“I imagine I was pretty scary,” I said in a quiet voice, thinking of Selena.
My mother shook her head. Again, the gray hairs startled me. I still remembered her as she had been when last I saw her, in that tent with those hateful people. When I was seventeen. A lifetime ago.
“Yes, you were scary to an uneducated person like me, who didn’t know better. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Lily. What you were was a child who needed her mother. Thank goodness Graciela was able to take you in, to understand you and help you to control your talents.”
How many times had I dreamed of this moment? I wondered again. I reached out and put my hand over hers. She patted it. Her hands were soft as velvet and warm as love, just as I’d imagined them for years.
“Since then . . . Well, it took a while, but I’ve educated myself. I’ve read a lot. And I’ve come to understand that ‘strange’ isn’t a synonym for ‘wrong.’”
I smiled. “And I’m strange, am I?”
She looked at me, startled, as though worried she’d hurt my feelings. She relaxed upon spying my smile, and returned it.
“Oh, aren’t we all, darlin’? Aren’t we all?”
* * *
? ? ?
Half an hour later, the bell tinkled over the door as I led my mother into Aunt Cora’s Closet.
She lingered in the doorway, as though unsure about whether to enter.
“Come on in, Mom,” I said. “Welcome to my store. It doesn’t usually look like this, though, I have to say.”
“You named it after my cousin Cora?”
“I used to love playing dress-up in her closet, remember?”
My mother had insisted on bringing a big sewing bag in with her, and it slipped off her shoulder, falling to the floor.
“Oops,” I said. “Nothing breakable, I hope.”
“Not at all. It’s a . . .” She looked around at everyone in the store. “I didn’t mean to make a scene in front of everyone, all your friends. . . .”
“Everyone, this is my mother, Maggie. Mom, these are very important people to me. They’re my San Francisco family.” I was proud to introduce her to Bronwyn, and Maya, and Conrad, then Lucille and Selena and Imogen, and Wendy and Starr and Wind Spirit and the others from the Welcome coven. I only wished Sailor could be here, but I trusted that he would be in my arms soon enough.
“Well, then,” said my mother, bringing a gown out of the bag. “I thought I should bring this to you. Maybe it’s too soon, but I wanted you to try it on here because Graciela said you had a seamstress who could make alterations. . . .”
“That would be me,” said Lucille, stepping forward. “That looks like a lovely gown, Maggie.”
“I wore it when I got married,” my mother said. “It was also my mother’s and her mother’s before that. My mother told me my grandmother’s mother and sisters sewed it for her.”
The dress was from the late 1920s, and was made from a champagne-toned slippery silk satin. The bodice featured a sweetheart neckline, a high back, and dolman-style sleeves. A self-sash was looped through the neckline and finished at the shoulder, where it could be used to tie the sleeve. Tea-stained floral lace appliqués highlighted the front of the bodice. The skirt was asymmetrical and fell from the banded drop waist, which was adorned with sparkling rhinestones in a swirling pattern. There were a few snags in the fabric, and a couple of the rhinestones were lost or loose. A little smudging at the neckline, no doubt evidence of a former bride’s lipstick.
But otherwise the dress was pristine. Lucille would be able to alter it to fit me, and I felt confident I could remove the lipstick stains with a tiny bit of ammonia or hair spray—an old vintage clothes dealer’s trick.
“It’s . . . stunning,” I said when I was able to catch my breath. “Truly, absolutely stunning.”
Best of all, without even trying it on, I knew it was perfect for me. The vibrations were strong and happy and hopeful, and I detected something I had never before felt in a vintage garment: family. This dress had been made by my great-aunts, worn by my mother, and my mother’s mother, and her mother.
I had never before worn a family hand-me-down.
“I know there are some issues with it, but Graciela said you’d be able to fix it up, no problem.”
“Lucille is amazing,” I said with a nod.
“Mom will be able to make it perfect,” said Maya, looking over at her mother, who nodded. “And with a good laundering, it will be right as rain.”
“Try it on,” said Bronwyn.
“Yes, try it on, already,” urged Graciela.
“Dude,” said Conrad.
I felt shy, and finally realized why some of my customers held back a little. Even though the vibrations felt right and the dress beckoned me, it was a little bit scary to be the center of such attention.
“I’ll help you,” said Selena, taking my hand and leading me into the big dressing room.
I took off the polka-dot dress that matched Selena’s; then Selena helped me to pull my mother’s family wedding dress over my head. The fabric slipped easily down my body, encasing me in silky softness. It fit loosely, in the style of the twenties. And though I didn’t have a boyish body, it was big enough in the right areas. It needed some alteration, but not much.
“Wow,” said Selena.
“Really?”
I stepped out of the dressing room. You could have heard a pin drop.
“Well?” I said, wondering at their silence.
Bronwyn gasped and teared up.
“What?” I looked down at myself, suddenly doubtful.
My mother came up to me, gave me a hug, and then turned me around so I could look into the three-way mirror.
I looked beautiful. I looked like a princess. Best of all, I looked like a very happy witch.
Everyone started talking at once, oohing and aahing, pulling a little here, a little there.
“All you need now is the perfect veil,” Maya said. “We must have some in boxes next door, right?”
“I have one here,” my mother said as she pulled a lace veil out of her sewing bag. It was attached to a tiara. It was antique, but not fancy, made of cheap wire and rhinestones that had been cleaned up and polished.
“I know it’s silly,” my mother said. “But that’s the tiara I won when I was crowned Miss Tecla County. That was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling magical.”
“It’s amazing,” I said, wishing I had a better word for it. I smelled daisies, and my mind was flooded with images of home, and Texas, and sitting in my mother’s lap while she read me a story when I was little. I thought of what Patience had said, that my thoughts were expressed in scents and symbols. Maybe this was what she meant.
“Thank you,” I said, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I knew if I had been able to cry, I would have done so. “It’s amazing. It’s exactly what I’ve been hoping for.”
While saying, “No time like the present,” Lucille trailed me back into the changing room and pinned the dress for alterations, then helped me to take it off without stabbing myself.
After I had changed back into my polka-dot dress, Bronwyn excused herself to take Imogen and Selena to their respective homes, Maya and Lucille begged off as well, and the last of the crowd began to disperse. My mother and the Texas coven climbed back onto the school bus to drive to Calypso’s house in Bolinas. Only my grandmother and Oscar stayed behind to accompany me in my Mustang. Graciela insisted on hunting for a sparkly jacket in my inventory piled in Lucille’s Loft, and then wanted to ride with the top down, because she’d once seen a movie in which a glamorous actress—was it Audrey Hepburn, or Grace Kelly?—drove across the Golden Gate Bridge in a convertible and she wasn’t about to miss a chance to do the same before she died.
“You really taught my mother knot magic?” I asked her while we packed the last of the leftovers into boxes to take to Calypso’s.
Graciela laughed. “She’s atrocious. Truly. Still and all, it’ll be interestin’ to see what she came up with in that trousseau. Have you looked yet?”
“She told me not to, yet.”
Graciela lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m respecting her wishes,” I said, a defensive tone to my voice.