Nine Women, One Dress

by Jane L. Rosen

  The fountain in the middle of the square started to spin before my eyes. It was hard to comprehend what she was saying. I steadied myself against the wall.

  “Give me a minute,” I said. She lowered her head and let me stand, leaning against the side of a building, while I tried to wrap my head around what was happening here. Was this the end of my marriage?

  When I could feel my feet on the ground again, I asked her, “You mean this was all a setup? You and me—we’re a setup to catch me being unfaithful?”

  Tears started to run down her face. I felt a flash of anger that she was playing the victim.

  “No, no, no!” she shouted. “Only our first meeting, the one in the dress department at Bloomingdale’s—I was on the job then. But I fired Caroline when I found out the truth about her. I guess she’s hired someone else. I’m sorry, John, I should have told you, but it’s unethical. God, listen to me talking about ethics.”

  I looked into her eyes searchingly.

  “We never met because of fate. I kept on tracking you even after I fired her. I know that sounds so stalkerish and awful. But the awful thing is, today was truly an accidental meeting.” She paused and looked down, dejected. “And now, I’m sure, it’s our last meeting…of any kind.”

  I was so nonreactive that she just kept on talking. It was a lot to take in, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

  “John, I don’t want to contribute to her false case against you. As of now there isn’t one compromising photo of us—we came out of the theater like two friends who just saw a movie. If I need to, I will testify to the truth—that she’s trying to set you up and that there’s nothing going on between us.”

  “The photographer is still watching us?” I asked, finding my voice.

  She looked over my shoulder. “Yes, his lens is pointed right at us.”

  “Why did you keep tracking me?” I asked her, praying for the words I wanted to hear. “After you fired my wife—Caroline, I mean—why did you keep following me?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I…like you. I missed you. I tried, but I couldn’t stay away from you.”

  And there it was. All of a sudden the whole mess seemed to resolve into clarity. My wife of twelve years wanted to get away from me so badly that she had resorted to entrapment, and Andie couldn’t stay away from me. My silence must have scared her, because her next words were spoken in a tone that was all business.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “This will be a long fight and most definitely a court battle, but no matter what happens to my career, I will testify about what I’ve done and what we haven’t. I can testify to her attempt at collusion and procurement. It won’t be easy, but she will leave your marriage with nothing more than she came in with.”

  Scenes from every divorce movie from Kramer vs. Kramer to The War of the Roses ran through my head. The fountain in front of the Plaza began to spin again. I squeezed my eyes tight. Maybe it was the cinematic setting, maybe it was the sudden moment of clarity, but I knew what I had to do.

  In one of the most storied spots in all Manhattan, I took Andie Rand’s face in my hands and kissed her with a passion I had not felt in years. In my head I imagined I could hear the shutter of the photographer’s camera.

  She broke away in protest. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  I smiled at her, feeling sure of myself for the first time in a long time. “Kiss the girl or waste months in a drawn-out court battle with my cheating wife and, let’s not forget, the mother of my child? I am most definitely not crazy.”

  I kissed her again. This time she gave in. When we finally came up for air, she laughed. “That kiss is going to cost you.”

  I laughed as well. “What’s five million dollars, give or take, when you have more money than you could ever use?”

  She smiled. “I meant lunch.”

  “How about the Oyster Bar?” I asked.

  “It’s a date.” She laughed again.

  “Our first,” I said, taking her hand in mine as we both practically skipped down Fifth Avenue, our own personal photographer in tow. I knew I had a lot of important decisions ahead of me, but for now I would just concentrate on the first: lobster bisque or clam chowder?

  CHAPTER 33

  ’Til Death Do Us Part

  By Seth Carson, Five-Time Loser (Soon to Be Six)

  Age: Old enough to know better

  I work at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue. It might sound to you like I’m saying that with pride. I’m not. The only thing I’m proud of is my biceps. Other people who work here definitely do it with pride. Even the security guard who works the night shift acts like he’s guarding the crown jewels. I will say, if you die in New York City, the Frank E. Campbell funeral home is the place to go—the last club worth becoming a member of. You would be counted along with famous actors, singers, politicians, and a whole slew of over-the-top rich people. My boss still goes on about Judy Garland’s and John Lennon’s funerals, but if I was going to name-drop, I would mention Biggie Smalls and the mobster Frank Costello. I wouldn’t have minded being here for those two. Most days are just normal people—normal dead people, that is.

  Today I was hoping to be out by five so I could pick up a present for my new girlfriend’s birthday, but the undertaking business is so damn unpredictable. That’s what my boss was always preaching: You have to be available, Seth. “People don’t phone us on Tuesday saying, ‘We’ll be pulling the plug on Aunt Becky on Thursday.’ No one forwards an advance copy of his suicide note to the mortician—‘Feeling desperately depressed and will not be able to hold on much longer. Please expect me next Thursday by three.’ ”

  He thinks he’s being funny, and everyone makes it worse by laughing at him. Personally, I don’t think it’s funny at all. Everything else has to be booked in advance—dinner reservations, back waxing, car detailing, everything but death. And that’s how the woman from the front page of today’s Post has jammed up my Friday night.

  They brought her in at two to be embalmed. Embalming usually takes around three hours, dressing and casketing around one. My job was just the last part, to dress and casket the body. I wasn’t trained to be an embalmer, and I’ve been told I’m not nice enough to handle the intake process—dealing with grieving family members takes some kind of sensitivity that I apparently don’t have. I’m better with dead people. Whatever. I’d been here longer than at any other job I’d had since failing college, and I was getting used to it. Though believe me, it took some getting used to.

  I even told my new girlfriend the truth about what I did. I’d lied to the last two girls I got with. But this one seemed so open and understanding. I met her online two months ago. My profile still says penny stock trader, which was actually four careers ago. I haven’t held down a job long enough to bother changing it. And this isn’t really a job you want to write on a dating profile. But I told her, and she was pretty nice about it. She knew that Heath Ledger had been embalmed here and even thought that undertaking was an admirable profession. Maybe next week I’ll tell her that I’m not really five-foot-nine.

  I tried to skip out during the embalming process, but my boss caught me and asked me to assist. One of our top embalmers had cut his hours and it was a scheduling nightmare. My boss was always pushing me to go get my embalming license, saying he would even pay for it if I signed a long contract with him. But there’s no way I was ever going back to school. This really was a dead-end job.

  I told the embalmer, a really strange guy named Gus, that I was in a big rush. I had to shower and pick up a gift for my girlfriend’s birthday tonight. He said he would help me dress and casket too. This was good, except it meant that I had to listen to his endless stories. By the time we were ready for my part it was after five. If I hurried, I would still have time to pick up something for my girlfriend but not to shower. I guess that’s what Drakkar Noir is for.

  I made the mistake of commenting on the dead lady’s casket outfit
as I pulled it out of the Bloomingdale’s bag. It was a new black designer dress with the tags still on. “What a waste of a new dress,” I said. This led to Gus rattling off death fashion trivia—an endless list of who wore what to the grave.

  “Princess Diana was also buried in a black dress that she had recently purchased,” he said, sounding like a walking, talking Wikipedia page.

  I nodded and tried to keep us moving.

  “Whitney Houston was buried in so much jewelry that she still needs a bodyguard!” He waited for me to laugh. I didn’t.

  Just as he started in on whether or not Michael Jackson was buried with his white sequined glove, my boss interrupted, holding a pair of black pumps and an emerald-green suit.

  “The family dropped off her clothes…Great Scott, what are you two doing?”

  “His name is Seth, sir,” Gus answered, like an idiot.

  “Two morons,” my boss said, shaking his head.

  I wasn’t being put in a category with Gus. I defended myself. “Someone already dropped her clothes off, right there in that Bloomingdale’s bag.”

  “I told you, that bag was one of her personal effects at time of death. The whole city knows this woman died with a bag from Bloomie’s.” He held up the suit. “This is what the family is expecting.” He put it down and left, still shaking his head and mumbling curses under his breath. I, on the other hand, spent the next hour cursing out loud so everyone could hear except the dead lady in the wrong dress.

  CHAPTER 34

  ’Tis the Season

  By Ruthie, Third Floor, Ladies’ Dresses

  The store was extra-bustling, even for the week before Christmas. Probably on account of the view of the giant sinkhole in the ground out the west-side windows. We hadn’t been this much of a tourist attraction since the 1970s, when some marketing genius made Bloomie’s ladies’ undies a must-have NYC souvenir. Today it was so crowded I didn’t see Arthur Winters walk quite purposefully through the dress department, but Tomás certainly did. He nearly crawled inside a rack of dresses. We hadn’t seen Arthur since Tomás pulled the switcheroo with the dress, and we had no idea how it had all turned out. Obviously Tomás feared the worst. I rushed over to help iron out anything that might need ironing out. Tomás reluctantly followed behind me.

  “Hi, Arthur, how are you?” I greeted him, a little too upbeat.

  “Very well, Ruthie, thank you. I’m not being disloyal, but I came to see this fellow—Tomás, right?” Tomás barely nodded his head while diverting his eyes to all available exits. Arthur added, “My fiancée sent me.”

  His fiancée? I met Tomás’s eyes, and we both assumed the same thing—he was talking about Sherri. We silently commiserated with each other as Arthur continued.

  “She said that you had the best fashion sense of anyone she’s ever seen and was hoping that Ruthie would let you slip away to the men’s department to help me pick out a suit for my wedding.”

  But this had to be Felicia! I remembered that Tomás had spent hours styling her for their first date. I was so happy. Tomás was bursting with enthusiasm. He grabbed Arthur’s shoulders and practically shook him.

  “You’re marrying Felicia? You’re marrying Felicia?” he shouted, losing all semblance of professional composure.

  Arthur nodded and we both hugged him. He looked utterly confused, and Tomás explained. “The mix-up with the packages was kind of my fault, and, well, let’s just say I’ve been a bit worried about it ever since.”

  “That mix-up with the packages was the best thing that’s happened to me in quite a long time.” Arthur smiled.

  “It wasn’t really a mix-up! We’re your fairy godmothers!” Tomás exclaimed. “Tell us everything…please!”

  Arthur explained how dinner at the Four Seasons that night had begun awkwardly but had left him wanting to see Felicia again. And how they had their first kiss in front of the City Hall entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge and now would be going back to City Hall this week to marry.

  “Wow, that was quick!” I was so thrilled I could barely contain myself.

  “Quick?” Tomás fired back. “Felicia has been waiting for years!”

  Arthur laughed, his eyes glistening with happiness. “Can I borrow him for an hour?”

  “Of course!” I beamed. “As long as you let me help pick out her gift for your first anniversary.”

  “Who else?” He smiled, adding, “And for my new assistant’s birthday as well.”

  Score one for middle-aged ladies everywhere, I thought as the two went off to find the perfect suit.

  CHAPTER 35

  Curtain Call One

  By Luke Siegel, M.D.

  Of marrying age

  As I ducked out of Exam One my phone buzzed again. It was getting harder and harder to ignore. The text messages were all variations on the same theme. Lucas, call me when you have a break. Call me between rounds. Call your bubbe back already, it’s not nice.

  Oh, how I rue the day I taught my grandmother how to text. I thought it would be easier than the constant phone calls, but it was worse—even more constant. She had the tenacity of a seventeen-year-old girl looking for an AWOL boyfriend on prom night. I knew what she wanted. Tomorrow night was my Grandpa Morris’s retirement dinner. He’s been a garment center pattern-maker for seventy-five years. Seventy-five years: a big achievement—record-breaking, I believe. Of course my brother and I were going. But my brother was going with his wife and child, while I barely left the ER long enough for a date, let alone procreation. Becoming a doctor had once cemented my standing as star grandchild, but my M.D. was wearing out its luster with my grandmother. I was nearing thirty, and suddenly the lack of a Mrs. by my side rendered the initials by my name practically inconsequential. My lack of a wife, or even a girlfriend, or even a prospect of either, was the eternal thorn in my bubbe’s side, and reversing this travesty, as she referred to it, was the main purpose of her existence.

  “I can’t die till my Lucas settles down,” she’d say.

  To which I’d always respond, “If that’s the case, I never will!”

  She would shake her head and declare in Yiddish, “Nor a shteyn zol zayn aleyn.” Translation: Only a stone should be alone. It didn’t make any sense to me in either language.

  I entered Exam Two for my next patient. A restless young woman and her gum-chewing friend both sat, fully clothed, on the table. I reached out my hand.

  “Hi. I’m Dr. Siegel. What and who is the problem?”

  The gum-chewer answered for her friend. “We were out celebrating her birthday, and suddenly she couldn’t stop itching.”

  Sure enough, the other girl was scratching everywhere she could reach.

  “Okay. Put on this gown, open in the front, bra and underwear stay on. I’ll come back in a few minutes. Do you want your friend to stay for the exam?”

  “Yes, please—she’s reading me Entertainment Weekly to distract me.”

  I ducked outside the curtain and texted my grandmother. What’s up, Bubbe? I typed as the gum-chewing friend continued reading: “Engagements. Maybe you’ll be engaged by your next birthday! Seth got you such a nice gift for this one, and you’ve only been together a short time.”

  “Don’t get carried away,” the patient replied. “I mean, it’s an awesome gift, but notice who’s sitting in the ER with me?”

  “Good point,” the gum-chewer answered, and continued. “Engagements. Actor Jeremy Madison to wed Bloomingdale’s employee Natalie Canaras. The two got engaged on the R train in Queens after a flash mob he hired performed ‘Your Love Is Lifting Me Higher.’ Onlookers said he got down on one knee and proposed with a five-carat cushion-cut ring.”

  “Are you ready?” I called through the curtain.

  “She’s good,” the friend answered.

  “I swear I think I’d rather have this original Max Hammer than a five-carat ring!” the itchy girl said as I entered the room.

  “Ha, I thought I recognized your dress,” I butted in. I couldn’t
help it. “My grandfather works for Max Hammer. Well, he did. He’s actually retiring tomorrow.”

  “Wow, that’s my favorite designer. I’m getting my master’s in design at Parsons. My boyfriend bought me a dress of his for my birthday tonight,” she said as she pointed to it, neatly hanging on a hanger like a prize. “It’s, like, the dress of the season,” she gushed, momentarily forgetting her itchy agony.

  I examined her. Her horrible rash looked like it was roughly in the pattern of the dress.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m afraid you won’t be wearing that dress again. You have contact dermatitis. There are two kinds, irritant and allergic.” I grabbed her chart as my phone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket just to make sure it wasn’t an emergency. It read, Are you bringing a date to Grandpa’s party?

  I groaned. They noticed. The gum-chewer came right out and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  I laughed. “Nothing. It’s just my grandma—she’s driving me crazy with texts.”

  The itchy girl, who I couldn’t help but notice was quite pretty, thought this was the cutest thing she’d ever heard. I know this because she said, “That’s the cutest thing I ever heard! A grandma who texts!”

  “I taught her,” I responded, knowing damn well that that would now be the cutest thing she’d ever heard. I was right.

  “Oh my god, you taught her, that is the cutest thing I ever heard!” She smiled through her itchiness. She was a trouper. I looked at the chart.

  “So, Samantha Schwartz”—Jewish, I noted to myself, silently cursing my grandmother for brainwashing me—“it says here no allergies. Is that correct?”

  “That’s right. Well, never before today,” she added sadly. I could tell that she loved that dress.

  “Let’s get you on an IV of Benadryl, then see what this dress is made of.”