My desire to rummage through old yearbooks was temporarily thwarted by Mrs. Faragut the librarian. According to her, old yearbooks were 'archival' material. I could only look at them under her supervision. Also, I'd need a note from a teacher saying that I needed access for a class project. I didn't stay thwarted for long, though. Mel, the owner of Thriftporium, overheard me whining about it to Kim one day and pointed out that there were boxes and boxes of old yearbooks in the used books section. The downside was that I got tasked with dusting and organizing them onto some shelves.

I finally found my mom as a tiny petite brunette version of herself in her freshman year. She was barely recognizable in old-fashioned clothes and a dorky hairstyle. I checked the name twice. It was definitely her. The yearbook was blank. No signatures or notes from classmates adorned its yellowing pages. A corner of a page snapped off as I flipped through, looking for Mators. Guess there was some truth to Librarian Overlord Faragut's claim that old yearbooks needed special handling.

As I took another peek at mom in her freshman glory, Mel came over and peered over my shoulder.

"Oh! You're Bess Gillespie's daughter. I see it now! Well, well, do I have the treat for you!" Mel grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.

I shut the yearbook closed over its mildew stench. A silverfish fell out and I shuddered. Then Mel dragged me across the store to the formal dress rack. She was cackling and talking under her breath the whole while. Terrifying. I hoped she wasn't going senile. I needed this job at least until I graduated.

On one end was the collection of dresses that Ann Simmons had set aside for me to choose from. Kim and I had already an extensive debate over each one before I finally gave up in despair. The ones that weren't hideous were all too small. The ones that fit were frumpy, sad, or plain ugly. Kim had some harebrained scheme to make one of the too-small ones work. It involved a lot of alterations and luck finding coordinating fabric. We'd need the fat little godmother from Cinderella to pull it off, but Kim was ridiculously hopeful.

Mel passed by the Ann Simmons Collection, as we'd started calling it, and headed for the true vintage dresses that hung on a separate rack. After a bit of rummaging and more talking to herself, she pulled out a cloud of ice blue fluff.

"Ta-da!"

"What is that?"

"It's your maternal grandmother's dress from when she was the winter queen sometime in the late 50s."

"It will never fit."

I petted the skirt and gawked at the bodice of the dress. Tiny silver snowflakes dotted the bodice in a diamond pattern. The straight neckline was modest. Even though it had spaghetti straps (a no-no on Ann Simmons' long list of no-nos), there was a matching 3/4 sleeve bolero jacket. No bare shoulders to complain about. Below the snowflake quilting, the skirt billowed out into huge clouds of net over satin.

"Oh, it will fit. Your mama was always a tiny thing, but your grandma Belle was a strapping woman, even in her younger years. " Mel shoved the dress into my arms and gave me a push in the direction of the changing rooms.

"So you knew my mom and grandma?" I slid the dress on and discovered my first problem. I needed a strapless bra. One wiith a lot of padding. Grandma Gillespie had been much more well-endowed.

"I knew them both to see them, is all. This is a small town, sure, but not that small. Your grandma was older than me and your mom much younger," Mel called back. "You ready for help with that zipper?

"Sure." I still didn't think it was going to fit.

Mel came in and zipped it up. It was a little snug in the waist, but nothing that some control top pantyhose wouldn't fix. I plucked at the too-large bodice and sighed.

"Bullet Bra."

"What? No!"

"All right, I see your point. That's a little too authentic. We probably have something with a lot of padding to fill in, so to speak." Mel grinned at me, her eyes lighting up like a naughty child's in their nests of crow's feet.

After inquiring about my bra size and forbidding me to take the dress off, she disappeared again. I stood in front of the beat-up mirror and examined myself. If Mel could solve the bra problem, it would do. If I ignored my awkward head, I could imagine my grandma, who I only knew from a couple of photos, in this dress. With a winter queen tiara on her head, she must have been the star of the dance. Inside the bolero, the tag was from some fashion house that I had never heard of. PARIS NEW YORK LONDON was stamped underneath the brand. Swanky.

Mel came back and shoved a padded strapless bra at me.

"Mel, this is some kind of vintage designer dress. I can't afford this!"

"Of course you can't. You're not buying it. I'm not giving it to you. I'm lending it to you for the dance is all." Mel's face fell. "I thought you'd like to wear your grandma's dress. Girls love vintage these days. Show off a little for that young man of yours. The dentist's son."

"He's not my young man," I mumbled.

"I see how he looks at you when he comes in to hang around. If he's not your young man, he sure wants to be."

"I would love to wear this dress, Mel. Thank you." I deflected the conversation back to the dress and gave her an awkward sideways hug.

The padded bra made the dress work. I lucked out; the bra looked like it had never been worn. Mel sold it to me at the employee discount price and then sent me with the dress to the dry cleaner's, instructing me to put it on the store's tab.

Mrs. Heard at the dry-cleaners was even older than Mel. To my extreme embarrassment, recognized the dress right away. I thanked my patron goddess that she didn't recognize me as a Gillespie too. I finally found some time for that Wicca book, and learned a couple of things. I didn't know who my patron goddess was, but at least I knew I had one.

"Belle Gillespie's winter queen dress! Well, she was a Schugel back then, since she didn't marry Beau Gillespie until after they graduated. Don't tell me Mel finally found a buyer for this. It should be in the family history museum. The Gillespies were big movers and shakers in this town back in the day."

"No, she's just having it cleaned," I mumbled.

"Well, you tell her she should do up a display around it for the holiday season. Remind everyone of when this town was more classy. Belle's father took her all the way to New York to buy this dress." Mrs. Heard gave a reminiscent sigh.

"So, can it be done by Thursday?" I'd need it a day early so that Kim and I could find shoes for it.

"Sure thing, but what's the rush?"

"Holiday display?"

"Oh. Right. You didn't say that's what Mel's up to. Great minds think alike. I'll have it done by tomorrow!"

I hurried back to Thrifporium, feverishly plotting out a strategy that would make Ann Simmons let me wear my grandma's dress to the dance. Somehow, I didn't think she'd like it. Just like I knew she wouldn't like knowing I was related to the apparently once rich and locally famous Gillespies.

*&*

A/N: Belle Gillespie (nee Schugel), Kelsey's long lost grandma, looks a bit like Doris Day in my head cannon. :D Short chapter today. More Winter Dance soon!