Preview of By Her Own Design by Piper Huguley
Preview of By Her Own Design By Piper Huguley
Prologue
February 24, 1981
The shadow of the last night I will ever know falls across my face as my Ruthy comes into my bedroom and turns on Walter Cronkite to watch him read the CBS Evening News. “Mother, Prince Charles is finally getting married.”
“High time,” I say. A slight shard of pain enters my weakened heart. “Been waiting on him to marry for years.”
“Yes. She’s nineteen and a lady.”
“Nineteen? That’s a child, not a lady.” My heart quickens for her. Marriage is not for children.
I should know better than anyone.
Ruthy settles next to me on the bed and slips her soft hand into mine as we listen to good old Mr. Cronkite read out the news. He is telling all of the United States about a young slip of a girl named Diana Spencer who is going to marry the future king of England.
When I hear Lady Diana’s voice come across the television, pitched up high with her aristocratic British bearing ringing through her words, I know she is a lady.
Just like my Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
“She’s wearing blue. I mean, a peacock-blue suit with a white blouse with peacock-blue birds on it underneath and a bow tied and knotted off to the side at her neck.” Ruthy spoke into my ear, close, so I could see the young bride in my mind. “She’s tall, very tall, ’cause she’s eyeballing him, with lots of blond hair feather cut around her face. Her eyes are blue too. She got on flat shoes and white hosiery. And he . . .”
I wave my scrawny hand, and it never ceases to surprise me that I have the slow, impatient hand of an eighty-two-year-old woman. ’Cause it was these hands that created the most photographed wedding gown in the world. “No need to describe him. I know what he looks like. Been waiting all these years for him to get a wife.”
The interview ends and Mr. Cronkite goes on to talk about something else happening in the world. I ease back on my stacked pillows. “Somewhere in this world, someone’s life’s going to change.”
“What do you mean, Mother?”
“Whoever gets to do the dress.” I warm up on this chilly February death night to my favorite subject, bringing my hands together again. “I met Mr. Hartnell when I was in Paris, you know. Did the wedding gown of the Queen of England and her sister too. But he’s gone. So someone new will do it. Someone new is going to set a standard for wedding dresses, like Mr. Hartnell did. Somebody’s going to take the wedding gown fashion into the 1980s from the horrible wedding dress decade the 1970s was.”
“Mother, don’t say that.”
“It’s true. The 1970s was a bad time for designing wedding gowns. Couples not wanting to get married. The ones that did didn’t want nice wedding dresses. They wanted to get married in dirt fields in bare feet rather than in a nice church. Then, Mr. Hartnell closed his business. Helen Rose too. She was my only competition, but then she started making clothes for thencommon folk and you know I would not make dresses for just any Mary or Betty Sue.”
Ruthy, my dear daughter, laughs at me. “Not you, Mama. You have no equal. What gowns did Helen Rose do?”
“She did Grace Kelly’s and Elizabeth Taylor’s dresses.”
Now Ruthy laughs even harder. “Elizabeth Taylor had a lot of wedding dresses. Which one?”
“The very first one, and the one in the Father of the Bride movie.” I hear Ruthy exhale hard. I don’t have to explain any more. Isn’t a body on earth who doesn’t know those three dresses. Plus mine.
I am not done, though. “But the 1970s—whew. Bad time. Even Princess Anne went and bought one off the rack. A real-life princess! She might have had one made and lifted up the whole industry. But no. Finally, someone new is going to bring the whole wedding dress industry out of the doldrums. And when they do, they’ll use lots of fabric again. Just like I like. I see it just like I would if my left eye were back and the other one was clear to match.”
But I won’t see it. I’ll be dead. And gone.
“You did Jackie Onassis.”
“Don’t call her that.” I don’t mean to have my voice get sharp, but I can’t help it.
“Why not?”
“She married that rich little Greek out of protection. Not love. Woman’s got to do that sometimes, but we don’t have to call attention to that. Her mama had to do it. I had to do it. Why do you think I’m not Mrs. West?”
“I don’t know, Mama.”
“A name, it matters. What I put on my label mattered. To Kitty Kelley, I just might be a pair of hands or the family seamstress like she said in that book, but I have a name.” I lift up off my pillows and Ruthy moves over me, settles a hand on my shoulder, and pushes me back.
“I didn’t mean to get you all riled, Mother. I’m sorry.”
I pat her hand to show her I forgive her. “When I married your daddy, I told him I wasn’t taking it, because I couldn’t have any children from my body for him. That probably got us started down the wrong path.”
“Maybe.” Her voice dips down a bit.
“My own name. Each name got just one syllable to fit right on my labels: Ann Cole Lowe.”
It would look nice on my tombstone.
Ruthy sits down on the bed next to me and I lean into the reassuring weight of her. Her voice rings out with pride. “Mrs. Kennedy’s dress is right up there with all of those beautiful wedding dresses of the 1950s. Everyone says so.”
“That’s right.” I squeeze her soft hand. “Cause the 1950s, now, that was a wedding gown time. And just like everything else, it’s going to come back. Whoever Diana chooses will bring it all back.”
“You think so?” Ruthy squeezes my hand back and stands up. The commercial break is on. Time for a hot drink to warm my chilled bones.
I know it. Just like I know I won’t be here to see it. Any of it. Another stabbing shard of regret, remorse, and sorrow pierces my poor weakened heart, sewing its path of destruction.
“I’ll get you some Sanka. I’ll be right back.”
Ruthy goes out of the room, and now I can let the emotion show on my face. The face I can’t see anymore. Jealousy. Hatred. Animosity. Anger. They all come into me and the power those mean emotions hold over me exhausts me more.
Someone is going to get a chance. A new chance that I didn’t get. God won’t let me have another chance again. It’s too late.
Some would call me foolish for regretting living eighty-two years of life, a long life and a lot of years for a Black woman.
But I do. ’Cause I wanted the chance to design a show-stopping, front-page wedding dress again. Just one more time.
To let Mrs. Kennedy know.
I could get it right.
Preview of By Her Own Design by Piper Huguley
