing her virginity, but it took her a step closer to figuring out who she was and what she wanted. But still, it was in the past. She was only looking to the future now.

  Mel led the way to her next piece. With the more intimate space, Joanie felt more in sync with the art, more comfortable. She stopped at a portrait of two girls standing next to each other, one with blond hair, the other with black.

  “Oh, my god,” Debbie said, joining her. “That’s us.”

  Joanie had to admit—the painting did bear a resemblance. She turned to Mel, who pursed her lips, as if to say something.

  “I love it,” Debbie said before Mel could speak. “We’re buying it.”

  “I couldn’t take your money. And anyway—”

  “You’re a starving artist,” Debbie said. “For sure you can take our money. Quick, before someone else buys it first.” She rushed off to find the manager, leaving Joanie alone with Mel.

  “Your stuff is really amazing,” she said.

  “Not as good as your sister’s,” Mel said, eyes fixed on the painting, as if she were critiquing it, still. “But I think I have something, all the same.”

  “You have a real signature style.” Joanie pointed at the lines of the figures, the colors. “It feels alive, you know?”

  “Thank you,” Mel said. “You know, I’m really glad you came.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Joanie reached over and gave Mel’s hand a little squeeze.

  “Another sale!” a voice sang out. The manager of the art gallery came over and put a sticker onto the side of the painting. “You’re on fire, Mel.”

  “Go easy on them,” Mel said. “They’re college students.”

  “Sure,” the manager said, laughing slyly.

  Debbie handed over her father’s credit card and Joanie looked more closely at the plaque. She leaned in and saw the name of the painting: �
��Michele.”

  Sixty-Three

  The seamstress

  Paris, 1958

  Rose sat at the worktable, waiting. The dress for Diana hung in the fitting room, ready to be boxed up and sent off.

  Rose wiped her hands on a linen napkin, nervous. Would the Laurents agree to pay the final installment on the dress? Would they even take the dress with them? Would Diana hate her for lying all this time? Rose truly didn’t know.

  The door to the atelier opened, and a tiny chime rang out.

  “How lovely to see you,” Julien said, rushing over to Diana and her mother. A flurry of greetings followed.

  “Rose!” Diana called out to her friend. “I can’t wait to see the dress.”

  Rose felt her shoulders soften, her breath come back to her body, as she brought Diana into the fitting room. She opened the dressing room door with a flourish, and her client slowly walked through. Diana was silent as she gazed upon her wedding gown, finally complete, set up on a dress form. Although Diana’s back was to her, Rose could see her reflection in the mirror. Diana was crying softly.

  “It is the most beautiful dress I have ever seen,” she said through tears, slowly taking in every detail. Her head moved this way and that as she gazed upon Rose’s creation.

  “I’m so honored to hear you say that.”

  Diana fingered each of the delicate silk-covered buttons that ran down the back of the bodice. Her eyes traveled across the cummerbund, and then down to the silk faille skirt. When her eyes caught the delicate lace detail at the bottom of the gown, she smiled. “Roses made for me by my Rose,” Diana said, gently holding the bottom border of the gown. “These are exquisite.”

  “Your mother liked that part, too,” Rose said, a smile overtaking her face.

  “Did you cut each one of these by hand?” Diana looked closer at the hem of the gown.

  “I did.”

  “Why, that must have taken hours upon hours,” Diana said, turning the material over in her delicate hands.