Free All Dressed Up by Lilian Darcy Page A

can still eat.
And a kind of bitter appreciation of freedom.”
    “Bitter and
exhilarating?”
    “It might be
different for you. You might get the exhilaration from different
things.”
    “I think so.
Or not at all.”
    “Or not at
all,” Sarah agreed obediently, if this was what Emma wanted.
    They smoked in
silence.
     
    Emma woke up
the same way Sunday as she had Saturday. The feather rising in the
warm air, the bone-jarring crunch, all of that. This time, however,
she lay in her old room in her parents’ house in Jersey and Sarah
was apparently still asleep, so she had no-one to pretend to, and
there was nothing to stand in the way of all the worst things she
could think of, and somehow she ended up with the
in-hindsight-farcical plan of hiring a private investigator to
steal back the dress.
    The decision
gave her an initial illusion that the ongoing agony of the
wedding’s cancelation would be lessened, but this did indeed turn
out to be an illusion. She picked up the phone ready to dial one of
the more reputable looking listings she’d found on-line, and took a
deep, hopeful breath, but the agony stayed the same.
    Then Sarah
appeared. “What are you doing?”
    “Arranging to
get the dress.”
    “From
Charlie’s? All of your stuff?”
    “Just the
dress. The rest doesn’t matter.” Everything at Charlie’s was
tainted by their break-up. All the things they’d bought together,
and the things of Emma’s that had begun their gradual migration
from her place to his almost four years ago. They’d met when she
was in her first year of medicine and he was in his last. She was
nearly twenty-eight now. He was thirty-three. “The only thing I
want is the dress,” she repeated.
    “Do you want
me to call him? Do you want me to come with you when you get
it?”
    “I’m not
getting it myself. I’m hiring someone.”
    “No! Emma, let
me do it! What do you mean you’re hiring someone?”
    “A private
investigator.”
    “Why?”
    “I want this
professional.”
    “Like a hit?
Like if you were killing him, you wouldn’t do it yourself?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Is this
because you do want to kill him?”
    “No, I want to
cut him out, like a tumor.”
    “Professionally. Surgically.”
    “Right.”
    “Let me do it.
I don’t think this’ll help to cut him out.”
    “You think
Charlie is inoperable.”
    “Something’s
inoperable, Emma, that’s for sure.”
    “Feels that
way,” Emma agreed.
    “It’s why you
canceled, isn’t it?”
    “Oh, of
course. I guess.”
    “It’s why the
whole wedding was a train-wreck for months.”
    “More than
months.”
    “You’re angry
with yourself. Or maybe Mom and Dad? Not with Charlie. It’s totally
different from London Guy and Luke, totally different thing at the
heart of it, and I don’t think you can – ”
    “Don’t.” Emma
closed her eyes. The tears stung and swelled and she wished she
could sob more, the way she had yesterday, instead of just
squeezing out this parsimonious flow. “Not yet. We’re not talking
about it yet. I want to. With my head. With my heart I’m not
ready.”
    “I guess I’m
not, either.”
    “But you can
be the one to get the dress for me if you want.” She put down the
phone, depriving an unknown P.I. of some easy cash.
     
    On Sunday
morning, Lainie attended church. At St James, where the wedding
should have been. The Reverend Mac’s eyes lit up when he saw her,
and though he quickly turned it into a smile that merely welcomed a
potential new member of his flock, Lainie wasn’t fooled. They’d
definitely been flirting the other day.
    It was strange
attending church. She hadn’t in so long, not since a couple of
years as a child when she’d been sent to Catholic school, where it
was Mass. She didn’t know why she’d been sent to Catholic school,
because her family wasn’t Catholic. Some fight with the authorities
at her previous school, probably. Her father was always getting
into fights with authority figures. The