Worth the Weight

by Eileen Palma

  “The question is, what?” asked Jack, finding himself getting into this plan despite his reservations about Matt leaving the city.

  “One of my Yankees caps?”

  “Everybody who lives in New York has a Yankees cap. You have to pick something that could only be yours.” Lauren raised both hands in the air in exasperation.

  “The new stroller?” suggested Jack.

  “She’s pregnant! Do you want her to think you’re saying her new baby is going to be fat?” Lauren did a perfect handstand on the line of slate stones lining the yard, and landed back down on two feet seamlessly.

  “That’s it! You’re a genius!” Matt grabbed Lauren and swung her around in a circle.

  “What did I say?”

  “Our sonogram picture! I can put our sonogram picture on the mantle!”

  “OMG! That’s such a good idea!”

  “Don’t all those things look the same? How’s she going to know it’s yours?” Jack didn’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but those gray and black swirly pictures were completely undistinguishable from each other.

  “Anne put it in a homemade frame. Do you know what this means for you, buddy?” Mat swung around to face Jack.

  “I’ll finally have to learn how to drive?”

  “If you really want to be with the fem-bot, you have to have your own Kris Kringle moment.”

  “The most romantic scene of any movie has to be in Titanic when everyone knows the ship is sinking and they’re all going to drown in the icy abyss. That one elderly couple get into bed, the husband cuddles up next to his wife and they just stay like that, holding each other while the ship goes down.”

  Kate Richards, Straight Talk

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “Beautiful!”

  “Absolutely gorgeous!”

  Kate’s strapless dress was banded in hundreds of thick white ribbons that crisscrossed and cinched in tight at her waist leading to a full skirt of the finest silvery- white gossamer. She looked just like Cinderella in the Disney cartoon she and Jen had watched a million times when they were kids because it was the only VHS tape their dad hadn’t pawned.

  Kate clutched her American Beauty bouquet and smiled through the clicks of the cameras flashing at her from four different angles. The overly fragrant flowers were plugging up her sinuses and the bright lights were making her feel hot and nauseated.

  “How does it feel to be our June cover girl?”

  Kate kept her smile for the next ten rapid clicks of the camera, and then held up her hand.

  “The June edition?” Kate could barely get the words out. Her mouth was so dry her teeth were sticking to her upper lip.

  The Beautiful Brides Magazine editor slid her thick Armani glasses on top of her flat -ironed hair. “Most people would kill for the June cover. I mean we’re talking A-List over the years—Drew Barrymore, Jessica Biel, Reese Witherspoon.”

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry.” Kate silently ticked the months off on her fingers. Seven months. Seven more months of pretending. She tried to take in a deep cleansing yoga breath, but the metal boning on her corset dug into her ribs.

  “Kate’s a little overwhelmed. You can understand—her first time trying on wedding dresses.” Dana took a break from giving the photographer pointers to sooth the editor’s ego.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize this was Kate’s first time. You should’ve brought her mother.” The editor’s voice softened while her Botox frozen face remained expressionless.

  “Her mom was scared to come out in this weather. The bridges will close if this keeps up.” Dana looked pointedly at Kate to make sure she knew to play along. As if Kate was dumb enough to tell the editor that her mom wasn’t the wedding dress shopping kind of mom anyway.

  “It’s all those suburban soccer moms driving around in their mini-vans. Global warming’s gonna be the end of us all.” The editor put her glasses back on and scrolled through the pictures from the shoot on her iPad.

  “Kate’s looking like her blood sugar’s getting a little low. Do you mind if she takes a ten minute break?” Dana looped her arm through Kate’s and acted as if she was supporting her. Meanwhile, Kate knew if she really leaned all her body weight into Dana, they would both instantly drop to the floor.

  “We had takeout sent to the dressing room. But make it quick. I promised the crew we’d wrap before the storm hits.”

  Kate was off the makeshift stage before the editor could change her mind.

  “You’re supposed to look like a happy blushing bride, not like someone going to their own funeral!” Dana turned on Kate as soon as she shut the dressing room door.

  “June? Seriously, Dana, June!” Kate grabbed a Poland Spring bottle off the dressing room table and chugged it in breathless gulps.

  “If we pull the plug on this too soon it won’t look authentic. Besides, the June cover is huge!” Dana fluffed her dreads in the light bulb brightened mirror.

  “I can’t last another seven months!”

  “Yes you can. Get your shit together and don’t come out of this room till you can put a smile on your face and fake it for the cameras.”

  Dana opened the door, then paused in the doorway, “And don’t eat too much. We’ll never be able to squeeze you in the Badgley Mischka.”

  As soon as Dana shut the door, Kate felt her heart quicken to a staccato double beat while she struggled to catch her breath. She felt like she was suffocating under the layers of ribbon and tulle. She desperately wanted to rip the dress off. The problem was it had taken two women to fasten the hundreds of seed pearl buttons on the back.

  The smell of food from the grease-coated bag on the makeup table overwhelmed Kate. Her stomach grumbled under all the dress layers. She hadn’t been able to stomach any breakfast before the photo shoot.

  Kate opened the brown paper bag and inhaled the unmistakable fragrance of hamburgers and French fries. She pulled the lukewarm fry packet out of the bag, and almost dropped it when she saw the red NY Burger Co. emblem on the white wax paper. Kate reached back in the bag and pulled out an aluminum wrapped burger and a tall cold takeout cup. She knew as soon as she saw the condensation beading up on the sides that it was a milkshake.

  Kate looked up at the ceiling. “Seriously?”

  Kate clutched the fries to her chest like she did with her bible on her first communion. “Is this a cosmic joke? Or is this a sign? Because seriously I just don’t know the difference anymore.”

  The dressing room walls felt like they were closing in on Kate while the rows of lights in the makeup mirrors glared in her eyes and made her overwhelmingly hot. The sound of her phone broke through the ringing in her ears.

  “Fuck. This is all I need right now.” Kate grabbed the phone when she saw it was her dad’s treatment facility.

  “Hello?” Kate steeled herself for the worst; her dad got kicked out of rehab or escaped and went on a bender.

  “Katie?” Her father always spoke too loud on long distance calls. Kate had to hold the phone away from her ear.

  “Pop? What’s wrong?” Kate leaned against the wall, the layers of dress forming a barricade so all she could feel were steely barbs of crinoline scratching her legs.

  “What’cha doin’ next Saturday?”

  “Pop, I’m not up for another family counseling session.” The last two times Jen had stormed out and Kate left with a massive headache. Not to mention, all her father’s therapists wanted to talk about were her wedding plans.

  “Screw therapy. You need to get me the hell out of Dodge.”

  “Dad. I’m not breaking you out of rehab.” Kate collapsed to the ground in a pile of white.

  “Who said anything about making a run for it? I’m graduating!” Her father’s voice boomed into the phone.

  “What?”

  “Dr. Lanslow said I’m ready for out-patient.” The word out-patient dripped in pride as Kate’s dad made his announcement.


  “This doesn’t mean you’re healed, you know.” The first image that popped in Kate’s head was her father hitting up the closest OTB.

  “Yeah, but it means I get one last chance to fix things with you and Jen.”

  “Oh Pop.” Kate sighed.

  “You’re a good egg, you know that?”

  Kate held the phone and just breathed.

  “You didn’t give up on me. Even when everyone else in the world did.”

  “Pop?”

  “What’s up, Buttercup?”

  “Nothing.” Kate stood up and smoothed out the layers of her dress. “See you Saturday.”

  Kate pried the lid off the take out cup and revealed a swirl of melting vanilla ice cream and milk. She pulled a long salt-dusted fry from the packet and inhaled the scent of fried goodness. Kate skimmed the fry over the top of the milkshake. She closed her eyes and relished the sweet and salty bite. Then she reached for another fry and didn’t stop until the only thing left in the fry packet was a grainy layer of salt.

  Kate licked the salt off her lips and opened the door and checked first to make sure no one was looking before she snuck down the hall and pressed the elevator button.

  “Can I get something for you, Ms. Richards?” Kate hadn’t noticed the editor’s assistant because she was so thin her skin had taken on a translucent glow.

  “No thanks. I’m just meeting my assistant down in the lobby. I’ll be right back.”

  Kate just needed to get downstairs to the wide open lobby where she could breathe. Being in the enclosed elevator didn’t help, nor did the crush of people that piled in and around her dress on the fourteenth, seventh and fourth floors. No one seemed shocked to see a lone bride in the elevator. They were too busy mumbling about when the subways would stop running, and which Duane Reade still had batteries in stock.

  Once that door opened, Kate knew there was no going back. She felt all the other people rush out of the elevator around her before taking that step into the open.

  Kate stood in the middle of the lobby and just breathed. She inhaled until she thought the tiny bodice buttons would pop and then exhaled till she got all the trapped air out. No one stared at her; they were too busy looking out the windows to survey the powerful storm.

  Kate stood and listened to the whistle of the wind and the rush of water pouring down the windows. The intertwined blocks of glass rattled at their stainless steel seams. She didn’t know how long she had been stuck in the windowless studio, but it was long enough for the hurricane to descend.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Dana practically ran out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened.

  “I can’t do this.” Kate didn’t know she was going to say it till the words spilled out of her mouth.

  “We’re almost done. They just want a few more shots of you in the Badgley.”

  “I don’t just mean the photo shoot.”

  “You just need to hang in there a little longer.” Dana licked her thumb, and then pressed it from the edge of Kate’s mouth to her chin. “Is that ice cream on your face?”

  “This shoot is for a cover that won’t hit the stands till June! I can’t wait that long.”

  “Fine, I can ask them to use the shot of you with the dark red roses for the February cover.”

  “I really didn’t think this all the way through.”

  “Bravo wants to film the wedding. We’ll get you the holiday Beautiful Brides cover, then schedule a New Year’s wedding. Alex can leave you at the altar. You can make it till January.”

  “I can’t.” Kate lifted the layers of dress and headed towards the door.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” Dana’s voice overtook the rumblings of wind.

  “To find Jack!” Kate leaned all of her weight into the rotating door. But the wind was on Dana’s side.

  “Wait! What about the wedding dress?”

  “Tell them to send me the bill!”

  Kate’s dramatic exit was stuck on the slow motion setting. She was able to get the door moving, just enough to start to squeeze through. But the hard part was fitting the mounds of tulle and organza into the telephone booth-sized glass compartment.

  “You’re committing career suicide!” Dana pounded on the glass with her fist. “Kate!”

  The one good thing about the claustrophobia-inducing door was that once it finally moved enough to accommodate her huge dress it locked Kate into a sound proof barrier that muffled Dana’s voice.

  Kate pushed against the door, and it didn’t take more than a second for her to panic when she realized it wasn’t moving. She was vacuum sealed in the airless space. Kate picked up the layers of tulle and pressed them up against the glass to shield her hands in case the glass broke and pushed as hard as she could. She twisted her neck around and was grateful to see Dana still standing there. Kate couldn’t hear what she said, but it was obvious she realized that Kate was stuck. Dana was pressing as hard as she could to get the door moving, but she just wasn’t big enough to give the door any momentum.

  Kate tried to calculate how soon the air would run out. She pictured herself suffocating in a rotating door while wearing a wedding dress. She could only imagine the newspaper headings that would bring.

  All of a sudden the door started to move. Someone had come in the rotating door from the outside and as soon as Kate felt the door inch forward, she moved with it. That’s when she heard the unmistakable sound of fabric tearing. The top layer of tulle from the dress’ skirt was stuck in the bottom of the door and it stayed behind as the door rotated. But all Kate cared about was getting out of the glass box. She pushed at the door and didn’t stop until she got to the sidewalk all in one piece—minus the first layer of her dress. Thank God she picked the one dress from the unknown designer to run away in.

  Kate turned to look through the glass to let Dana know she made it through unscathed. But all she could see was a hulking mass standing in the lobby completely obscuring Dana except for the bit of bright red high heel sticking out to the side. He must’ve been the one who was strong enough to get the door moving. Then the large man turned a little to the left and Kate couldn’t mistake the orange face. Their bodies weren’t touching, but there was intimacy in the way Alex looked down at Dana. Alex had been worried about the storm and hadn’t wanted them to leave for the shoot. Now, Kate knew why.

  The first thing Kate noticed when she got out of the building was the sky. It was dark as night even though it was only 10 A.M. Clouds hung low in the atmosphere like deep bruises and thick raindrops pelted down between balls of hail.

  The sidewalks were empty, all the people having rushed for refuge in the foliage-covered shops that lined the streets of the flower district. Kate took cover under the umbrella-like leaves of a large banana tree while she looked up and down the streets for a cab.

  Sirens and the eerie screeching of the wind were all Kate could hear. She spotted a cab coming up 28th Street and she ditched her shelter and ran to the curb, shielding her face with her arms against the assault of hail. Kate stuck her hand in the air, but the cabbie kept moving, his eyes fixed only on the flooding road ahead of him.

  A sandwich board advertising “$20 mani-pedis” flew across the street and crashed into the glass window of an exotic flower shop. The howl of the wind was so deafening Kate couldn’t even hear the glass as it shattered. She covered her head and ducked, narrowly missed flying shards of glass. Kate felt like she was on the set of a high budget disaster film.

  Kate knew there was no way she was going to get a cab to stop. She would have to run. Good thing she had already ditched the Ferragamo heels for flip-flops. The only problem now was the heavy multi-layered hoop petticoat underneath her dress. The lacy bottom layers had already soaked up the icy rainwater like a sponge, weighing Kate down. Kate reached under the layers of tulle and organza and untied the drawstring top of the petticoat. It felt so good to pull the petticoat down and step out of it. The wind lifted the pett
icoat up and the medieval contraption floated down the avenue like one of the Macy’s Thanksgiving floats. Kate’s dress hung off her body like a deflated balloon, but at least she could run now.

  The wind was in Kate’s favor as it pushed her towards Eighth Avenue. The heavy bi-layer veil did nothing to shield her head from the rain. It was like running with a window screen clamped into her hair but it was secured so tightly Kate had no time to take it out.

  Despite the balls of hail hitting her on the back, and the rain streaming down her face, Kate finally felt like she could breathe. Kate headed uptown on 28th Street and felt like she was in an urban obstacle course race as she dodged rolling garbage cans, shielded her face from flying debris and ran through inches of ice cold water.

  Suddenly, Kate stopped short even though her feet were still moving. It felt like someone had grabbed her dress and yanked her back. Kate had been running so fast she hadn’t noticed the gigantic stroller abandoned on the sidewalk. Kate was both relieved there wasn’t an overweight kid stuck in it and aggravated to see her dress was snagged on a piece of white plastic jutting out from the stroller. Kate’s hands were so numb from the cold water and so fatigued from holding up the heavy layers of wet dress that she could barely make her fingers work to try to free the dress.

  “You had to go with the snack tray, didn’t you Jack?!”

  The wind roared in response and Kate came very close to meeting an untimely death by stroller. Luckily, she wasn’t knocked unconscious when the steel contraption lifted just enough to slam back down on the rest of her dress. Kate was now pinned down by the steel frame of the new CC-XL Deluxe.

  “I am not going down like this!” Kate thought of the mountain climber who was trapped by a boulder and had to amputate his own arm using only a dull pocketknife. She could do this. Kate blew warm breath onto her frigid fingers then rubbed them together as hard as she could to wake them up. She gritted her teeth and used every bit of strength she had to pull at the wet crinoline until she felt it tear. Kate pulled and pulled layer after layer of crinoline and silk until only two shreds of organza remained of her beautiful princess skirt. The rest of the skirt swirled and flapped in the wind firmly stuck to the abandoned CC-XL Deluxe stroller.