Hate Notes

I wouldn’t have been caught dead in here a year ago. Don’t take that the wrong way—I’m not a snob. Growing up, my mom and I spent hours combing the racks at the secondhand store. And that was back when secondhand was called Goodwill, and the stores were predominantly in blue-collar neighborhoods. These days, used is called vintage and sold on the Upper East Side for a small fortune.

I sported “gently worn” before the gentrification of Brooklyn.

Secondhand was not my issue. My problem with used wedding dresses was the stories I imagined they carried with them.

Why are they here?

I pulled a Vera Wang sweetheart ball gown with a crisscross bodice and cascading tulle skirt from the rack. Fairy-tale expectations. Divorced after six months, I decided. A delicate lace Monique Lhuillier mermaid dress—the groom died in a horrific car accident. The devastated bride-to-never-be donated it to the church for its annual tag sale. A savvy shopper picked it up for a steal and tripled the return on her investment by reselling it.

Every used dress had a story, and mine belonged on the He turned out to be a cheating son of a bitch rack. I sighed and returned to the two women bickering at the front desk in Russian.

“It’s from next year’s collection, yes?” the taller woman with bizarre, unevenly drawn eyebrows asked.

I tried not to stare at them, but failed. “Yes. It’s from the Marchesa spring collection.”

The women had been flipping through catalogs, even though I’d told them twenty minutes ago when I walked in that the dress was from an unpublished future collection. I assumed they wanted to get an idea of the designer’s original prices.

“I don’t think you’ll find it in there yet. My future mother-in-law—” I corrected myself. “My ex–future mother-in-law is related to one of the designers or something.”

The women stared at me for a moment and then resumed bickering.

Okay, then. “I guess you need more time,” I mumbled.

Toward the back of the store, I found a rack labeled CUSTUM MADE. I smiled. Todd’s mother would’ve had a heart attack if I’d taken her to a place where the signs were misspelled. She’d been appalled when I went to look at a dress in a shop that didn’t serve her champagne while I was in the fitting room. God, I’d really been drunk on the Roth Kool-Aid and had nearly turned into one of those snooty bitches.

Running my fingertips along the custom-made gowns, I sighed. These dresses probably had even more interesting stories behind them. Eclectic brides too free-spirited for their boring boyfriends or husbands. These were strong-minded women who went against the grain, women who marched at political rallies, women who knew what they wanted.

I stopped at an A-line white dress embellished with bloodred roses. The corset bodice had red piping running along the bones. Left her banker boyfriend for the French artist next door, and this was the dress she wore when she married Pierre.

No designer dress could have possibly worked for these women, because they knew exactly what they wanted and weren’t afraid to say it. They went after their hearts’ desires. I envied them. I used to be one of them.

Deep down, I was a custum girl—misspelling intended. When had I lost my way and become a conformist? I hadn’t had the balls to admit my feelings to Todd’s mother, which was how I ended up with the fancy, boring wedding dress to begin with.

When I got to the last dress on the CUSTUM rack, I had to stop for a moment.

Feathers!

They were the most beautiful feathers I’d ever seen. And this dress wasn’t white; it was blush. This dress was everything. It was exactly what I would have picked if I could have custum-designed a dress. This wasn’t just any dress. This was THE dress. The top was strapless with a slight curve. Smaller, wispy feathers peeked out of the neckline. Lace overlay covered the entire bodice, which led to a beautiful trumpet-style skirt. And the bottom was a crescendo of feathers. This dress sang. It was magical.

One of the women up front saw me eyeing it.

“Can I try this on?”

She nodded, leading me to a dressing room in the back.

I undressed and carefully slid the dress up. Unfortunately, my dream dress was a size too small. All the stress eating I’d been doing lately had caught up with me.

So I left the back unzipped and marveled at myself in the mirror. This. This did not look like a twenty-seven-year-old who’d just dumped her cheating fiancé. This did not look like someone who needed to sell her wedding dress to be able to eat something other than ramen noodles for two meals each day.

This dress made me feel like someone who hadn’t a care in the world. I didn’t want to take it off. But honestly, I was sweating and didn’t want to ruin it.

Before I removed it, I looked at myself in the mirror one last time and introduced myself to the imaginary person admiring the new me.

Standing confidently with my hands on my hips, I said, “Hello, I’m Charlotte Darling.” I laughed, because I sort of sounded like a news reporter.

After I slipped off the dress, a patch of blue on the inside caught my eye. It was a piece of stationery stitched into the inside lining.

Something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new. That’s how it went, right? Or was it the other way around?

It occurred to me that perhaps this was supposed to be the “something blue.”

Lifting the material closer, I squinted to read the note. At the top, From the desk of Reed Eastwood was embossed. I ran my finger over each letter as I read.

To Allison—

“She said, ‘Forgive me for being a dreamer,’ and he took her by the hand and replied, ‘Forgive me for not being here sooner to dream with you.’”—J. Iron Word

Thank you for making all of my dreams come true.

Your love,

Reed

My heart pounded. That had to be the most romantic thing I’d ever read. I couldn’t begin to imagine how this dress ended up here. How could any woman in her right mind give such a powerful sentiment away? If I’d thought this dress was everything before . . . now, it was definitely everything.

Reed Eastwood had loved her. Oh no. I hoped Allison hadn’t died. Because a man who writes those words to someone doesn’t just fall out of love.

The attendant called out to me. “Everything okay?”

I pulled the curtain back to face her. “Yes . . . yes. I seem to have fallen in love with this dress, actually. Have you figured out how much I can get back for my Marchesa?”

She shook her head. “We don’t give money. You get store credit.”

Shit.

I really needed the cash.

I pointed to the blush-feather dress. “How much would this dress cost?”

“We can give even exchange.”

It was tempting. The dress was my spirit animal, and I felt like the note could have been written for me by my imaginary perfect fiancé. I didn’t want to guess the story behind this one. I wanted to live it, create my own story for this dress. Maybe not today, but someday in the future. I wanted a man who appreciated me, who wanted to share in my dreams, and who loved me unconditionally. I wanted a man who would leave me a note like this.

This dress needed to hang in my closet as a daily reminder that true love can exist.

I said the words before I could change my mind. “I’ll take it.”