“What else do you know about Soline Roussel?”
“Not much. Why?”
“Well, it’s quite a story, isn’t it? Enchanted wedding dresses and happily-ever-afters. And then her business being destroyed by fire. I wonder why she never reopened. I got the feeling from her lawyer that she’s something of a recluse. It’s sad.”
“I remember the fire—or at least the news about it. It was right around the time your father died. I don’t recall how it started, but I remember hearing that she ended up in the hospital with some pretty bad burns.”
Burns. That would explain her desire for privacy. “Do you know what happened to her? Later, I mean.”
“I don’t. You know how the news is. They only care about the tragedy. The aftermath is never quite as exciting. Anyway, she’s renting you her building, which is all that matters.”
Rory nodded half-heartedly. It was true. Soline Roussel’s story shouldn’t matter, but it did somehow. Perhaps because Rory had come to understand how the loss of something precious could completely unravel a life.
NINE
RORY
June 19, 1985—Boston
Rory sagged onto the bottom step with her legal pad, weary but happy to be able to check another item off her to-do list. The contractor’s men had delivered the scaffolding required to begin work on the ceiling; she’d scrubbed all the windows, hauled out the remaining trash, done a walk-through with the electrician, and contacted someone to come look at the furnace. Not bad for two o’clock.
There was plenty to do if she was going to be ready by fall. She’d need to start lining up artists, create a marketing plan and an event calendar, figure out what drafting a press release entailed, and brainstorm ideas for the grand opening. The learning curve would be steep, and there would almost certainly be missteps, but come hell or high water, she planned to make a go of it. No one would be able to say Unheard Of was just a trust-fund-fueled vanity exercise.
Rory’s stomach let out a groan, reminding her that she’d skipped lunch. She ran down the legal pad one more time, concluding that she’d done what she could for now. She’d head home, grab a sandwich and a shower, then get to work on the brochure copy.
She had just finished locking up and was hunting for her purse when she spotted what appeared to be a small door cut into the dark wood paneling of the staircase’s outer wall. She’d never noticed it before, but there it was, with a small hole where, presumably, a knob had once been. After a few tugs, the door yielded, revealing a low, inky crawl space. There was no switch or string, no light anywhere that Rory could find. Going down on one knee, she squinted into the opening, trying not to think about what might have taken up residence under the stairs of a building that had been abandoned for almost four years.
The floor was bare wood, gritty with dust, but at least nothing seemed to be moving. She held her breath, not sure what she expected to find as she groped about blindly. She came up empty on her first attempt, but on the second try her knuckles grazed what felt like a large, flattish box.
It took some doing, but she finally managed to extricate the box and drag it into her lap. It was an old dress box, similar to the elaborate hatboxes women used to carry when they traveled. This one was fashioned of heavy gray cardboard, with metal fittings at the corners to avoid crushing and a length of badly frayed cord threaded through as a handle, so it could be carried like a suitcase.
There appeared to be a bit of writing in one corner. She wiped at the grime with the heel of her hand until a single line of cursive finally emerged—Madame Roussel, Paris. Apparently, Soline Roussel had owned a shop in Paris and had brought this box with her all the way to Boston. But what was it doing under the stairs?
She willed herself to go slowly as she worked the cord free, then gently lifted the lid. There were several sheets of tissue paper, crumpled and yellow with age. One by one, she peeled them away, breath held until an expanse of creamy white lace came into view.
It was like something from a fairy tale: a sweetheart neckline encrusted with iridescent crystals and tiny seed pearls, sleeves of slashed organza, as filmy as a pair of dragonfly wings, folded almost tenderly over one another. Clearly vintage and, judging by the quality of the beadwork, almost certainly hand sewn.
Rory eyed it longingly, itching to explore its landscape, frothy lace and tissue-thin silk, the cool, nubby texture of the beading. And yet she hesitated. Disturbing it now, after it had languished so long in the dark, felt wrong somehow, like casually handling the contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb. But that was silly. If the dress meant anything to anyone, it wouldn’t be here, shut up in a box covered with dust.