The Magic of Found Objects

by Maddie Dawson

  They look at me, recovered now.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Sort of what I’d always pictured.” My voice is all croaky.

  Maggie shrugs. “Well. I’m open to anything,” she says. “I’m just happy to be along looking at dresses, if you want to know the truth. This isn’t something I ever thought I’d get to do.”

  I am so grateful to her just then that I want to hug her.

  Tenaj says, “Well, then. White wedding it is. I like the flow of this one, don’t you? The way it tapers, and yet if you gained two ounces from now until the time of the wedding, it wouldn’t have to be remade.”

  “Well, that’s certainly true,” says Maggie. “I had a friend that happened to. Had to have the dress completely recut twice by the time the wedding took place.”

  They laugh. “Twice! God, what women do just for this one supposedly magical moment!” says Tenaj. She’s looking restlessly around the warehouse, squinting at dresses as if she could materialize the perfect one.

  “I don’t really love it,” I say. Being all contrarian. “Too many seed pearls. I can see them all popping off if I laugh.”

  They regard me solemnly and go back to pawing through the samples.

  “Now I really don’t mean to intrude,” says Tenaj, “but, as it happens, I know a little place in the Village that has some dresses we could look at. I mean, if we wanted. One of my Creative Mind students works there. And let me just say that I totally get it if you two want to go alone if you’d prefer. I didn’t mean to horn in on your day. I was just passing by and wandered in.”

  “Passing by?” I say. “You were?”

  She smiles. “Well. It’s not as random as it sounds. Maggie, Phronsie here told me that you were coming to town, and I just happen to be in New York on a teaching fellowship, and this morning I woke up and thought, I wonder if they’re out looking now. And so I was out . . .”

  “No, of course, of course,” Maggie is saying. “And you are her mother, after all.”

  Point Maggie.

  “No, no, no!” says Tenaj vehemently. “Maggie, trust me. You are the one who raised her. I’m outmatched here, totally. I’ll go. Just—it was nice to see you. All these years later. Water over the dam. Or whatever. You look great.”

  Point Tenaj.

  “Well, as I said, I’m just happy to be in New York,” Maggie says. “I’ll go anywhere and look at anything.”

  I’m a little dizzy with all this.

  They look at me again.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” says Tenaj. She turns to me. “So, Phronsie? It’s up to you, kid. You want to see my student’s store?”

  “Okay,” I say. “I guess there really isn’t anything that’s grabbing us here. Although there are about sixteen more acres of dresses to look at.”

  “Overwhelming, really,” says Maggie. “You could get dress fatigue.”

  And then—well, the next thing I know, we’re off to the Village. Tenaj hails us a cab, and we’re whisked away. I sit in the middle between the two of them, and for a moment, it feels as though the earth’s energy is shifting somewhere deep down below. I wish there was someone I could call to tell this to. Judd might be the one who would know how astonishing this is, and yet—even he wouldn’t quite understand all the nuances here. Hendrix is working, and anyway, he wouldn’t care. Not anymore.

  It’s Adam. It hits me that he’s the one who’d love to hear this story.

  Tenaj says, “So first of all, Maggie, I have to know, from your perspective: Just what is this lucky bridegroom like? Is he . . . dazzlingly sexy, or maybe is he . . . a brilliant intellectual? Scarily handsome? Dangerous? Or . . . ?”

  Maggie and I look at each other. I shrug.

  She says, “Judd? Well, Judd is a very nice guy, and he’s dependable and funny and we’ve known his family for years. If I had to describe him in one word, I think it would be comfortable. People feel comfortable with Judd. Wouldn’t you say so, Phronsie?”

  “Comfortable!” says Tenaj, and her eyes are dancing even as they’re boring into mine. “Well, isn’t that something. Comfortable.”

  “He’s also very handsome,” says Maggie. Perhaps she’s realizing she has damned Judd to the fires of Tenaj’s judgmental hell.

  “He is handsome,” I say. “Really quite, quite handsome.”

  “Well, how nice is that!” says Tenaj.

  They talk over me. Tenaj, waving her hands in the air, describes the nebulous, almost unexplainable creativity class she’s teaching. Maggie counters with concrete stories about the need for algebra in the Pemberton school system.

  When this runs downs, Tenaj said, “By the way, how is Bunny? She was always so kind to me, even though I’m sure I wasn’t what she had in mind.”

  “You weren’t what any of us had in mind,” says Maggie, and they both laugh.

  “Oh, those days!” says Tenaj. “What a relief it is to be over all that.” She reaches across me to pat Maggie’s arm. “Maggie, I have often just wanted to tell you about a million things that need to be said. I must have started at least a hundred letters to you over the years, and then I’ve stopped because I didn’t want to make any more mistakes. I mean, where to begin, right? But maybe I can tell you now. I’m just so sorry, so very sorry for the damage that was done.”

  “Really,” says Maggie, looking out the window. “You don’t have to say these things.”

  “I know I participated in your unhappiness. For that I’m sorry.”

  “Well,” says Maggie stiffly. “He fell in love with you. What were you supposed to do about that? You didn’t know me. For all you knew, he was free.”

  “Don’t worry about me here or anything,” I say. “I’m just fine.”

  They don’t even pay me any attention.

  “You know,” says Tenaj, completely leaning over me to put all her intensity onto Maggie. “Maybe this is our chance to say some things. I did know about you, Maggie. He talked about you the whole weekend. How he was going to get married to you, and he was saving up some money, and that he was going to work on the farm, but he said he didn’t really like the farm all that much, but he was going to do it anyway. For you.”

  “Yes,” says Maggie. She has folded her arms now. I know that look.

  “No. I swear to God this is true. He’d always go back to talking about you.”

  “Meanwhile, he’s there, taking his clothes off,” Maggie says tightly. “Please. You don’t have to do this. I’m over it.”

  “It wasn’t me he ever wanted,” Tenaj says quietly. “I promise you this. There was nothing of substance there. Just a moment in time. Stuff happening that wouldn’t have happened in any other time. It was never what was going to last. That’s all I’m saying. You were the one he wanted.”

  “But then he stayed,” Maggie points out.

  “Oh, fuck, Maggie. He didn’t stay for me. He stayed because he found out I was pregnant, and for some reason, his code of honor kicked in.”

  Maggie makes a little sound.

  “Maggie, trust me, no other guy at the time would have done what he did—he didn’t love me, after all—but he said he’d do the right thing. He was not happy about it, but he was going to be a man, and do what needed to be done.”

  “Could we—?” I say.

  They get silent. And thank God the cab pulls up in front of the shop right then, and it’s time that we sort ourselves out. I get out after Maggie on her side, and while Tenaj is paying the cabbie, I whisper, “I’m so sorry about this.” And she shushes me: “It’s fine. This needed to happen maybe. I don’t know.”

  Tenaj comes around the back of the cab right then, and we go into Glenda’s Vintage Fashions, where in the window there are the most luscious boho dresses—lacy and old-fashioned and beautiful.

  “A vintage shop!” says Maggie. “These are used?”

  “Used and wonderful,” says Tenaj. “A different outlook, perhaps, but think of it: it takes tradition to a new plateau . . . Hey, Miranda!” she call
s, as a thin young woman with a long black braid comes out from the back, holding a toddler on her hip. “Namaste, sweetheart.”

  They hug and kiss, and Tenaj introduces us. “This is our daughter,” she says pointing to me, and she winks at Maggie. “We share her, and now she’s getting married.”

  “Oh, I love shared daughter situations!” says Miranda. She drags Tenaj to the back, and Maggie and I look around tentatively at the old oil lamps, lace tablecloths, Oriental carpets, and dresses—sexy and exotic—hanging on racks.

  I pick out a filmy pink dress with a dropped waist and take it into the back to try on. It slides onto my hips, shimmers in the mirror, and the fabric, when I touch it, feels slippery and cool. I love everything it says, this dress. And when I come out of the dressing room and stand before my two moms, they both look surprised. Tenaj declares it wonderful.

  “Do you like it, Maggie?” I ask, and she nods.

  “It kind of looks like the wedding dress my mother was married in,” she says. She touches it and frowns, like all mothers are required to do when confronted with fabrics. “Awfully well-made. But I wonder if you dry-cleaned this, though, would it fall apart? It’s so old.”

  “Vintage,” says Miranda, “and it’s been cleaned. You don’t have to do a thing to it.” She turns back to Tenaj, and I swear I see her start to cry while they’re whispering. The little boy she’s holding pats her face.

  “I think I’d like to get it,” I say tentatively to Maggie. “What do you think?”

  “Well,” she says slowly. “I suppose. Funny, I hadn’t considered a used dress, but this is . . . nice. I mean, if you like it. That’s all that counts.”

  “It’s not white, but it still looks very traditional to me,” I say.

  “Yes. It looks very nice on you.”

  I look at her closely. Something has changed in her face; she looks actually relaxed. Maybe Tenaj has soothed something that was ragged in her, with that story about my father.

  “Okay . . . and then . . . shall we go get something to eat? Just you and me?” I tip my head toward Tenaj at the back of the store, now holding the toddler on her own hip and still curling her arm around Miranda. “We don’t have to stay with her, you know.”

  “Whatever,” says Maggie. She lowers her voice. “I’m really fine with everything. You don’t have to worry about me, you know. This is kind of a moment in time that you never would have thought could happen. It’s kind of . . . eye-opening.”

  “You got that right.”

  “I guess I thought she would be . . . different by now, somehow. But she’s . . . unbelievable.”

  I would love to know exactly what Maggie was picturing, but just then, Tenaj bounces back to us. “Listen, you two,” she says. “Something has come up, and we’re in for something of an adventure. Are you with me? Because I think this could be fun! Miranda here, Miranda is a flutist, and she’s supposed to have an audition today to be in the orchestra of an off-Broadway show, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the universe has tossed her way. But her sitter is in Brooklyn and can’t get here, so I said I’d take Grover to the sitter’s house. Now you don’t have to join me, of course, but Miranda says that the sitter lives near this little shop she recommends, where we could look at veils and jewelry and such.” She looks at Maggie and me with her bright, bright, talking-about-the-universe eyes, already sure of our answer.

  I shrug and look at Maggie questioningly, and she nods. “Okay,” she says. And just like that, it’s settled. Miranda is so grateful. I pay for my dress, and the cab comes—and we jump in with Grover, who has apparently only ever wanted to stay with his mom, and so screams for a while.

  We all try to jiggle him and coax him into appreciating us, but nothing works until Maggie and Tenaj both give him their cell phones.

  And then, in a move that could possibly win him a position as infant starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, Grover stops licking Maggie’s phone and hurls it out of the car window, which I had just opened, trying to get some air. It goes flying, bouncing into the road.

  It happens so fast that Maggie and I are speechless, but Tenaj bangs on the cab driver’s shoulder until he agrees to pull over.

  “Lady, I am not getting out of this car to run into traffic to get your freaking phone!” he says, once he hears what the problem is. “It’s not even legal!”

  Before the cab has even quite come to a stop, Tenaj jumps out. I see her running between cars, all of which are honking. Drivers are shouting at her out of the window, and she’s like a gazelle somehow, dancing in between and smiling, holding up her arms like she might be channeling the pope.

  Maggie has gone white, twisting around in the seat to see what’s going on. “She’s gonna get herself killed,” she keeps saying in a low voice.

  “No,” I say, “she’s not.”

  And sure enough, she swoops down and grabs the phone, which had landed on the yellow line in the road, so it’s still in one piece. She dances over to the taxi, triumphant, and slips inside next to us. She’s grinning when she hands the phone back to Maggie.

  “Whoo! That was such a rush!” Tenaj says. “I loved it!”

  The cab driver loses his mind. “You!” he says to Tenaj, twisting around in his seat. “What are you thinking—running in traffic this way? You think these cars care about stopping for you?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” she says. “It worked. Calm down.” She reaches over and touches him on the arm. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  But now he pulls the car over roughly to the side of the road. “Get out!” he says. “I can’t have this in my cab! You—all of you—go now.”

  We climb out of the cab—my two moms and me, the baby, the dress, the diaper bag. I am solemn, fearing the worst. But when I look over, Maggie and Tenaj are nearly doubled over, laughing, holding on to each other like they’ve been friends for life.

  And that’s how I know our day is spiraling into something unrecognizable.

  “You know what?” says Tenaj an hour later, after we’ve deposited Grover with the sitter and checked out the veils and baubles shop, where I pick up a pink sunhat that looks better than any veil would. Sort of saucy and young-looking. “We should take Maggie for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then have dim sum in Chinatown!”

  Now see, this is crazy. It’s February, for God’s sake. We are carrying a wedding dress and a sunhat. Maggie is from out of town and she’s probably tired. Also, I’m not sure that Maggie even knows what dim sum is. Or that she’d like it.

  But Maggie says, “I’d like that.”

  “Which part?” I say. “Because we could just take a cab across the Brooklyn Bridge and admire the skyline that way. If it’s skyline you’re interested in.” I switch sides holding my wedding dress plastic bag and my purse. Just to make the point, you know, that some of us are carrying stuff here.

  “Great!” says Tenaj. “How often do you get to walk the Brooklyn Bridge in February?”

  “I’ve gone a whole lifetime never doing it,” says Maggie.

  And that makes them laugh again. I swear, it’s like these two are drunk. Maggie starts talking about a time she got drunk in college and climbed up on the cafeteria roof with a bunch of her friends. And Tenaj tells her about smoking dope in front of a cop one time and casting a spell on him so he wouldn’t arrest her.

  My two delinquent moms. Of course I can so picture Tenaj doing that—hell, I may have even been there!—but Maggie? I turn and look at her.

  “Maggie, what in the world were you thinking?”

  “That it would be fun. I jumped off, too. And it was one of the high points of my life, I have to say.”

  “Being bad sometimes is,” says Tenaj. “Unfortunately.”

  And they go off into peals of laughter once more.

  “I think you two got drunk when I wasn’t looking,” I say. “And before I can walk across a bridge, I think I need some serious food.”

  “No, no, let’s just get a
hot dog off a cart!” says Maggie. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  And so we do. Hot dogs and a pretzel, cans of Coke.

  Tenaj meets my eye and gives me a big, thousand-watt smile. I know this version of her. She is now in control, and she and the universe will be running things from now on.

  I feel this impulse, seeing her this way, to tell her about Adam. I want to tell both my moms about him. I want to talk about him so much! Just to say his name out loud and to tell about the Snow Hurricane and the way we talked in the bar that day. How he knew so much about love. How he made me feel. I’d show them Gnomeo, still in my purse.

  Tenaj tilts her head, questioningly. She knows I have something to say.

  Then we walk through Cadman Plaza and down the path to the bridge. Its limestone arches frame the skyline. I take a breath in and don’t say anything at all.

  This day grows old and loose by the time we’ve made it across and have settled, tired and happy, in a divey kind of dumpling place in Chinatown, far from the crowds. It’s starting to get dark, and we sit in a booth, drinking wine, like old friends.

  “We need to have a toast,” says Tenaj. “To the Brooklyn Bridge!”

  “And to Phronsie and Judd, wading into the treacherous waters of marriage!” says Maggie.

  “And God knows they are treacherous,” says Tenaj. She looks at me meaningfully.

  “Be quiet, you two,” I say. “You’re not supposed to be scaring brides. Even if you were married to the same man.”

  “Yeah, well, somebody should have scared me off from marriage,” Tenaj is saying. “I got married four times—”

  “Four?” Maggie and I say at the same time. I add, “I only know about three.”

  “Well, it was four,” says Tenaj. “Which is the perfect number of times for me to know that I don’t ever want to do it again.”

  “I don’t ever want to do it again either,” says Maggie, “and I only got married once.”

  We look at her. Maggie takes a sip of her chardonnay and puts the glass down and works her mouth around.

  “Okay, I’m admitting it. I think I’m going to leave Robert,” she says quietly.