isPc
isPad
isPhone
The Memory Dress Prologue 2%
Library Sign in
The Memory Dress

The Memory Dress

By Jade Beer
© lokepub

Prologue

PROLOGUE

CHRISTIE’S AUCTION HOUSE

NEW YORK

25 JUNE 1997

There is a red carpet outside 502 Park Avenue tonight. The auctioneer wears an expensive dinner jacket and bow tie, his glasses balanced low on his nose, chin dipped, surveying the crowd, slowly inhaling the energy in the room. Soon he will hold it in his hands, take the crowd where he wants them, roll his immaculate British vowels over their heads, wielding his authority, driving the values higher, sometimes in leaps of $5,000 at a time. There are no reserves and it is all to play for.

This audience is here to see the world’s most glamorous working wardrobe. More than one thousand men and women take their seats. Countless others will bid by telephone. Museums, investors, private collectors, famous fans. They’ve had a chance to view the lots. They know what is coming. Favorites have been selected. Financial ceilings have been set. Now they eye the competition. Who are they up against tonight and who will be the last to raise their paddle victoriously?

One reserved seat on the very end of a back row remains empty, filled only in the final moments before the bidding begins. A slim dark-haired woman, alone, elegant in black tapered wool trousers and a single-breasted, red knee-length blazer, her lipstick perfectly matching the shade. She lacks the one identical characteristic everyone else in the room shares. The weighty, glossy white catalog in their hands, revealing the briefest glimpse into the private life of a royal. A handwritten note that simply states, The inspiration for this wonderful sale comes from just one person…our son William .

The woman in red doesn’t make a single bid tonight. She sits motionless until the very end, smiles and leaves ahead of the crowd, no interest in claiming her souvenir catalog.

One single image graces its cover. Diana is posed, a pearl dangling at each ear, half smiling directly into the camera, wearing lot number 80. In its former life this dress sat at the banqueting table at the élysée Palace in Paris. Tonight, as it slowly rotates on the turntable, the oyster duchess satin warms under the lights. It comes to life once more, so familiar now you might expect its owner to appear next to it, to share an anecdote from the night she last wore it. The embroidered carnations that spread across the bodice in simulated pearls and white and gold beads are beautifully spotlit against a backdrop of rich green velvet drapes.

But it is not dress number 80 that is causing a stir through the crowd. Another gown is struck through in the catalog and now causing a ripple of intrigue to float among the first to notice it. Number 19 was listed in the original lineup, but it won’t go under the gavel tonight when every other dress will be given its chance to live a second life.

Eighty dresses, but only seventy-nine will sell. One is missing.

Chapter List
Display Options
Background
Size
A-