Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown

by Adena Halpern

  Walking down that red carpet, stopping at every step for Pete to be interviewed and photographed, I loved how he held my hand as I prayed that anyone from Harriton High School’s 1987 graduating class would be watching Access Hollywood the following night when the interviewer said to him, “And who’s this gorgeous lady on your arm?” followed by Pete’s perfectly enunciated, self-assured, indisputable response of “The gorgeous lady on my arm is my girlfriend Adena Halpern,” followed by the interviewer turning the mic to me and asking, “Adena, who are you wearing tonight?” Followed by my efficient and sophisticated toned answer, “We’re both in Prada tonight.” What a feeling! Much to my great sorrow, however, that part didn’t make it on Access Hollywood, but if anyone was watching that night and didn’t blink, they would have seen me in a very brief shot giving an air-kiss hello to the actress who starred in the movie.

  There’s something about wearing a $3,000 dress that makes you stand up straighter, smile brighter, feel thinner. Sure, I had about twenty yards of Lycra underneath the dress, pulling in my thighs and stomach and blooming my size 32A breasts, making them look like I could nurse Wisconsin. Still, the feeling of walking into the ladies’ room and turning around to get a look at my padded ass silhouetted by the black Prada over it was a feeling I’d never felt before. Everything looked like I wanted it to. The boobs were up and cleavaged. The stomach was in. The ass was ... I had an ass! Everything was where it was supposed to be, and like Narcissus before me, I might have missed the rest of the party altogether because I could not get over my own reflection in the mirror.

  “That’s a great dress,” I heard as I turned to see a blond-haired woman in a white Versace suit standing before me. “You look great in it. It’s Prada, right?”

  I nodded, affirming her question. I think.

  “I’ll have to call over for that,” she said, straightening her red string Kabbalah bracelet and walking out the door like a ray of light as quickly as she walked in.

  “Was that who I think it was?” another woman in the ladies’ room asked me.

  I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe, and I’d lost all feeling in my body. I had gone blind. I stared back at the woman, trying to find clarity along with the oxygen my body was begging for.

  “She’s calling over for my dress!” I eeked out.

  The Sixth Woman You Meet in Los Angeles

  ina had become my new best friend, the kind who you can say anything to and vice versa, and a new member of our group.

  She had also become the one to call for any situation.

  “I have a baby shower in two weeks!” Serena cried.

  “Masse Made to Measure on North Flores, white-and-blue-striped dress, right side of the store, fourth dress in on the third rack,” Lina told her.

  “Should I get the blue T-shirt or the green one, or maybe the red one?” Rachel cried.

  “Green. Goes with your eyes,” Lina told her.

  “Emmy Awards. She wants to know if she can wear pants,” Susan’s assistant asked.

  “Which row is she sitting in?”

  “Sixteenth row.”

  “No. She must wear a dress. Any woman sitting in the first twenty rows wears a dress.”

  She was blunt (most times too blunt), savvy, extremely knowledgeable, and most of all, naturally fashionable. It is my belief that there are a few people in this world—not many, just some—who have the ability to use the side of their brain that’s meant for picking out the best outfits possible for any occasion. You know that person. It could be a friend, but more possibly an enemy who arrives at the party or the restaurant or the supermarket in just the right jeans or dress and accessorized with exactly the right earrings or bracelet. This was Lina.

  For Lina’s personal style, however, she didn’t wear Prada or Chloé or Dior. They wore her, and this was something I took early note of. Her body was nothing to scream about. She was on the tall side, about 5’6”, she was naturally thin and didn’t work out, leaving some flab here and there; but her attitude about the clothes on her back was that she hated everything, but wore it on the basis of the fact that she needed to put something on. This was why she looked good in them. She wasn’t excited about the Chanel suit she borrowed from a photo shoot. What mattered was that it fit accordingly on the body and for the occasion. The gold bangled bracelets or hoop earrings that she threw on as she was running out the door might have taken me hours to contemplate. Not Lina. She was a professional.

  “How do you do it?” I asked her one day when she showed up for lunch wearing a large scarf wrapped around her waist, forming a tight-fitting miniskirt and an old, worn gray T-shirt with just the right sags in the neck and tightness in the sleeves.

  “It was ninety degrees today,” she said, grabbing a piece of bread. “All my other skirts were in the laundry, so I had to improvise.”

  “And how long did it take you to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying to change the subject, acting like it was the most ridiculous of conversations. “Like, on the way to my car in the garage.”

  On the work front, I had taken Kelsey’s place as the fashion plate of the Promo House and the twenty-four-year-olds were thrilled with the conquest.

  “Where did you get that top?” Kelsey asked as I passed her in the hall.

  “Oh this? It was sent over to me. It’s Stella McCartney” I brushed off the comment. “You know, Stella is so environmentally friendly, and that’s what I’m all about right now.”

  For the two of us, I don’t know how much money Pete paid Lina. (He wouldn’t tell me, saying, “Who cares, just as long as you’re happy.”) But she became a central figure in our house, which was something I sorely needed.

  Almost every night, there was an occasion to be dressed for.

  Whether it was a black-tie benefit to cure AIDS, diabetes, autism, heart disease, Alzheimer‘s, or breast, ovarian, prostate, or lung cancer, there was the perfect dress that went along with it.

  If there was a benefit to raise awareness about rape; starving children; starving children in Africa; starving children in Chech nya, the Sudan, or Russia; suicide; women’s issues; men’s issues; terrorism; politics; mental health; or pollution, there was a dress that went along with it.

  We were always getting dressed up to save something, whether it was the whales, the water, the rain forest, the redwood trees, the children, arctic wildlife, the black rhino, the chimps, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, or the manatees—which I thought said “matinees” on the invite and was excited to go, since going to the movies in the afternoon has always been a passion of mine. One week, after three nights of hobnobbing to save this or that, we were at an organ-transplant-awareness dinner and Pete joked to our table as we dug into the pate, “Save the liver” in a Julia Child/Dan Aykroyd SNL impersonation that no one else at our table thought was as hysterically funny as the two of us did.

  And everywhere we went, someone got an award. There was the lifetime achievement award for film, television, and theatre. There were the crossover awards, the ones given to famous actors or directors who had a passion for those living in poverty, or who had just made a movie about someone who suffered from muscular dystrophy. At first, I felt it was important to lend my support to these events. After a while, however, it was like a TV movie’s cliché: the disease of the week. One night, Pete got an award for his achievement in helping to bring the arts back into inner-city schools. We forgot that he was being honored until we got to the benefit and saw his picture on the marquee.

  “What disorder are we honoring tonight?” I asked Pete one morning as we were brushing our teeth.

  “I think it’s spina bifida ... no, it’s something about getting kids off drugs.”

  It wasn’t that we didn’t care. We did; especially Pete. He was always wanting to give back for all the success he’d achieved, and I respected that and wholeheartedly read up on that particular night’s event. The problem was that it was getting
to the point where nothing was special anymore. 1 had overdosed on black tie and charity.

  Still, there was Lina, arriving on the afternoon of the event with the dress for the occasion. Underwear from Target was heading farther and farther back into the lingerie drawer, being replaced by padded underwear and girdle tops. One day Pete came home with a huge box for me. I opened it to find forty pairs of Cosabella underwear.

  “They were a PR thing that Cosabella sent over,” he said, grabbing a banana and looking at his BlackBerry. “They want us to put it on the actress for the new movie. I told them to send some over for you. I love to see you in sexy underwear.”

  So I started wearing the boy-cut sheers in black, red, and pink.

  My six-inch heels were being replaced by three-inch heels, which I felt way too short in until Lina assured me that my other shoes were “horrible.”

  “You’re not fooling anyone with those high heels,” she said. “Everyone can plainly see that you’re four-eleven.”

  “Five-two and a half,” I sauced back at her.

  “Yes, with the three-inch heels, you’re five-two and a half. It’s time to be the real you,” she said, putting her arms around me and making me feel like I was at some sort of an intervention. “Accept your height. Get real. Use what you have.”

  As I entered Serena’s house for a dinner party one night she looked down at me and said, “Why do you look so short?”

  “I’m being the real me,” I told her as I slumped by.

  I came home one day to find that all of my Calvin Klein athletic bras were gone, and push-up bras sat in their place. Cosabella sent Pete’s office more than forty bras that all happened to be my size—32A. If there is one thing I know for sure in this world, lace push-up bras, while stunning to look at, are not for running on the treadmill. The support is shockingly bleak and, frankly, downright itchy from the lace. The feeling of pulling your bra down at each interval is not a milestone of celebration one wants to display on a busy Saturday at the gym.

  In short, I was starting to hate Lina. I started to hate what she brought me for each occasion. I missed Banana Republic back-room sales and buying Drano, Comet, and Tide laundry detergent along with my underwear at Target.

  “Never wash your clothes with low-class laundry detergent,” Lina scolded me once. “Caldrea, Good Home, or Beach House. Those are the only products I would ever use.”

  One night, I’d just had enough.

  There was a dinner honoring a woman who had learned to walk again after being crushed in an auto accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Lina thought this occasion called for the shortest of skirts.

  “It’s a celebration of the legs,” she said. “It’s the one thing you’ve both got going for you.”

  I almost slapped her after that statement.

  I looked at Pete as I watched him put on the John Varvatos blue suit, the one that Lina and I had picked out for him the week before at the opening of the new John Varvatos shop on Melrose.

  “I can’t do this tonight,” I told him. “I have to put on sweats and order Chinese,” I said, sinking onto the bed and clutching the blankets.

  “I’m glad you said that,” he said, loosening his tie. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  He threw himself on the bed next to me and we embraced.

  “I’m starting to lose brain cells from all that Lycra,” I said, laughing.

  “Maybe we should have a benefit for you,” he joked.

  “I am going to throw on my nastiest, oldest sweats and that crazy sweater you had woven from your dead dog’s fur,” I said, getting up.

  “Don’t be mean to Banjo’s memory; I love that sweater.” He pouted, grabbing the sweater and petting the arm. “It’s like Banjo is still here.”

  “If you love it, I love it,” I said, grabbing an old pair of sweatpants.

  “Hey, put on the sweats that Lina got for you,” he said in that matter-of-fact tone I’d come to know so well.

  Making Scents

  y aunt Judy Savitt had come to Los Angeles on vacation, and we made plans to have dinner one night. As Judy got into my car and I started to drive, I smelled a wonderful scent that to me screamed hugs, laughter, frustration, appreciation, degradation, admiration, anger, respect, disapproval, and, of course, love.

  “Are you wearing Carolina Herrera perfume?” I asked her.

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “It suddenly smelled like my mom was here.”

  It’s hard for me to date a guy who wears Cartier cologne. It smells like my father is there, watching every move the guy makes.

  I can be in a department store and a perfume saleswoman will ask me if I want to try Giorgio Armani’s Acqua Di Gio.

  “Why bother?” I tell her. “All I have to do is go to my friend Rachel’s house and smell her. Same goes for my friend Susan and Burberry Brit.”

  Luckily Heidi has a big mouth or I’d never know she’d entered a room; she’s allergic to perfume.

  Someone at the next table in a restaurant will be squeezing some lemon into her Diet Coke and I will suddenly think of Serena. She always wears this fragrance she first bought in Paris called Eau d‘Hadrien by Annick Goutal. Very lemony and fresh. I get the same feeling when I take a sniff of makeup powder and automatically think of my childhood best friend Amy Chaikin’s Anaïs Anaïs fetish in high school. Amy called me recently and told me that she’s really into wearing Marc Jacobs perfume. Since we live three thousand miles away from each other, whenever I miss her, I take a sniff of it in a department store. It makes me feel a little closer to my dear old friend. My other childhood best friend Julie Pelagatti and I have lost touch. We had a disagreement a couple of years ago. I honestly can’t remember what it was about. As teenagers, just before we’d head into a party, Julie would spritz on some Giorgio by Giorgio Beverly Hills that she kept in her glove compartment. Just last week, a woman passed me on the street wearing that unmistakably abundant bouquet of jasmine, rose, and amber. It made me very sad.

  It’s not so much the smell of Fragile perfume by Jean Paul Gaultier that makes me think of my cousin Michele. It’s the cool snow globe with the gold flakes that fly around the pretty lady inside wearing the strapless black dress. Every time I’m in Michele’s bedroom, I shake the bottle. Same goes for when I’m in a department store. It’s so fun and glamorous, just like my cousin who wears it.

  The smell of Calvin Klein’s Obsession, however, makes me think about my taxes. It’s the scent my accountant wears. Hemp hair gel’s citrus scent reminds me that I have to get my teeth cleaned. It’s the aroma I smell on Dr. Oche, my dentist, when he’s looking into my mouth. I Profumi di Firenze smells like I have to get my roots done. It’s my hairdresser’s signature scent.

  My signature fragrance is Donna Karan’s Cashmere Mist body lotion. I like the body lotion scent better than the scent that comes from the atomizer. It just smells cleaner, less alcohol-y, I don’t know. I’ve asked saleswomen why, and they tell me it’s something in the mix of the lotion and perfume or something like that. I’ve also tried the Cashmere Mist shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, and decorative scented candle but, in the end, I’ve found that using the body lotion is just enough. Too much, and I start to feel like I could sprout a garden out of my ears. I’ve been wearing Cashmere Mist for years—not for everyday, but for nights that I go to dinner with friends or to a party or for romantic occasions.

  I always put my Cashmere Mist on the same way: I apply it to all the pressure points like the magazines have told me to do—on my wrists, my neck, behind my ears, around my shoulders, and under my boobs. I don’t remember what magazine told me to apply it under my boobs, but it doesn’t seem to hurt.

  Sometimes, if I want to feel extra special, I put it on my legs so I smell extra fantastic, but that’s not too often, as I don’t like the wet feeling of the lotion on my legs sticking slightly to my pants if I’m wearing them.

  I’ve always gotten compliments on my Cashmere M
ist. The guys love it. “You always smell so good,” some of them have told me in the past.

  The best part about all of it is that no one else who is close to me wears Cashmere Mist. It’s all mine. It’s my scent, just like the friends and family I’ve mentioned have their scents.

  Coco Chanel once said of perfume, “It is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion ... that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure.” Don’t you love that? I could not agree more with Ms. Chanel. It is the sweetened addition to the people we care most about in our lives and the ones who come in briefly and leave that indelible mark.

  The Buy

  ill you marry me?“

  When you stop to think about it, it’s pretty much the most mesmerizing question someone could ever ask.

  A person is telling you that they want to spend every day for the rest of their life with you until they die. No matter what your problem is, no matter your little idiosyncrasies, annoying habits, criminal record, or otherwise, that’s all fine, they know all about that stuff and they still want to spend the rest of their lives with you until they die. To add to it, they want to get up in front of your friends and family and in front of a religious figure or a judge or anyone legally acceptable to make this promise binding. The search is over. You are the mythical figure they mentioned in conversation “The person I marry ...” or “I hope to find my soul mate one day....” It’s you. You are the one they want to be with until they are no more.

  Not only is it a really heavy thing to grasp, but wow, how flattering.

  This was what was going through my mind when Pete took out the six-carat emerald-cut diamond engagement ring from Tiffany’s and asked for my hand in marriage.

  It was a nothing Thursday in 2003. Friends was a rerun that night, so earlier that morning I mentioned to Pete that maybe we’d go out to dinner, which he was fine with. No mention of where we’d go had been discussed. Nothing, not even Pete, seemed out of the ordinary. It was a sunny Thursday March day in Southern California, highs were in the low seventies, and I wore a pair of True Religion jeans and a black Co-Op knit cardigan with a white button-down shirt underneath untucked, skimming the tops of my thighs, leaving a nice unpolished, comfortable look for my nothing-out-of-the-ordinary day on the eighth floor at the Promo House offices. Pete wore his usual unordinary attire: a James Perse T-shirt—this one was long sleeve in black—Levi‘s, and his black Prada driving shoes. I saw him once during the day when he came down to give me a quick kiss hello before he went to lunch, something he normally did. He didn’t seem happier to see me, just normal-happy to see his gal.