My ponytail hung limp, my skin had a nice oily sheen from multiple trips to the hot kitchen, and I was spending my lunch break watching Frances try on another dress. The same one she’d tried on three different times on three different occasions. I walked the two blocks, cutting through the alley by the library, gracelessly hustling like my pants were lit by kerosene. Vivi’s Bridal Boutique was an odd shop that showcased Vivi Moreau’s hand-sewn designs. Vivi had immigrated from Canada forty years prior, bringing a single carry-on and her Singer sewing machine. Inside the shop you could find wedding dresses, formal dresses, Sunday dresses, sun dresses, Christening dresses, communion dresses, and a small section of lingerie made of French lace that nobody paid much attention to. The store had floundered for years, surviving on nothing but hope and the occasional wedding dress purchase until someone created that Internet. Five years after Vivi got her first website, she bought a Mercedes, opened another shop in Houston, and paid off her business loan at the Mercantile and Trust with a suitcase of crisp hundred dollar bills.
