Besides, there wasn’t another shop like it for miles and miles around. So from the time they’d opened the shop a year ago, they’d been swamped with business. And maybe next year they’d even get invited to attend the Dallas Bridal Fair. They hadn’t opened the shop in time to nab a place this year, but they were on the waiting list.

Mitzi had thought about renting one of the empty downtown places in those two small city blocks when she first got the idea of a custom specialty shop, but none of them had the ambience that the old house did. It seemed like one of Paula’s omens that it occupied the corner of the last block zoned for commercial business.

After a couple of minutes, Ellie Mae laid a picture out on the table. “I like the neckline and sleeves on this one, but I don’t want that empire waistline. Everyone would think I was pregnant for sure.”

Like all small Texas towns, Celeste was a place where everyone knew everyone else, and usually what they were doing. All it would take was a few phone calls for a pregnancy rumor to float around.

Then Ellie Mae pulled out a second picture of a formfitting dress. “This is the style I like, but I want it fuller in the back so I can dance at the reception without feeling all cramped up.” She laid another picture on the top of those. “I want a train like this with our initials done up in beaded, interlocking hearts on it. I’ve been looking at wedding dresses for ideas for a year.”

“Sounds like you’ve done my work for me.” Mitzi gathered the pictures back into the folder. “Let’s go into the fabric room. What color do you have in mind?”

“Black lace over pale-pink satin.”

Mitzi thought she should really warn the cell phone company. Those towers between Celeste and Greenville were going to sizzle when folks learned that Ellie Mae was wearing black to her wedding. Her father, Frank, was the preacher in the biggest church in town, and her mother, Nancy, played the piano on Sunday morning. If Mitzi had been an author instead of a seamstress, she could fill a whole book with nothing but the gossip over a black wedding dress.

“That right there.” Ellie Mae reached for a bolt of black Chantilly lace as they walked into the room, but she was too short to get a hold on it.

Mitzi pulled it down and then removed a bolt of white bridal satin and one of pale pink. She rolled out several yards on a long table and overlaid the black lace on both.