Page 52 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)
A couple of months later . . .
Something old, something new.
Something borrowed, something blue.
E veryone said it would be romantic to get married on Valentine’s Day; however, there was only one place that Phoebe wanted to get married.
Her happy place. Which was the atelier.
And there was no way that Phoebe was going to close the shop on Valentine’s Day, which fell on a Saturday that year.
A working day but also it would mean that ‘we’d be letting our customers down.
Have you any idea of how many women suddenly wake up on February fourteenth and decide that they need the perfect dress for their dates later that night?
Or how many men come to the shop to buy a red dress for their special person, even though it turns out that they have absolutely no idea what size their special person actually wears? ’
‘I just thought it would be romantic,’ Freddy said mildly. ‘If you feel that strongly about it, then let’s do it on the Sunday instead. You can have the wedding any way that you want it but the honeymoon is non-negotiable.’
It was their new improved couple strategy. They were each allowed one, only one, red line on any given topic. A red line that couldn’t be crossed.
So if Phoebe had the wedding of her dreams on a Sunday afternoon (they’d done the legal thing at Camden Town Hall a couple of days before) in the atelier with Charles officiating then Freddy was in charge of the honeymoon.
A week in Paris, a whole week away from the shop and away from Coco Chanel, who was going to stay with Birdy, Faisal and Peggy Gug, even though Phoebe was sure they’d return to find that Coco had become a fully fledged doggy influencer.
‘You’re not financially savvy, Coco,’ she said to her chief bridesmaid, who looked beautiful in her own little white veil and pearl collar. ‘You’d sign your life away for a pig’s ear.’
Phoebe fingered the pearls that were around her own neck. Mildred’s pearls, her something borrowed, which were one of the few things to survive the fire. It was lovely to have something of Mildred’s on this special day.
Her 1930s bias-cut dress was her something old. Once it had been repaired and the fake tan had been painstakingly removed after Rosie Roberts’s harsh treatment of it.
Phoebe’s something new was the going-away outfit that Cress had designed exclusively for her.
The Phoebe was a French navy wool crêpe dress with satin accents, but it didn’t count as her something blue.
That was the diamond and aquamarine (her birth stone) engagement ring sourced by Charles and placed on her finger by Freddy at the end of that strange week after The Sheila had caught fire.
Even though it was the busiest shopping week of the year, Phoebe had been confined to bed in Freddy’s flat.
She had to rest her broken ribs, she had stitches where she’d cut her arm and hand, and her feet were still sore and throbbing from being torn to ribbons.
Also, she’d kept bursting into tears every time she looked at either Coco or Freddy.
Freddy hadn’t been much better. He hardly let Phoebe or Coco out of his sight.
There had been a lot of sleeping off the worst of their symptoms. A lot of cuddling .
A lot of gazing at each other because Phoebe couldn’t get enough of the expression on Freddy’s face when he looked at her; it was tender and soft in a way that she couldn’t quite describe.
‘It’s so good to have my two best girls back with me,’ Freddy had said at one point. ‘We’re our own little family.’
‘I love our own perfectly imperfect little family,’ Phoebe whispered because it was still easier to say that than to remind Freddy that she really did love him. Loved him more than all the vintage dresses in all the vintage shops in the world.
But he didn’t need reminding because later that week when he was still a lighter shade of grey but well enough to go into town for a meeting, he came home with a cheeky Nando’s for them and the ring.
He even went down on one knee.
Phoebe didn’t even have to think about it. ‘Very much yes. Definitely yes,’ she rasped. ‘But are you sure about this? I’m still prickly.’
‘I wouldn’t have you any other way,’ Freddy said, with a grin. ‘I can cope with the odd scratch.’
It was quite hard to remember to be prickly when Phoebe was now something of a heroine.
She’d gone viral yet again (she’d stopped counting how many times that had happened) after someone uploaded footage to TikTok of her leaping onto the blazing Sheila to rescue Coco.
She was officially uncancelled now and there was even talk of a Pride of Britain award.
It would also have been churlish to not thank her friends who’d all visited, bringing flowers and vintage dresses from their own wardrobes, to replace all those dresses that were now lost for evermore.
The Vintage Dress Shop had somehow managed without Phoebe while she was indisposed.
Although someone would pop over every lunchtime to give Phoebe the low-down on that day’s business.
Still, after all that she’d been through, it was quite hard to get even a little bit stressed about their ever-dwindling stock of black party dresses or that Cress’s overlocker was making an awful clunking sound and might be out of operation until the end of the year.
‘I miss the old Phoebe,’ Anita said mournfully, when it was her turn to come round. ‘Can’t you think of something to tell me off about?’
‘I’m sure that in another couple of days, I’ll be back to my true self,’ Phoebe said but her heart wasn’t really in it. She wasn’t sure who her true self was anymore.
Probably not the chilly woman she’d forged out of the ashes of that lost girl she’d used to be. There had been so many different Phoebes and over the last few weeks, she realised that she was transforming into yet another version of herself.
A version that was learning to compromise. To appreciate the people in her life instead of insisting that she didn’t need anybody. To prioritise what was really important. Coco. Freddy. Her friends. Her shop and yes, the dresses were always going to matter to her and that was OK too.
‘Pheebs, we’re ready for you,’ she heard Sophy call down the stairs and Phoebe, who’d been sitting in the back office, hidden from sight of all the guests who’d assembled in the atelier, stood up.
She checked her reflection one last time in the changing room mirror, then she lifted up Coco Chanel, who as well as being chief bridesmaid was doubling up as her bouquet, and walked through the empty shop.
Past the three rails of rental dresses. Valentine’s Day notwithstanding, it was a quiet time of the year. People not quite so keen to splurge on a new dress so it made sense that maybe they’d prefer to rent one instead.
Past all the other dresses on their padded hangers. Past the red hearts that Sophy and Anita had stuck all over the shop when Phoebe had agreed that maybe this year they could decorate for Valentine’s Day.
She reached the foot of the stairs, hefted Coco to her other side because her ribs were still a little sore and looked up to see a familiar face gazing down at her.
‘Oh my God, what are you doing here?’ she gasped.
‘Had to see a man about a dog,’ Johnno said, with a shrug. ‘And while I was in the neighbourhood, I thought I’d swing by.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Phoebe said, widening her eyes because she wasn’t going to cry. It would absolutely wreck her make-up.
‘Did you really think I was going to miss your wedding?’ he asked as Phoebe slowly walked up the stairs towards him. ‘There isn’t an aisle and you’re your own woman who’s here of your own free will so I’m not giving you away, but if you want to take my arm, then that would be cool.’
‘I’d like that,’ Phoebe said.
It was a very narrow, very twisty staircase so it was quite hard to walk arm in arm with Johnno, especially when you were also holding a wriggly French bulldog, but Phoebe managed it.
Then she was in her happy place. Surrounded by all those dresses that had their own stories, their own memories, there to bear witness to one more story, one more memory, as Phoebe walked towards the spot where so many other prospective brides had stood.
Freddy was the first bridegroom to stand on the dais, nervously shifting from foot to foot. But as he caught sight of Phoebe and Coco, he stilled and a slow smile crept on to his face, banishing the clouds of uncertainty.
He was there to hold out a hand to Phoebe as she let go of Johnno and stepped onto the platform. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘Coco too.’
‘We do,’ Phoebe agreed, because there was no point in being modest about it. She brushed away a speck of lint from the lapel of his exquisitely cut charcoal Italian wool suit. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’
And as Phoebe looked at the many Phoebes reflected back in the mirrors that lined the room, she didn’t think any of them had ever looked as happy as she did now.
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