She walked over to her purse and reached inside.
“I brought it with me to show you. I wore it at my wedding and saved it…”
She didn’t need to finish for Aurelia to know that she’d saved it for Lottie, her own daughter.
“Let’s have a look, then,” Kali said kindly, walking over to her.
Johanna drew a small cloth pouch from her bag and, from that, removed a rectangular hair clip set with three rows of tiny pearls.
“This was my grandmother’s. She wore it at her wedding, my mother wore it at hers, I wore it at mine…” She paused and caught her breath, then finished, “And I would be honored if you wanted to wear it at yours. Only if you want to, mind. If you don’t like it or don’t think it would work with your dress—”
“I definitely want to wear it, Johanna,” Aurelia said, pulling her into a hug. “First off, it’s beautiful! Second, I need something borrowed. And third, I’d really love to have something of yours with me.”
Aurelia and Johanna both swept away a few tears after sharing another hug. Just a year ago, Aurelia might have been embarrassed to be crying. Now she knew it was perfectly normal to feel emotional over the fact that she was about to get married without her mum or Aunt Marigold to witness it. Having Oliver’s mum there—Johanna, who had experienced a loss of her own—along with the other women in Aurelia’s life would ease the sadness, but it was still there.
“That will look perfect with Mum’s earrings,” Antonia joined in, gently taking the clip from Aurelia’s hand and placing it against her hair. “And you’re not wearing a veil, so it’ll be nice to have something in its place.”
“It looks really pretty,” Julia said with a determined nod. “That’s your borrowed, so now you’re sorted.”
Julia’s authoritative tone broke the slight tension in the room and brought out laughter and smiles from everyone.
“What?” she asked, smiling too as she looked around and tried to figure out what was funny.
“You’re right,” Aurelia said, drawing her niece to her for a hug. “Now I’m sorted.”
58
Fromthere,theweekahead began to feel like it would be a string of celebrations. At home with Oliver after her dress fitting, they toasted her finished book with a bottle of champagne, then settled on the sofa for a long catchup over details they’d forgotten to share with each other over the past few weeks, as well as plans and ideas for the days ahead.
Those details included Cristobel’s letters. Aurelia showed him each one and explained how she might use them in her next book, the one about a fictional Cristobel opening her own shop in the early nineteen hundreds.
“You’re ready to tackle another book already?” Oliver asked as he refilled their glasses with more champagne.
“I am. I think that was part of why I was dragging my feet on finishing my art book—I was ready to move on. But I’m glad I got back into the swing of it. I didn’t like feeling like I was doing the story an injustice by rushing through.”
“You know,” Oliver began with a playful lift of an eyebrow, “talking through blocks, issues with deadlines, and struggling to finish a novel—those are all things you might like talking about with a writing group.”
Aurelia opened her mouth to argue, then closed it before saying, “Oh, you mean a real one?”
“Yes, one with writers who live in this century—helpful as David Copperfield might have been.”
Oliver pinched his lips together in an obvious effort not to laugh.
“He did have some great ideas,” Aurelia insisted, which set Oliver laughing. “He did! But… alright. I hear you. It actually might have been good to get some advice on working to a deadline.”
“A few of my writers meet once a month. If you want, I could put you in touch with them and you can see if they’re a good fit. It sounds like sometimes they just chat about life, but sometimes one of them will tell me how the group helped them work through one issue or another.”
“Do you think they’d mind one more?”
“No, I’m sure they’d love it. You can chat with them about writing, and then you can ask your fictional friends for details about Cristobel.”
“Okay,” Aurelia said with a nod. “I like it—a real, nonfictional, from-this-century writing group.”
They stayed up late talking, but when Oliver asked if she wanted to visit the characters that night, she could once again honestly say that she didn’t. Aurelia knew Oliver meant it when he said he wouldn’t mind, but she wanted to enjoy that ease in pressure she’d been feeling now that her secret was out, now that Julia could see them too, and she didn’t feel as though she was somehow responsible for keeping the magic going. She’d visit them the next night—if she wanted. She knew they’d be there waiting for her and knew they’d understand.
With nothing to preoccupy her the next day, Aurelia was able to catch up on the business of the shop, like placing orders, paying bills, and sparing more than a few minutes for her regular customers. She also fielded calls from her father and Antonia, who wanted her to repeat the plan for the next few days: hen/stag do the following evening, a family dinner at Johanna and Geoff’s the night after that, then the wedding itself. Repeating the order of events didn’t help to make it all seem real to Aurelia—that her and Oliver’s plans were finally about to be realized, with their friends and family there to witness it all.
That night, the two of them went to dinner at the restaurant where they’d be having the wedding reception. It was the same restaurant where they had met for their first meeting as writer and editor, where Oliver had begun to let his reserve drop and Aurelia had confessed jokingly (with Oliver never guessing it was the truth) that Vronsky told her what he wanted her to write. They’d become regulars at the restaurant, which wasn’t far from the shop, so the owners were only too happy to host their reception.
