Nikki Rivers - Random Acts Of Fashion

Molly disappeared into the kitchen and Gillian picked up her coffee cup and strolled around the restaurant. The place was kind of cute with its green gingham curtains and tiny oak tables. Quaint. And the coffee was excellent. When she saw that the beans were sold by the pound, she resolved to buy some to take back to the shop. She was going to be up half the night again, working. On nights like this one was going to be, coffee was a girl’s best friend.

In fact, she could use another cup right now. After a few minutes of waiting for a refill, Gillian followed the sounds through the kitchen, out the open back door and into a small fenced-in yard. Molly was bending over a little girl with blond curls and the face of a little angel.

“She’s gorgeous!” Gillian exclaimed. “What’s her name?”

“This is Chloe. Chloe, say hi to Gillian.”

Chloe babbled something incoherently adorable. “Oh, she’s so sweet!” said Gillian. “How old is she?”

“Fifteen months. Be careful where you walk, it’s a little muddy out here from the rain yesterday.”

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I came out here. I could hear the two of you just babbling away and I thought that since I’m going to be practically a neighbor it’d be okay for me to join in on the girl talk.”

Molly lifted Chloe out of the playpen. “No, of course I don’t mind. I apologize for abandoning you like that. This is a slow time of day for Sweet Buns. I’ve got a few high school girls who help out when it’s busy. Now that Chloe is walking, she gets a little restless penned up sometimes.”

She put her down on the grass. Chloe immediately went toddling off toward the fence at the back of the yard. The child had excellent taste, Gillian thought. Beyond the fence and across a small sand beach, the bay glittered in the late September sun like the two-carat tanzanite Gillian had seen in the window at Tiffany’s.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Gillian said. “You should offer al fresco dining.”

“Someday, maybe,” Molly said. “When Chloe’s older and I have more time to devote to the business.”

Gillian had a million questions to ask about how business was and what the peak hours were at the department store down the street, but the sound of Chloe squealing in delight grabbed her attention. The little girl was toddling with rather alarming speed toward her, gurgling happily about something and waving her little fists up and down.

“She’s absolutely, seriously adorable,” Gillian gushed, truthfully. Not that Gillian wasn’t capable of gushing untruthfully if it might be good for business. But she really did think Chloe was cute.

As Chloe tottered closer, Gillian squatted down and held out her arms to welcome the little cherub. “Come on, Chloe,” she cooed. “Come to—”

Chloe squealed, drew back her fisted hands, and let them fly. It turned out that Chloe’s little fists hadn’t been empty.

Splat!

Gillian’s mouth dropped open as mud spattered all over her trousers.

“Chloe!” Molly yelled. “Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe she did that! I’m so sorry!”

Chloe giggled and ran back for more mud.

Before she could reach the puddle again, Molly scooped her up and deposited her back into the playpen.

“Gosh! I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Gillian. Is it washable?”

Gillian looked at Molly like she’d just spoken a foreign language. “Washable? Of course it’s not washable!”

“Oh. Well, then, I’ll pay for the dry cleaning. I’m just so sorry.”

Gillian could see that Molly really was upset, and besides, Chloe was seriously adorable. And it wasn’t like Molly had actually invited her into the backyard. Gillian was really sort of trespassing. “Don’t worry about it, Molly,” she finally said. “It’s not your fault. I’m like a walking disaster area today. This is my second accident. See that scuff on my boot? This big blond giant working at the hotel dropped a load of lumber on me.”

“Um—blond giant?” Molly asked.

Something about the way Molly sounded made Gillian look at her. That’s when she noticed the resemblance. Molly was tall and large-boned with blond hair and warm brown eyes.

“Don’t tell me—Lukas McCoy is your brother.”

Molly nodded. “Jones is my married name. Gosh, now I feel even worse. The McCoy family hasn’t exactly given you a warm welcome, have they?”

“Don’t be silly. You’ve been great. Your brother, however. Well—he was a bit churlish.”

“Lukas? Wow, that’s not like him.”

Gillian already knew that but she saw no point in trying to explain the no-smile zone to Molly.

“Now that I know Lukas ruined your boot, you really have to let me pay for the suit.”

“Don’t be silly. When the mud dries, it’ll probably brush right off.”

Molly bit her bottom lip. “You really think so?”

Gillian grimaced. “Uh—no. Probably not. But I don’t want you to feel bad about it, okay? Really.”

“Well, let’s get you something to eat on the house, at least.”

She followed Molly inside and sat on a stool at the counter while Molly made her the most delicious chicken salad sandwich she’d ever tasted.

“Why is this so fabulous?” she asked as she took another bite.

“It’s the apricot chutney,” Molly answered.

“This sandwich almost makes it worth the mud pie appetizer.”

Molly laughed. “I’m glad you think so. But wait until you have a sweet bun.”

“Oh—no. I couldn’t.”

“Sure you can! I’ll get you another cup of coffee, too.”

Despite her protests, when Molly set the frosted cinnamon bun in front of her, Gillian just had to taste it.

As soon as she took the first bite, she knew that a scuffed boot and a mud-spattered suit weren’t her only problems. Losing the next five pounds was going to be next to impossible—unless she stayed away from Sweet Buns.

“I’M TELLING YOU, Mother, it’s like the McCoy clan has set out to destroy me. This morning that big lug Lukas McCoy nearly dropped a truckload of lumber on my feet. He absolutely ruined those crocodile boots. Then his niece, who is seriously adorable I might add, threw mud all over one of my best designs. And then his sister, Molly, introduces me to the most incredible cinnamon buns I have ever tasted.” Gillian paused to swipe her finger over the frosting on the bun Molly had insisted on sending home with her along with a pound of coffee. With the best intentions, she was planning on saving the bun for breakfast. The temptation was killing her.

On the other end of the phone line, her mother laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Gilly. That last one doesn’t exactly sound like an act of destruction.”

Gillian finished licking the frosting off her finger before answering, “That last one could prove very destructive to my waistline.”

“You worry too much about your weight, Gilly.”

Gillian sighed and swirled her finger into the frosting again. She had long resigned herself to the fact that her girl-hood dream of being a model would never come true. She was too short—by model standards, anyway. Five foot four. And both her bottom and her top were far too curvy to ever strut her stuff on the runway. But she had certain standards to maintain. “When you’re a housewife in New Jersey, Mother, a couple of pounds isn’t going to make a difference. Like the PTA is going to care? But in the fashion industry—”

“In the fashion industry there should be someone who designs for women with fannies and breasts, Gilly. I bet there are a lot of women with fannies and breasts in Timber Bay who would be willing to buy—”

“Mother, if you say cute little housedresses or caftans I swear I will scream.”

Bonnie Caine laughed. “I doubt even the women in Timber Bay still wear housedresses, Gilly. I just think that instead of starving yourself so you can wear what you design, you should design stuff for women who eat more than fruit and carrot sticks.”

Gillian looked longingly at the cinnamon bun as her finger hovered above what was left of its thick white frosting. If this kept up, the poor thing was going to be naked come morning.

“Mother, my mission is to influence the fashion sense of women who think Chanel is something you get on your television set. How can I possibly do that if I become one of them?”

“My darling daughter,” her mother said in a dryly amused tone, “I don’t think there is any danger of that ever happening.”

Gillian decided not to rise to the bait of her mother’s teasing. “How’s Binky?” she asked instead.

Her mother filled her in on the health and welfare of Binky, the family’s twelve-year-old golden retriever, and then on her brothers—all four of them. Then her father butted in on the basement extension and told her, yet again, how he was glad that Ryan was finally out of her life but how he still wished she would have dragged that SOB into court and taken him for everything he had. After he filled her in on the latest skirmish at the boilermakers’ union, everyone said goodbye.

As soon as Gillian hung up the phone she felt a stab of homesickness. Yet when she’d gone back to the little blue-collar New Jersey town where she’d grown up after being jilted and swindled, she’d felt less like she belonged there than ever before. She no longer belonged in Manhattan, either. But Timber Bay?

She wandered over to the window in Aunt Clemintine’s living room and looked down onto Sheridan Road. It was late afternoon and the setting sun had streaked the clouds with pink and gold. The Road was bustling with people heading home for the day. Across the street at Sweet Buns, Molly was turning the sign hanging in the door around to read Closed—probably getting ready to go upstairs with little Chloe for the evening.

“Chloe,” Gillian groaned out loud. Mud pies! Served all over the outfit that was supposed to be the centerpiece of her Pastel-Metallic collection. The duster was salvageable. But the pants were a mess. Which meant that Gillian had better get back to work.

As soon as she ran down the stairs and through the door that led to the workroom behind the shop, she felt at home. As much of a misfit as she’d been as a kid, she’d always felt completely comfortable in the back room of her aunt’s dress shop. Aunt Clemintine had taught her all she knew about garment construction. They’d spent wonderful, happy hours together, making clothes for Gillian and her doll. Her family was blue collar and money hadn’t exactly been growing on trees, but Gillian, thanks to Aunt Clemintine, had dressed like a million bucks.

But it wasn’t only the clothes, it was the attention that made her love to visit Aunt Clemintine so much. Back at home, she was the middle child, crowded on both sides by two younger and two older brothers. So around their house it was jock central. Her parents were loving and wonderful, but a little girl who didn’t like sports pretty much got overlooked and out-voiced. Aunt Clemintine, a childless spinster, gave Gillian a place to be safe while she discovered who she was and what she wanted to be. And what she wanted to be was as different as she could possibly be from anything like home.

Unfortunately, as Gillian grew older, Aunt Clemintine and the dress shop got lumped in with everything that Gillian wanted to leave behind. When Aunt Clemintine had died a few years ago and left Gillian the shop, Gillian was touched. But she could just never see herself claiming her inheritance and taking up residence in Timber Bay.

Now she didn’t know how she could have stayed away as long as she had.