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spotty, Maggie thought as she picked aimlessly at a torn cuticle
and shifted her position on the worn crimson divan, her eyes
raking the room in vaguely perplexed curiosity. Where on earth
had she found an outdated little boutique like this? Amanda had
expressed the necessity of a modest dress (the church wouldn’t
permit anything too revealing), but there were better options
than simply finding the oldest shop within a twenty mile radius.
The shop must have once been the picture of fashion and
grandeur. Elaborate crystal chandeliers dangled at intervals from
the raised ceilings, the light echoing off the walls of dresses that
hung in neat formations from burnished brass racks. Brilliantly
green ferns accented polished wooden end tables and white-
washed doorways rimmed with gold, the hardwood floors were
cloaked in an array of ornate Persian rugs, and the multitude of
mirrors were spotless, reflecting back the smudgeless image of
the limp brown hair, the blotchy complexion, the thin, hunching
form that was Maggie herself. Sitting next to a row of permed
and tanned bridesmaid beauty queens, she felt sorely out of
place.
But Maggie wasn’t the only one to look less-than-pristine.
Time had clearly done a number on the once-elegant shop. The
floors were scuffed and the rugs showed loose threads and signs
of wear. The walls, assumedly once snow-white, had yellowed to
a thick clotted cream; the mirrors, though unblemished, had sub-
stantial chips in their gilded frames. And the air, Maggie noted
with a touch of bemusement, had a rather thick feel, not unlike
that of an old museum. There was no pervading odor of dust or
mildew, nor was there anything to suggest that the storekeepers
didn’t air the place out every day or so, except for the peculiar
heaviness of the air. It weighed on Maggie’s lungs, reminding
her of the frigid slopes of Colorado, where at every moment
she had been fighting for oxygen and trying to quell the violent
shivers that wracked her underdressed, chiffon-draped torso
(whose wedding had that been? Must have been Kelly’s Winter

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