If The Dress Fits

Chapter Two

Callie was too exhausted to disguise her emotions from her friend and she could feel her face colour. The look of sadness that washed across Scarlet’s pretty features sent a spasm of irritation into her chest at being sussed so easily.

‘I knew it. You still love Theo, don’t you? After all this time?’

‘No I don’t…’

‘It’s understandable that you still have feelings for him, Cal. You dated him right through high school and university. Hey, and wasn’t he the first guy you kissed when you were, like, twelve or something? But I thought you said you’d moved on?’

‘I have.’

‘So why is your face the same shade as my nail polish?’

‘It’s not. Anyway, Scarlet…’

‘And isn’t Theo’s band playing at Lilac and Finn’s reception? It was a real coup when Finn announced he’d pulled that one off. The Razorclaws will be on tour in Germany at the end of July so they’ve interrupted their schedule as a special favour to Finn. Wasn’t he at music school in Manchester with Theo?’

‘Yes,’ murmured Callie. She felt like a deer caught in the headlights of Scarlet’s examination technique. She hadn’t mentioned the fact that Theo and his band would be playing at the wedding to her friend for exactly this reason. Nothing got past Scarlet.

‘So you’ll get to see him again.’

‘Only if our design wins the competition and that’s by no means a given.’

Callie watched the cogs turn behind Scarlet’s emerald eyes.

‘So there’s a lot more than I thought resting on Callie-Louise Bridal Couture winning this competition.’

‘Look, Scarlet, you know I have no desire to see Theo again. I had to think long and hard about continuing with the entry when it was announced his band would be a part of the wedding arrangements. But I’ve worked my butt off to make it as a fashion designer and I couldn’t let an old relationship stand in the way of achieving my dream. If we do win, yes, I’ll need to be at the ceremony, but Theo won’t be there and my services won’t be required at the evening reception.’

‘So you’re still avoiding him?’

‘No, I just…’

‘Yes, you are. Which means you are not over him.’

‘Scarlet, you know what happened. You know what he did.’

‘Yes, but there are two sides to every argument.’ Scarlet affected an American accent. ‘I’ve heard your submission, Counsellor, now let me consider the case for the opposition.’

‘Oh, no…’ Callie buried her head in her hands and massaged her temples with her fingertips. She didn’t want to hear this right now. She didn’t have the strength to fight back.

‘Let’s see, these are the facts, Your Honour. A rep from a record company was attending one of The Razorclaws’ gigs. It was the most important night of Theo’s life and his girlfriend had promised to be there cheering him on from the wings. Said girlfriend was, once again, so engrossed in fulfilling her own dreams that she was late to the party. The Razorclaws got the contract, the champagne flowed, and they had been celebrating for hours before Theo’s neglectful girlfriend arrived to witness a drunken clinch with an anonymous girl groupie whom he said had thrown herself at him. What was Theo to do, Cal?’

Callie swallowed down her agony. Every time his name was mentioned it surprised her that the pain was still so raw and near the surface three years later. After that fateful night, she had escaped back to London and used the money her parents had left her to set up Callie-Louise Bridal Couture. She’d refused every one of Theo’s calls and made her Aunt Hannah, who had brought her up after her parents’ death, and her best friend, Nessa, swear they wouldn’t disclose her new address to Theo.

She had never thought she could experience such a kaleidoscope of emotions. Theo had always been there for her. He knew every detail of her history; they’d shared the same highs and lows, the same friends, the same dreams, or so she’d thought. When she was thirteen, Theo had borrowed his father’s spade and dug up one of his mother’s prize rose bushes. He’d raced round to collect her from her aunt’s house and dragged her to the local churchyard where he proceeded to plant the white rose bush next to the headstone of her parents’ grave. When she was fourteen, Theo had kissed her under the canopy of the old oak tree in the garden behind her Aunt Hannah’s haberdashery shop, Gingerberry Yarns, and then he’d carved her initials into the knobbly trunk. The entwined initials ‘CLH’ had, years later, become the logo for her bridal boutique. She had loved him and it still hurt a great deal that he was no longer in her life.

But he’d never understood her need to sever the rural guy ropes and branch out on her own, to forge a life for herself away from the Dales. She had been so adamant about her desire to leave Allthorpe that she had expected Theo to share her ambition, with the clamorous draw of city music venues proving too tempting to refuse. But refuse he had. He remained at home with his parents and insisted on commuting to his degree course in Manchester, crashing at his friends’ digs when he had to. He had also remained loyal to their childhood friends – four of them made up his band – but whom, apart from Nessa, she’d not seen for years. Tears always gathered on her lashes whenever she recalled the nights they had spent together in Archie’s parents’ garage, jamming and tossing around suggestions of what to call the band. The Razorclaws had been an amalgamation of Theo’s suggestion of The Northern Claws and hers of The Razors.

The three years she’d spent studying at Northumbria University’s prestigious School of Fashion and Textiles had been the best years of her life. She’d loved the people, the nightlife, the restaurants, the theatres, the fashion opportunities, even the football club. She had emerged from her time in Newcastle with a first-class honours degree in Fashion Design and Textiles and won a coveted place at the Royal College of Art to study for her MA in textiles.

Whilst in London she had striven to put her dreams of becoming a fashion designer first and had embraced the freedom of the individual creative design philosophy her MA allowed her to explore. She had served her apprenticeship with Christianna Boulet, the well-respected doyenne of haute couture with a penchant for geometric print fabric edged with neon-woven tweeds. At Christianna’s insistence, she had learnt the more mundane aspects of the fashion business as well as the techniques required to produce a glittering showcase of catwalk-quality garments.

But it had all come at a price when, after years of religiously returning to Allthorpe to fan the flames of their courtship, she had returned that night, albeit late, to stumble upon the scene that had remained scorched on the inside of her eyelids ever since. The shock had galvanised her into taking her dreams to a new level and the eponymous Callie-Louise Couture had been born.

Every spare crumb of her love and affection had been lavished on her business. It was her baby and craved every moment of her attention. She was grateful for that as it meant she had no time to dwell on what had happened. But she had never forgotten Theo’s betrayal of their relationship.

However, Scarlet was also right. What was Theo to do when girls threw themselves at him? And things could only have got worse now that The Razorclaws had topped the charts with their recent album. She just couldn’t see herself as part of that itinerant lifestyle. And she definitely couldn’t handle the roller coaster of emotions that went along with dating a famous rock musician.

And, anyway, wasn’t Callie-Louise Henshaw about to become the most celebrated fashion designer in the country?

Chapter Three

‘Look, come on. The courier will be here any minute now and we can’t risk him leaving empty-handed. I’m going to slide the dress into the wardrobe on the dressmaker’s dummy; less opportunity for it to crease. I’ll never forget that image of Princess Diana’s wedding gown on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral.’ Callie grimaced as she recalled the profusion of crinkles the dress had displayed to the seven hundred and fifty million people who’d been watching around the globe.

‘This is, without a doubt, the most beautiful wedding gown I have ever laid eyes on – you know that, Callie, don’t you? It’s definitely going to win the competition and you’ll see your own design worn by one of the most famous actresses in the world. How exciting is that?’

Despite her natural reluctance to sing her own praises, Callie allowed herself a tiny nod to her ingenuity with a needle, coupled with her God-given talent, which had produced such dazzling results. It was one of her most adventurous creations to date, but every aspect of the gown had merged to form a true work of art. She had slaved through eighteen-hour days over the last three months to get the sample ready for the final judging the next day.

The gown’s pale ivory, organic silk flowed like ripples in a summer breeze. The strapless bodice draped exquisitely to enhance Lilac’s translucent, swan-like neck and pert breasts. The nipped-in waist would amplify her slender measurements, but it was the A-line skirt that drew the appreciative eye, ruched to the right where a darted panel of inlaid crystals and seed pearls shimmered like a sparkling waterfall whenever the bride moved, especially under the neon lights of Callie’s workshop. A fantasy dress for a fairy-tale wedding, putting even Cinderella’s to shame.

Of course, if the design won it would have to be custom-altered and remoulded, but she would do anything, work 24/7, if it meant her dress could be displayed to the fashion world on such a famous model. That kind of exposure could jettison the Callie-Louise name into the order books of every style-conscious celebrity in Britain. It was everything she had been working towards. Every single, painful sacrifice she had made would have been worth it.

Except maybe one.

The two girls gently gathered the gown’s delicate folds and straightened the underskirt and hem. Callie fought a cauldron of emotions not to shed a tear as she and Scarlet manoeuvred the cardboard wardrobe crate towards the dressmaker’s dummy and carefully inserted the textile sculpture.

They draped sheets of acid-free tissue paper around the dress until it was packed as tightly as possible without scrunching the delicate material and stood back to admire their handiwork before they sealed the door, knowing there would be no further tweaking allowed.

As Callie closed the door and sealed the box with the brown tape, both girls let out a sigh of pleasure and of satisfaction.

‘A true masterpiece, Callie. Lilac would be crazy not to pick it.’

Callie couldn’t speak. Her throat had tightened around a lump the size of a golf ball. ‘Oh, God, I nearly forgot! The paperwork for the courier.’

‘Callie? Callie?’ Flora’s voice floated down from the floor above. ‘Call for you in the Tumble Room. Said it was urgent!’

‘Okay, Flora, be right there.’

Callie exchanged a smirk with Scarlet as she slipped on her black ballet pumps, stretched her long, colt-like legs and wiggled out the kinks in her shoulder muscles to her full six-foot height. She flicked the sides of her bob behind each ear and slid the pin cushion from around her wrist.

Every call Flora put through was ‘urgent’. Despite being the salon’s receptionist since its inception three years ago, she invariably fell for the caller’s assertive demands.

Rolling her eyes and experiencing a sweep of relief at the conclusion of the most important project of her career, she took the stairs two at a time to their ‘ideas’ room. It had been nicknamed the ‘Tumble Room’ because it was where Callie hoped their creative juices and ideas would tumble forth from brain to paper. In reality, it was a small conference room they used to receive their clients and listen to their dreams, decorated with wall art ranging from framed photographs of 1950s brassieres to Callie’s prized David Hockney, the celebrated Yorkshire-born artist, which she’d inherited from her father.

‘Thanks, Flora. Hi, Callie-Louise Henshaw speaking.’

‘Callie, at last! It’s Seb,’ announced her cousin with none of his usual comedic preamble.

‘Oh, hi, Seb. What great timing. We’ve just put the finishing touches…’

‘Callie, it’s Mum. Delia’s just rung. She collapsed when she was shutting up the shop. She’s been rushed to Harrogate hospital by ambulance. You’d better get up here. Delia is with her but she’s unconscious. The medics’ early diagnosis is a perforated bowel and she’ll be going straight into surgery. I’m racing across there now.’

‘Oh, my God, Seb, I’m on my way.’ An anvil-heavy weight pressed down on Callie’s chest restricting the flow of air to her lungs. She gulped for breath, her body frozen in alarm.

‘Callie? Callie? What on earth’s happened?’ Scarlet rushed to Callie’s side, rousing her from her shock and sending her stalled brain into motion.

‘It’s Aunt Hannah. She’s collapsed. On her way to the hospital. Having surgery. Got to go. Now!’

‘Oh, Callie, no!’

Callie rushed past Scarlet’s blanched face, back down the wooden treads to her workshop and grabbed her handbag and mac. Fear wrenched at her gut. She couldn’t lose her aunt, she just couldn’t. When her parents had died in a head-on crash when she was only ten years old, Aunt Hannah had surrounded her with a comfort blanket of love and brought her up alongside her two older cousins, Seb and Dominic, in a home filled with chatter and homely warmth. She adored her. She couldn’t envisage life without her.

‘What about the dress, Callie?’ cried Scarlet as she darted in Callie’s wake down the stairs to the workroom. ‘You need to fill out the forms, and sign the seal and the courier’s documentations. It’s part of the requirements, as evidence that the entry hasn’t been tampered with.’

‘Oh, erm, you do it, Scarlet,’ Callie called over her shoulder from the top of the stairs, the helix of panic tightening in her chest and throat, her brain ricocheting off into myriad nightmare scenarios.

Scarlet jogged to keep up with Callie’s beeline for the exit and the car park at the back of the salon with a visibly upset Flora in her wake.

‘Callie…’

‘Scarlet. Just make sure it goes. It’s packed and sealed. It only needs a signature. I have to get to the hospital.’

Tears sprang into Callie’s eyes and trickled down her pale cheeks. Her shallow breathing induced a dizzy spell causing her to pause at the door to draw oxygen into her screaming lungs. An icy drench of panic rose up her arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

‘Look, Callie, you can’t drive all the way up to Yorkshire by yourself – you’re in no fit state. I’ll drive you.’

‘Scarlet…’

‘What use will you be to your aunt if you end up in the same hospital after an RTA? Give me your keys!’ Scarlet brandished her palm and the expression on her face brooked no further argument.

Callie realised that her objections were only serving to delay her journey. Any further refusals would only extend the time until she arrived at her aunt’s bedside.

‘Okay. Flora, if you can’t find Lizzie, will you stay until the courier arrives to collect the gown? All you have to do is fill out the documents and get a receipt.’

‘Sure, Callie. I hope your aunt’s going to be okay.’

Callie could not recall much of the journey up to Harrogate. Scarlet drove swiftly, the car’s headlights tunnelling two piercing beams through the London streets, strangely devoid of their daily bustle on that late March evening, the clientele of the busy bars ignorant of the curling veins of turmoil swirling around Callie’s ragged brain. Raindrops splattered sporadically on the windscreen, the blades flicking them away like irritating flies. The amber glow of the street lamps cast their mellow light into the inky black puddles gathered in the gutters and across the rooftops.

She couldn’t lose Aunt Hannah, she thought, panicking, especially as she’d already lost her parents. God couldn’t be that cruel, surely?

Silence pervaded the vehicle whilst Scarlet concentrated on handling the unfamiliar controls of the Mini Cooper and delivering Callie to the hospital as quickly as possible, her own features pinched and sombre in the half-light. Anyway, what words were there to ease the pain?

At last Scarlet pulled into the deserted hospital car park. Callie glimpsed the stout figure of Hannah’s best friend on the stone steps leading to the entrance hall, clearly keeping an anxious lookout for their arrival. Callie leapt from the car, grateful for Delia’s foresight – it meant she would not have to wander the neon-bleached corridors, going through the rigmarole of repeated questions to locate her aunt.

‘Delia? Where’s…’

‘Oh, Callie, I’m so, so sorry, my love. So very, very sorry.’ Tears streamed down Delia’s powdery, wrinkled face, her pale blue eyes gentle as she hooked her arm threw Callie’s elbow.

‘Delia?’ Callie’s voice trembled.

‘Come on. Seb and Dominic are just in here,’ and she steered Callie into a tiny, fluorescent-bright room just off the entrance-hall corridor.

As soon as the door swung back, Seb leapt out of the brown plastic chair and took Callie into his arms. Over his shoulder, Callie swung her horrified stare from Dominic to Delia as icy fingers of dread curled around her heart and squeezed.

‘No… no… no…’

‘I’m so sorry, Cal. Mum passed away twenty minutes ago during surgery. Heart attack. They did everything they could…’

‘No…’

Chapter Four

A soft breeze laced with the fragrance of spring wove its way through the village of Allthorpe. Shafts of early April sunshine spliced through the leaden clouds clothing the church with a mantle of golden light. It was a picturesque venue and it was no surprise that the parish church, complete with rose-entangled lynch gate, was regularly chosen as the venue for much happier occasions. But no ivory ribbons rippled on the gateposts that morning.

How could life dispense such cruelty? Callie wondered as she dabbed away the tears from her cheeks with the scrap of embroidered cotton Delia had given her that morning. First the Director of Fate had snatched her parents, leaving her an orphan, and now he had seen fit to take her beloved Aunt Hannah as well.

Seb and Dominic were her only real family now – her only remaining link to her life in Yorkshire. She laced her arms through theirs as they thanked the vicar for the very moving eulogy he had delivered to a packed congregation. Hannah had been a popular resident of the village of Allthorpe, a committee member of the WI as well as a regular church attendee, and the Reverend Coulson knew her well. There had been genuine sadness in his words of comfort.

The mourners spilled out of the church and meandered their way down the path towards the village green where a snake of black limousines waited. Those closest to Hannah had been invited to join the family in a toast to her life at her home in Harrogate ten miles away.

Callie had known Theo would be at the funeral to pay his respects to his best friend’s mother and the person who had taken his girlfriend under her loving wing when she was only ten years old. Her aunt had possessed an infinite capacity to love and had extended her affection to Theo, the boy who had loved her niece for as long as she could remember. But Callie hadn’t anticipated the depth of emotion she would experience when she set eyes on him for the first time in three years as he loitered on the worn-out steps of the church with his parents whilst they chatted to the vicar.

Her first reaction was to turn and run, but how could she?

Seb must have felt her arm tense. He glanced over her shoulder, a smile cracking his face for the first time that day.

‘Theo!’

Callie had no choice but to accompany Seb and Dominic to receive the heartfelt condolences of Theo’s parents, Geoff and Julie Drake. They shook hands with Seb and Dominic and then turned to hug her to their chests with such compassion that she had to swallow down hard not to open the firmly sealed flood gates. She knew the last thing her aunt would have wanted was for her to be a tear-strewn wreck. She managed a weak smile of appreciation, muttered how grateful she was for their words of genuine comfort, and was keen to move away before Theo took his father’s place and enveloped her in his embrace.

‘Geoff, Julie, I think Theo and Callie could do with a little space,’ announced Seb, his eyes lingering on Theo’s as he guided his best friend’s parents out of the churchyard.

‘Oh, no, Seb, I…’

Callie hadn’t intended to meet Theo’s gentle, silver-grey eyes. When she did, her heart dropped like a stone down a well before bouncing straight back up again, lodging somewhere between her chest and her throat. Her knees weakened under the strain of her swirling emotions as she drank in his familiar features.

Nothing about him had changed. He was still the teenage boy she had given her heart to. He still spoke with his broad Yorkshire accent, unlike her, who’d worked hard at eradicating it. He still wore his sandy-blond hair on the long side and favoured the designer-stubble look. The smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose remained, reminding Callie of the time they had spent one summer lying amongst the wheat in a farmer’s field when she had counted every single one and had declared there to be one hundred and thirty-two. He’d asked for a recount before grabbing her by the wrists and smiling into her eyes to tell her he was joking. It was the first time he’d told her he loved her.

‘Cal, I’m so sorry about your Aunt Hannah. I know how much she meant to you. She was a wonderful lady. When Seb called to tell me about the funeral I grabbed the first flight back to the UK.’ His smile was a peace offering.

‘Thanks, Theo.’

He reached out his fingers and gently touched the back of her hand. ‘If there is anything I can do to help ease your pain, I want you to know that I’m here for you. I will always be your friend.’

Tears amassed on her lower lashes, but she could think of nothing to say. They weren’t the same people they had been three years ago. They led totally different lives. Yet, after all this time she was still unable to view Theo as just a friend. He had ensnared her heart and refused to return it. Now she realised that it would hurt too much to maintain the civility required to sustain even friendly relations.

A lone tear trickled down her cheek and Theo reached over to brush it away with his thumb. His lips parted as he cupped her chin and lifted her face to his.

‘Cal, I want you to know…’

‘Don’t, Theo. I can’t do this. Not today.’

A cloud of regret passed across his handsome features but he respected her request. ‘Okay, but we do need to talk. I’ve got a break in my commitments and I’m home for a few weeks. How long are you home for? That’s if you still call Allthorpe home.’

They had reached the village green opposite Gingerberry Yarns, the haberdashery shop on Allthorpe High Street her aunt had owned and run with the help of Delia. ‘It’s the cosiest little wool shop in Yorkshire,’ Delia was forever quoting as her catchphrase. It had certainly been the place Callie had spent her happiest times and its contents had nurtured her passion for all things woolly and had inspired her to follow her dream of a career in fashion.

‘The will is being read tomorrow. I’ve promised Seb and Dominic to go to the solicitors with them, although I don’t know why they need me there. Then I’m going back to London. The announcement is being made on Monday.’

‘What announcement?’

Callie cursed her lapse in concentration. The last thing she wanted was for Theo to know about her submission to Lilac Verbois’s wedding gown competition. She knew he’d tell her that his band had been booked to perform at the evening reception and she didn’t think she could take any more trauma that day. The Razorclaws and their music would be for ever linked with Theo’s betrayal. She needed to get through tomorrow, then she could leave Allthorpe and eradicate the risk of bumping into Theo again.

‘Oh, just something to do with the boutique. Bye, Theo.’

Before Theo could say anything else, she turned her back on him and strode away, jumping into the back seat of one of the limousines waiting to take the mourners to the wake at her aunt’s house in Harrogate.

Theo was a spectre from her past and she had to make sure he stayed there.