Two years after Grace Kelly’s royal wedding,
her iconic dress is still all the rage in Paris—and one replica, and the
secrets it carries, will inspire three generations of women to forge their own
paths in life and in love.
Paris, 1958: Rose, a seamstress at a
fashionable atelier, has been entrusted with sewing a Grace Kelly—look-alike
gown for a wealthy bride-to-be. But when, against better judgment, she finds
herself falling in love with the bride’s handsome brother, Rose must make an
impossible choice, one that could put all she’s worked for at risk: love,
security and of course, the dress.
Sixty years later, tech CEO Rachel, who goes
by the childhood nickname “Rocky,” has inherited the dress for her upcoming
wedding in New York City. But there’s just one problem: Rocky doesn’t want to
wear it. A family heirloom dating back to the 1950s, the dress just isn’t her.
Rocky knows this admission will break her mother Joan’s heart. But what she
doesn’t know is why Joan insists on the dress—or the heartbreaking secret that
changed her mother’s life decades before, as she herself prepared to wear it.
As the lives of these three women come
together in surprising ways, the revelation of the dress’s history collides
with long-buried family heartaches. And in the lead-up to Rocky’s wedding,
they’ll have to confront the past before they can embrace the beautiful
possibilities of the future.
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The mother of the bride, as a bride herself
Long Island, 1982
Long Island, 1982
She loved the dress. She loved the veil that went
with it, too, though she wasn’t sure if it could be salvaged. It was showing
signs of age, its edges curling and tinged with brown. But that wouldn’t dull
her excitement.
Today was the day she would be trying on her
mother’s wedding dress. Even though Joanie had tried it on countless times as a
child—it was a favorite rainy-day activity with her mother—today felt
different. She was engaged, just like she’d dreamed about ever since she could
remember. When she tried the dress on this time, it was for keeps. She was
completely in love with the dress.
“Let me help you get it on,” Joanie’s mother said,
her French accent coming through. It was always more pronounced when she was
feeling emotional. With her American friends, Joanie noticed, her mother always
tried to sound “American,” softening her accent and using American expressions.
But when they were alone, she could be herself. Let her guard down. Joanie knew
exactly who her mother was, and she loved her for it.
Her mother handed Joanie a pair of white cotton
gloves and then put on her own set. The first step in trying the dress on,
always, so that the oils in their hands wouldn’t defile the fabric. She laid
the large box on her bed and nodded her head at her husband, her signal to give
them privacy. The door closed to Joanie’s childhood bedroom, and she and her
mother were alone.
The white cotton gloves were cool and smooth on
her skin. Joanie opened the box slowly. So slowly. It was sealed with a special
plastic that was supposed to keep it airtight so that the dress would not
oxidize and turn yellow. She and her mother laughed as they struggled to set
the dress free. The last time she tried the dress on was the summer before her
sister died. It was after Michele’s death that her mother brought the dress
into the city so that it might be cleaned properly and preserved for just this
day. At the time, Joanie hadn’t understood the connection between her sister’s
sudden death and her mother’s tight grip on family heirlooms, but now, a year
into her psychology degree at NYC University, she understood. It was so hard to
hold on to things that were important to you, things that mattered, and preserving
her wedding dress, this memory, was her mother’s way of taking control of
something. It was something she could save.
The dress was just as beautiful as she’d
remembered. Crafted from rose point lace, the same lace used on Grace Kelly’s
iconic wedding dress, it was delicate and classic and chic and a million other
things Joanie couldn’t even articulate.
“Go on,” her mother said, holding the first part
of the dress—the bodice with the attached underbodice, skirt support, and
slip—out for her to take. As a child, it had thrilled Joanie to no end that the
wedding dress her mother wore was actually made up of four separate pieces. It
was like a secret that a bride could have on her special day, something that no
one else knew.
“I couldn’t,” Joanie said, hands at her side.
Knowing how carefully preserved the dress had been, what the dress had meant to
her mother, it was hard for Joanie to touch it. She didn’t want to get it
dirty, sully its memory. “It’s just so beautiful.”
“It’s yours now,” her mother said, smiling warmly.
“The dress belongs to you. Put it on.”
Joanie kicked off her ballerina flats, and her
mother helped her ease the bodice on. Joanie stood at attention as her mother
snapped the skirt into place, and wrapped the cummerbund around her waist. Joanie
held her hands high above her head, not wanting to get in the way of her
mother’s expert hands, hands that knew exactly where to go, fingers that knew
exactly what to do.
“You ready in there, Birdie?” her father yelled
from the hallway, impatient, his French accent just as strong as the day he
left France. Joanie always loved how her father had a special nickname for her
mother. When they first married, he would call her mother GracieBird, a
nickname of Grace Kelly’s, because of the Grace Kelly–inspired wedding gown she
wore on their wedding day. Eventually, it was shortened to Bird, and then over
time, it became Birdie. What would Joanie’s fiancé call her?
Joanie inspected her reflection in the mirror. Her
shoulder-length blond hair, recently permed, looked messy. Her pink eye shadow,
which had always seemed so grown-up on her sister, made her appear tired and
puffy-eyed. But the dress? The dress was perfect.
Her mother opened the door slowly, and her
father’s face came into view. His expression softened as he saw his daughter in
the wedding dress. She walked out into the hallway, towards him, and she could
see a tear forming in the corner of his eye.
She turned to her mother, about to tell her that
Daddy was crying, when she saw that her mother, too, had teared up. Joanie
couldn’t help it—seeing her mother and father cry, she began to cry as well.
She could never keep a dry eye when someone else was crying, least of all her
parents, ex-pats from Europe who hardly ever cried.
Michele’s presence floated in the air like a haze,
but no one would say it. No one dared mention that she would have worn the
dress first. Should have worn the dress first.
“And look at us,” her mother said, her hands
reaching out and grabbing for her husband and daughter. “All of us crying like
little babies.”
All three embraced—carefully, of course, so as not
to ruin the dress.
Her father kissed the top of her head. “Give us a
twirl.”
Joanie obliged. The dress moved gracefully as she
spun. Joanie curtsied, and her father gently took her hand and kissed it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” her mother said,
her voice a song.
“What?” Joanie asked absentmindedly, while staring
at her reflection in the mirror. She knew the first thing she’d change—the
sleeves. The dress needed big, voluminous sleeves, just like Princess Diana had
worn on her wedding day.
“Or I should say who you’re thinking about,” her
mother said, a gentle tease.
“Who?” Joanie asked, under her breath, twirling
from side to side in front of the mirror, watching the dress move.
“Your fiancé,” her mother said, furrowing her
brow. “Remember him?”
“For sure,” Joanie said, spinning around to face her
mother. “My fiancé. Yes. I knew that. And, yes. I was.” But the truth was, she
had completely forgotten.
Excerpted from The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda Janowitz. Copyright © 2020 by Brenda Janowitz. Published by Graydon House Books.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Brenda Janowitz is the author of five novels,
including The Dinner Party and Recipe for a Happy Life. She is the
Books Correspondent for PopSugar. Brenda's work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington
Post, Salon, Redbook, and the New
York Post. She lives in New York.
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