by Marian Thurm
But, as a bride-to-be, she had to find a dress, and soon, because the wedding had been booked for April 20th, a mere three months from now. The same April 20th that marked Roger’s birthday, along with her own. It fell on a Tuesday that year, but Roger insisted they stick to the date even so. (She could already imagine the speech she would make at the wedding, thanking friends and family for staying out late on an inconvenient Tuesday night to celebrate with them.) Even though she would have preferred a more festive Saturday night, Stacy wasn’t going to quarrel with him; Roger already had agreed to the Botanical Garden for the venue, though if he’d known the idea came to her from her client Kim, who’d learned everything she knew from Satan, Stacy doubted he would have agreed so easily. They’d agreed, too, on a two-week trip to Italy and Germany for their honeymoon, and Roger was busy after work every night poring over the dozen books he’d bought and carefully checking Internet travel sites. Stacy had been to the outdoor wedding of a colleague of hers at work whose two golden retrievers had trotted obediently down the aisle dressed in tuxedos and carrying lavender, peach, and lemon-yellow calla lilies in their slobbery mouths. She fantasized about having her cats in the wedding party, Shelley in a pink vest and Keats in black, but knew, of course, that they weren’t up to the task and never would be. Her twin nieces would serve as flower girls, and already had their dresses and round-toed, pink patent leather Mary Janes. Stacy herself had a humiliating history as a flower girl, a lamentable experience her mother and father had teased her about for years. She’d been asked, as a five-year-old, to walk down the aisle with a beribboned wicker basket of rose petals at her uncle’s wedding, though she’d been, in those days, as shy as could be. Promised a Talking Baby Tender Love doll by her parents, Stacy had allowed herself to be persuaded that she could do what everyone claimed was the simple thing that had been asked of her. The doll, which she’d seen advertised on television again and again, could say a handful of phrases like “Uh-oh, all dirty!” and “Mommy’s so pretty!” if you pulled the plastic ring attached to the back of its head, and it was so alluring to Stacy’s five-year-old self that even the thought of a crowd of people staring at her as she made her way down the aisle of the synagogue was bearable. But as she proceeded bravely to put one very small foot in front of the other, she was thrown off course by all the whispering rising from the rows and rows of seated guests, so many of whom were waving at her frantically and urging her to smile. Unnerved by too many people asking too much of her, she’d pitched the white wicker basket into the crowd, and, weeping, flown back to her mother and father, who were waiting at the entrance to the sanctuary for their own walk down the aisle. She’d understood, even then, that her parents had loved her greatly, because Talking Baby Tender Love in her red-and-white pinafore and white plastic shoes was presented to her nonetheless that night, despite her unsatisfactory performance, her failure to make it even halfway down the aisle.
She and Clare and Jefrie were meeting downtown at a famous bridal salon near the meatpacking district just before noon today. As Stacy waited outside in front of the store, she saw Jefrie, emerging from the subway exit down the street on Seventh Avenue. She was, Stacy was dismayed to see, lugging a collapsed stroller under one arm, and holding onto Tyler, her three-year-old, with the other. Just what a three-year-old boy would dream of during naptime: spending the day in bridal salons with a trio of adults, two of whom meant absolutely nothing to him.
Stacy waved to them, watching from a distance as Jefrie struggled to open the stroller and settle Tyler inside it. But what was Tyler doing here? He was supposed to be with Jefrie’s partner, Honey, a pediatric plastic surgeon who’d cheered Jefrie on as she’d given birth to Tyler in their bed at home in Brooklyn Heights, under the watchful eye of a midwife.
“I know you’re thinking”—Jefrie said when she caught up with Stacy—“why the fuck is Tyler here, but I swear there was nothing I could do. Honey had to take care of an emergency at work, some cleft-palate surgery gone wrong, and our regular babysitter’s away for the weekend.”
“No worries,” Stacy told her. Bending down to chat with Tyler, she admired his woolen earmuffs, which were knitted to resemble pockets of fast-food french fries, one sitting against each ear. “Nice earmuffs, kiddo,” she said. “Where’d ya get ’em? Burger King?”
“Nah.”
“McDonald’s?”
“Nah.”
“Well, where?”
“Grandma Suzi.”
This was Jefrie’s mother, who had enthusiastically embraced Honey and her role in Jefrie’s life. On the other hand, Honey’s parents, deeply conservative people from Ponca City, Oklahoma, were no longer in touch with her and had yet to meet Tyler. According to Jefrie, Honey’s mother and father had lost that privilege the day Tyler was born and they’d refused to come to the phone.
“Grandma Suzi, huh,” Stacy said, “and who’s this?” She pointed to the GI Joe-related action figure in Tyler’s sweet baby hand: it was a grim-faced, muscle-bound hunk of plastic sporting a sleeveless green-and-black vest, a military helmet, and combat boots.
“Sergeant Savage,” Tyler said reverently. When Stacy tried to touch the sculpted muscles of his chest, Tyler yanked the figure away, and said, “That’s mine.”
“Oh, I’ll bet Sergeant Savage here is going to have a super-fun time shopping for a wedding dress with us,” Stacy said, winking at Jefrie.
When Roger’s sister arrived, a few minutes later, she greeted Sergeant Savage by name, and bemoaned, with Jefrie, the generally crappy toys their sons were so fond of. Stacy had worried that there might have been some awkwardness between Clare and Jefrie, who’d never met before. She found herself fascinated by the immediate bond between them, a bond that was there merely because they were each the mother of a little boy. It was the sort of bond Stacy would never have noticed before but which struck her as something of interest, perhaps because now that she could imagine herself as a wife, she was beginning to envision, though a bit fuzzily, the enormous step beyond that. She could hear Lauren insisting, a month or so after the twins were born, You CAN’T IMAGINE what it’s like—you think you can, but I’m telling you that you CAN’T! She’d told Stacy that on any given day there wasn’t even time for her to brush her teeth, to take a shower, or get a good look at herself in the mirror. Your children have to come first, she said with the weariest sort of sigh, at least until they’re eighteen and finally out of the damn house.
Well, maybe so, but come on, not enough time to brush your teeth? Stacy had thought then, and continued to think, that it was all hyperbole, that her poor sister, frazzled and disorganized and sleep-deprived, must have been exaggerating wildly.
Tyler was clamoring to get out of his stroller, but when the four of them entered the bridal salon, the saleswoman who greeted them evidently didn’t think much of the idea. She was a bosomy woman in her forties dressed in a no-nonsense business suit, high heels, and a number of noisy charm bracelets on each wrist, and she stared with displeasure at Tyler, and then at Jefrie, who, under her soft, nearly translucent white T-shirt, was wearing a crimson bra.
You should know better than to bring your three-year-old into this sacred space, you idiot, and furthermore, who in her right mind wears a red bra under a white shirt? the saleswoman telegraphed with her frown.
Stacy wanted to slap her.
The woman introduced herself as Dawn, “your dress consultant,” and pointing at Stacy, said, “You’re the bride?”
“Guilty,” Stacy said. “I mean I’m the one who called to make an appointment for today.”
Tyler gnawed thoughtfully on Sergeant Savage’s helmet. “We hafta go home,” he said. “I wanna watch my Tiny Toon Adventures tape.”
“I have two questions for you,” Dawn said. “One, do you have any ideas about the style you’re looking for; and two, how much do you want to spend?” She studied her watch. “Oh, and by the way, I ought to remind you that you have ninety minutes before I’ll have to move on to
the next customer.”
She’d been in the store for ninety seconds, Stacy thought, and already Dawn was making her nervous. “I’m not sure I know precisely what you mean by ‘style,’ ” Stacy confessed, and hung her head. She wished Roger were here with her, even though, of course, he knew absolutely nothing about wedding dresses. He was, however, a successful businessman, who knew how to deal with people out there and compel them to do whatever it was he wanted them to. Stacy, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that she allowed people to persuade her to bend to their will simply because she wanted things—everything, really—to go smoothly. Always. More than anything, she hated the notion of anyone at all thinking ill of her. Which she was sure Dawn already did.
“Let’s start with style,” Dawn said. “Sheath? A-line? Cocktail length? Princess?”
Stacy shrugged one shoulder.
“Any thoughts about the neckline?”
Shrugging both shoulders, Stacy said, “Not really.”
“High neck, scoop, jewel neck, sweetheart neck,” Dawn said. She kept her eye on Tyler, who was adamant about going home to his VCR and his beloved Tiny Toon Adventures.
“How about a pretzel, buddy?” Jefrie said, and dug into the bag attached to the back of the stroller.
Tyler held up two fingers: he wanted one pretzel for each hand, he said.
“So, no thoughts on the neckline? I’m assuming you have no thoughts on the waist either?” The condescension in Dawn’s voice was unmistakable, and Stacy considered making a run for the front door without explanation, and taking her entourage with her. “There’s dropped, natural, om-peer . . .” Dawn continued. Behind them, a bride-to-be, her mother, and a quartet of bridesmaids were waiting for a saleswoman, and Stacy allowed herself to eavesdrop as Dawn talked solemnly about the distinct virtues of capped sleeves and spaghetti straps. What Stacy overheard was so bizarre, she had to inch backward in the wedding party’s direction to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood what they were talking about.
“Is she out of her mind?” the mother of the bride was saying. “Cheese made out of breast milk? That is truly, unbelievably, disgusting!”
Moving over toward Jefrie to whisper what she’d just heard, Stacy felt herself relaxing. She loved her old friend’s high-pitched squeal, and the way Jefrie hid her face against Stacy’s shoulder as she shook with laughter.
“What?” Clare said. “What’s so funny?”
It was Jefrie who whispered now into Clare’s ear, and soon all three of them were laughing, along with Tyler, who attempted to stand up in his stroller, clearly serious about being sprung.
“Let . . . me . . . out,” he said, no longer laughing.
“Whenever you’re ready, ladies,” Dawn said. “I can see we’re going to have to start from scratch. But first we need to talk about your budget.”
Well, there was the $4,000 gift from Stacy’s grandmother, but how could she possibly spend all that money on a single dress? The thought was utterly distasteful to Stacy; if she divided up the money among her various homeless clients, she fantasized, her grandmother wouldn’t be happy but her clients would certainly be better off. (Whether they wanted to be, or not, and sometimes they didn’t—rejecting free dental care and HIV testing, substance abuse treatment, and vocational counseling; like her client Kim, who wanted none of it, not even the free cell phone she was offered.)
“I just don’t know,” Stacy told Dawn.
“Ballpark figure? Between one thousand and two thousand? Two thousand and thirty-five hundred? You’ve got to give me something to work with here, Stacy.”
But she couldn’t; embarrassed, Stacy kept silent. Why couldn’t they all cram themselves into a cab, and pay a visit to a thrift shop, a high-end place on Madison Avenue where she’d be likely to find something lovely but wouldn’t have to spend the kind of money that would turn her stomach and make her feel wealthy and entitled, which she had never been and, God knows, had never aspired to be. She would go ahead with this thrift shop idea, she decided now, even though Roger was apparently doing very, very well and probably would be unhappy knowing that her instincts were leading her to a second-hand wedding dress.
“Stacy?” Clare said. “Are you all right?”
“I want to go NOW!” Tyler said, and, just so they knew he wasn’t fooling around, tossed Sergeant Savage out of the stroller, where he landed at Dawn’s feet.
“We do have to go,” Stacy told Dawn. “And I do apologize.” She signaled to Clare and Jefrie to head toward the front of the showroom and out the door, while doing her best to ignore Dawn, who was trying to tempt her with talk of the salon’s seamstresses and fitters and beading experts, and even their custom-made, miniature replicas of whatever gown Stacy happened to choose for herself—she could have a gorgeous teeny-weeny eighteen-inch replica of her own, if only she would take the time to see what Dawn could do for her.
Sorry, lady, thanks but no thanks.
S
Stacy explains to him that there are only so many nights in a single week when they can serve their children store-brand chicken tenders, lackluster mozzarella sticks, and penne with some sort of undistinguished red sauce, before it’s time to give in and take everyone out for Chinese food. And this is how they end up at Jade Pagoda, where there are starched white tablecloths and perky red carnations in bud vases on every table. Never mind the can of 7 Up that Will accidentally tips over with multiple sets of chopsticks clenched in his fist at one time; never mind the wontons that have to be completely divested of their pork filling before Olivia will even taste them; never mind having to escort Will to an exasperatingly dark and narrow men’s room three times in a single hour because he “thinks” he has to pee but then realizes that he may as well hold it in until he gets back to Grandma’s apartment where the bathrooms smell like vanilla wafers, he says.
Trying hard to enjoy—to the extent that he can enjoy anything these days—a stingy forkful of Tangerine Chicken and Honey Walnut Shrimp, Roger makes the mistake of idly looking past his family to a round table near the front door. Seated there, with a noisy group of friends, is a woman sporting a silver-and-royal-blue silk scarf wrapped tightly around her head. Once he sees that she is missing her eyebrows, it doesn’t take him more than an instant to realize that she is bald under that scarf. And that her life is on the line. Reminded, inevitably, of his poor, star-crossed sister, his appetite—diminished as it is—vanishes completely, just like that, and he uses his chopsticks to capture single chunks of walnut, one after another, and deposit them in all four corners of his square white plate.
Then suddenly he hears “Happy Birthday” being sung, accompanied, improbably, by a guitar, and sees that the birthday girl, whose name is Cynthia, is the cancer patient herself.
Except for Will—and the half-dozen gray-haired, fiftyish friends, including the guitarist, at Cynthia’s table—no one else joins in the singing or the applause that follows. The guitarist, apparently thinking it’s time for the seventh-inning stretch, segues into “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
The restaurant is a relatively pricey one, and its patrons are doing their best to ignore the music. The folksy guitarist, who has a decent, if unexceptional, voice, has begun to sing even louder now; she has everyone at Cynthia’s table swaying, their arms flung across each other’s shoulders.
Elbows on the table, his head in his hands, Roger doesn’t understand why no one has put a stop to this little birthday party that’s rudely gone so public, and that has, as it happens, given him a hell of a headache.
He thinks of his sister in her hospital bed, savoring what turned out to be her last supper, a small handful of cherry tomatoes and half a bottle of Orangina, Clare eating and at the same time talking to Stacy on the phone, then complaining, all of a sudden, of “the-e worst headache. Ever.” She had to hang up then, but would call Stacy back later, she said.
A promise she would not be able to keep.
It’s been two months, and Roger hasn’t gotten over
it.
He is a brother, not a bereaved husband or child, but, even so, it doesn’t seem possible that he will ever get over it. He is a bereaved brother, sick with grief, the taste of it in his mouth, on the tip of his tongue, coating the back of his throat, spoiling everything.
His childhood memories of Clare seem to have been temporarily wiped out; the only images that come to him now are those of the most recent past; his bald-headed sister, her delicate face adorned with bronze-colored lipstick and carefully applied eye shadow and liner, sitting in her hospital bed watching DVDs of the first two seasons of Mad Men on her laptop, Stacy seated in an armchair beside her, the two of them so involved in the show, they barely looked up when Roger arrived with a bakery box full of cupcakes—and not just ordinary cupcakes, but red velvet, espresso ganache, and pistachio with almond buttercream frosting. Clare and Stacy shushed him when he tried to engage them in conversation, and so he sat there awkwardly with the bakery box in his lap, listening to Dylan on his iPod while these two women he loved so madly ignored him . . . But now he is conjuring one small thing from his childhood—the way he and Clare and their mother and father were dressed in gray shorts, turquoise-and-white checkered shirts, turquoise bandanas tied around their necks, one summer when they took a two-day trip to Colonial Williamsburg. Roger was eleven and had no thoughts about all of them being dressed identically, but Clare, at thirteen, was already part of a clique of girls at school, already old enough to be embarrassed by the sight of the four of them marching around in their matching outfits. “We look like idiots!” she told their mother, who had reached over, right there in the blacksmith shop in Colonial Williamsburg, and slapped Clare’s pretty face. Remembering this now, Roger wants to grab his sweet demented eighty-two-year-old mother and say, “And you never even apologized.” He doesn’t understand why it should matter after all these years, only that it does. To him, anyway, the only one on earth who remembers what his mother did, doubling his sister’s humiliation that morning, causing her to say, like some thirteen-year-old drama queen, “I wish I were dead!”