"I met Connie Turnbull in Bellhaven on my boat trip. When she figured out who I was, we had a chat about you."
"You did?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied. "She's still thinks the world of you, by the way."
"You talked to Delwood too?" he asked.
"We greeted each other, but I didn't talk to him like I talked with Connie," I replied.
"What did she have to say?" he asked.
"She said she had nothing to do with what Kimberly did," I replied. "She said that she had no earthly idea she was having the affair and that if she did, she would have intervened on your behalf. For what it's worth, I believed her. She wasn't lying."
Complicated emotions crossed Dad's face. "I wasn't in my right mind when Kimberly left," he confessed. "I have a lot of regrets about how I handled that."
"Maybe you should let Connie know you have no hard feelings?" I asked. "She's been walking on eggshells for twenty years now."
Dad nodded, but took control of the conversation. "We're getting off track here. We were discussing my reputation for ruthlessness. I was at war. It was not my doing, but when I was forced into it, I was determined to win. I did a lot of things that I'm not proud of. That's how I got the reputation for ruthlessness. It hasn't been like that for years, however. I cleaned the drug trade, the prostitution, and the government corruption out of the operation years ago. Now, we aren't anything more than a real estate development corporation. Everything we do, and I mean everything, is completely legal and legitimate."
Landry and I shared a look. Neither one of us had known.
"Arden can back me up on this," he continued. "She's familiar with everything we do and she knows a lot about what my father did before I took over. We've been clean since before I met your mother. I don't correct people in general on the perception of my ruthlessness because it works in my favor. Truth be told, however, I haven't made anyone disappear in twenty-five years. I think you should know that."
He looked at Arden and she nodded.
"I also think that you should know that I've set it up so that when I die or become incapacitated, the organization will convert into an environmental trust. The land that we've accumulated will be held in public trust as park land. I know that both of you are as eager to escape from the Aldridge curse as I was. When I am no longer able to run the organization, there won't be any legacy or obligation to suck you back into Eastern North Carolina. I want you two to be free to determine for yourselves what is the best life for you. I want you to go out and conquer the world and be free of the Aldridge curse."
Landry and I were stunned.
"Because of that, you might want to be careful in the future about how you handle incidents like the one you have in the Senator's office," said Dad with a smile. "In general, it doesn't pay to create enemies and you won't have my organization or my reputation to protect you in the future."
"I have a question for you, Noise. You won't be in trouble no matter what the answer is, but I need to know the absolute truth. Did you tell anyone that incident with Nelson Cecil happened?" he asked. "Did you tell your mother? Dr. Fee? Anyone?"
"No," I replied. "Why, was the Senator angry?"
Dad laughed. "The opposite. He thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He said he laughed so hard when he saw the footage that he damn near pissed himself. He thinks the world of you two, by the way. He was amazed at your poise, ambition, and how organized and together you both were. I've got to say that I'm fiercely proud of both of you for how you handled yourself in Washington. Hearing a man like Senator Barrefort give you such a rave review was one of my proudest moments as a parent. I'm very pleased with you two."
Both Landry and I blushed. Dad gave out praise like that sparingly.
"Why did you need to know if I told anyone?" I asked.
Dad smiled and said, "Coop is a powerful man who's owed a lot of favors. He called in a chit and had Nelson Cecil...removed from the board. There's a missing-persons report out on him. The less people who know about your contretemps with him, the better."
"I told no one," I told my father.
"Is there anything else I need to know about your trip to DC?" He asked.
"Miranda Delgado confided in me she's only going to do one more term, then she's going to return to her practice," I said. "She said that she's the one who committed to sponsoring Laundry to go to the AFA."
"Did she ask for something in return?" Dad asked.
"She does transplants out of the hospital in Greenville and solicited a donation for her clinic. She insisted any generosity on your behalf was strictly voluntary. She spoke of how much good they did here in Eastern North Carolina and made the case that donations given to them would have a beneficial impact at all levels of society. She asked you to consider it."
***
On the Saturday morning a week before prom, Arden and I checked out of the Cochère hotel in the garment district in New York City and took a taxi over to the Cosette Escarrat studio.
We were ushered into a room that had two dress forms in it. They were both covered with a canvass liner. There was a couch with a coffee table a platform for taking measurements and one of those fancy 180 mirrors, so you could see the whole garment at once.
There was a couch in the room and I saw both Cosette and my mother sitting there drinking coffee and chatting away in French. Mom's French wasn't great-- especially her accent. Nonetheless, she could understand almost everything that Cosette was saying and could communicate back effectively, if not eloquently. It was a shock because I had never known she spoke French. I had taken seven years of it at my school. I'd started the year that Mom left.
I dropped into their conversation, which was about Mom's bakery. When I sensed a place where I could drop in, I said in French. "Lahela's bakery makes many exquisite pastries, but what she does best is ice cream. Her ice cream is magnificent."
They both looked up and smiled. Mom instantly popped up, ran over, and pulled me into a hug.
She let me go and Cosette, excitedly bustled over and embraced me too. She then gave me the classic French, two-cheek air kiss.
As Cosette greeted me, Mom walked over to Arden. They shook hands without any warmth. There obviously was no love lost between the two.
After Cosette gave Arden the same two-cheek kiss greeting, she instantly took charge of the conversation.
"My team have been working on the two dresses and we are very excited that we have created something amazing and very unique for you Eloise," she gushed.
She pulled me over to the dress forms. "First, we will show the traditional gown. This is not so exciting, but even so, I think it came out quite well."
She pulled the canvass cover off of the form on the right to reveal a traditional gown. It was utterly gorgeous. The fitted bodice was made out of a luxurious deep violet silk with periwinkle and plum accents and piping. The sweetheart neckline offered good coverage with just a bit of a plunge. The dress straps were sturdy for support and to prevent coverage slips. The bodice had boning and an underwire and was closed with a hidden zipper in the back.
The skirt was multilayered with silk, nylon, and chiffon in the same shade of Violet, again with periwinkle and plum accents. There was a long slit in the skirt, which Colette described as a 'peek-a-boo' slit. It was carefully hidden by pleats, and would drape closed naturally, unless I tilted my hip just so, which would cause my leg to suddenly emerge.
"When you dance, your leg will peek out and it will draw all the eyes in the room to your movement," she said with obvious delight "We will try this dress on first so that we can get started on alterations right away, if need be."
At a gesture from Cosette, an assistant stepped forward and handed me two boxes. I opened the first box. Inside of the tissue paper was lingerie. I pulled it out and it was a thong panty and a strapless wireless bandeau bra. The material looked thick and sumptuous like a heavy-thread-count luxury cotton, but it shimmered like silk in the sun.
I reached down and touched it and the material was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. "Oh, wow!" I exclaimed. "That feels amazing! What is the material?"
"I have a supplier who produces this material in small batches. The material is so expensive to make, he's not sure there will be a commercial market for it. He hasn't bothered to develop a commercial name. He calls it 'Composition 135'. It is about 90% natural fibers, is light, has a good stretch, a luxurious feel, and the material is durable and breathable.
"My supplier thought it might be suitable for underwear. He gave me several bolts of cloth and asked me if I could test it," she said with delight.
I looked at the thong and realized this was not an off-the-shelf item. The material had an amazing natural stretchiness to it
It had been sewn exactly to my dimensions from patterns that were developed using the 3-D scan of my body. The gusset was lined with silk, and the part of the thong which would ride in my butt crack was nothing but silk.
I then looked at the bandeau. It was made the same way, and was silk lined. It was a solid loop of material and had no clasps or closures, so I tested its stretch and found that it would pull out enough for me to pull it on over my head. I was dubious however that it would give me any support.
As if reading my thoughts, Cosette said, "The bandeau is to act as a liner for the bodice of your dress. The structure and support you need are in the dress. The top seam on the cups of the bandeau were made to nest into the top of the cup of your bodice. This joint will be surprisingly strong and will prevent your breasts from popping out."
