Measure of Love

by Melissa Ford

  But this time, I can look at myself inquisitively, one step removed from the emotions that Lisbeth is clearly feeling as she wipes away a few stray tears and then laughs, embarrassed. “Whatever,” she says, motioning toward her reflection. “I never thought I’d see myself in a wedding dress.”

  I wonder if she thinks there is something wrong with me because I’m not crying. I pretend to be examining my dress while Lisbeth gets down to business, stretching and leaning and twisting to take in every inch of the gown, an empire-waisted column dress that looks as if it came straight off the pages of Jane Eyre. She gives an almost imperceptible shake of her head and steps off the pedestal. “This isn’t the One,” she confides. “And yours is pretty and all, but it’s totally not you.”

  Annisa steps out from wherever she was hiding to help Lisbeth out of one dress and into another. Alone in the room, I stare at my eyes in the mirror, trying to discern what I’m feeling. What it is like to be back in a wedding dress again after thinking over a decade ago that it would be the only time I ever walked down the aisle? It feels as if I’m playing dress up with someone else’s life; someone who is getting remarried and has a first book coming out soon. Someone whose skin is a little tighter than mine.

  I gently step off the pedestal too, stretching my arms backward to pull down the zipper carefully. These are the little tricks that disappear with disuse, the single girl’s Houdinisms. What else will I lose by marrying again, the tiny lessons that came back to me over the course of the last year and a half?

  I shimmy out of the dress in my little room right as my cell phone starts buzzing to let me know that I have an email. I root around in my jeans to find it, snapping it open to reveal a note from my publisher letting me know that she’s mailing me a few advance copies and wanting to know whether I have any other reviewers to add to my miniscule list of connections. We’re not that far from her office, but I restrain myself from hitting reply and saying that I’ll swing by to grab the books and save the postage. I’m dying to see what the manuscript looks like bound.

  She ends the email with a quick reference to the Times and a not-so-disguised hint that she still thinks it would be a terrible idea to be featured in the Sunday Styles. “We’re so happy for you, but we really think that you should keep a low profile in regards to the wedding.” Punctuating the last thought is a passive-aggressive smiley face emoticon.

  I snap the phone off and toss it onto my balled up jeans, then pick it up and throw it again into the pile for good measure. Who the hell over the age of twelve even uses emoticons much less tacks them on to what amounts to a command: thou shall not publicly admit that you are the last author in the world who should be producing a divorce book. I get it, it’s awkward. It creates this strange dynamic if the self-declared expert—who is only an expert based on the fact that she has been through the same experience—no longer actually belongs to the group to which she’s preaching. But still, I would hope that the majority of people would see that this is exactly what we’re all aiming for, what we’re all supporting each other to reach. So many of us are striving for happy, committed relationships—shouldn’t we support each other when one of us steps out of the trenches and walks down the aisle again?

  And at the same time, I see Amy’s point as much as I’d like to ignore it and think that it doesn’t matter. I certainly didn’t seek advice from happily married women when I was in the throes of divorce. I didn’t even want to see brides and spent a large chunk of the one wedding I attended while divorced in the bathroom, crying with a random single female stranger I met. Misery loves like-minded company, not just company in general. If I’m going to eat containers of ice cream and go through ten thousand Kleenex, I want to do it with someone who is in a similar state, not someone who is going to leave our girl time and go back to her husband, probably thinking in the back of her head, thank God I’m not her.

  Having to hear everyone else’s opinion is like having a continuous chorus in my head. It’s never quiet enough to hear the solo.

  I sink onto the ground, half-listening to Lisbeth’s conversation with Annisa. What if there was another book after this one? Obviously, not one about marrying your ex-husband again but a guide to falling in love? How to trust in your relationship when you’ve been burned in the past? How to plan a second wedding? I mean, don’t most people want to date again after divorce, maybe even get married again one day? They need a book that will hold their hand through the process, and I could write that book. It would solve every problem: I would be the best sort of divorce expert, one prepared to take them not only through the process of ending one relationship but also starting another.

  This thought cheers me up tremendously, and I return to trying on gowns while I write the book proposal in my head. The Divorced Girl’s Guide to Falling in Love Again. It’s perfect. I’ll be able to tell everyone about the engagement and get more work out of it to boot.

  The next dress slides off the hanger like a snake shedding its skin, shimmering with millions of tiny pieces of sequins. Seeing the beads makes me think about Arianna, and I have a strong urge to retrieve my phone from the floor and call her. I squat back down in my half-zipped dress and dial so I can tell her about my new book idea as well as convey how much I miss her. At first I think that she’s picking up, and I take a deep breath getting ready to speak, but I get her voicemail and decide not to leave a message. We feel too old to wistfully tell a fellow Manhattanite that I miss them when we’re in the same city.

  I take off the dress without even looking in the mirror, carefully placing it back on its hanger. I resolve to call her again on the way home, or better yet, to swing by her apartment tonight and spend some time with her. It’s been so long since we’ve just hung out on her sofa after Beckett has gone to bed.

  I’m still thinking about Arianna when my throat catches on the third dress before it is even over my hips, feeling like water as it slides smoothly over my skin. The bottom layer is cloudlike tulle, with a slightly sturdier bodice that clings to my chest, barely visible underwire shaping me. Over the tulle is a layer of organza that crosses over my shoulders, creating tiny rosettes where the material meets. The grosgrain sash is a pale version of Shoshana’s signature cerulean blue.

  When I step into the main room, even before I’ve even seen myself in the mirror, I know that I’ve found the One based on the look on Lisbeth’s face. She steps off her pedestal and runs to get a veil, throwing it over my hair before I can get to the mirror. I look stunning, exquisite, and every other adjective that means beautiful.

  Annisa slips in behind me to fuss with the sash, hook the tiny eyelet catch at the top of the zipper. “Shoshana calls this one ‘Something Blue’ even though the public name for it is Lamed,” Anissa says carefully, as if she has been practicing the Hebrew alphabet every night in front of her mirror. “She likes to give her gowns a single letter from the Hebrew alphabet for reference purposes, but all of them have a working nickname. This one is a two-fer—you take care of your dress and your something blue.”

  I have never wanted something tangible so badly.

  “You have to get it,” Lisbeth tells me after Annisa steps away politely. I stare at myself in the mirror, wholeheartedly agreeing with her in theory, though pointing out that there isn’t enough time to order a handmade gown even if I did have the budget for a Shoshana Shalom dress.

  “You’re a perfect size 6,” Lisbeth hisses. “Ask her if you can buy the sample.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You don’t know what she’ll say. Fine. I’ll ask. Annisa?” Lisbeth says sweetly. “We have this crazy situation that maybe you can help with. Rachel, my sister-in-law-to-be, who is a very famous blogger, by the way. Do you read Life from Scratch?”

  “Blogs?” asks Annisa as she tilts her head to the side as if to say that the word sounds familiar.

  “Fine, well, all you need to know i
s that she is very famous, and a lot of people read her blog every day. She is marrying my brother again in a few weeks. Yes, again, as in they were married, divorced, and they’re now remarrying each other for a second time. Isn’t that insanely romantic?”

  “Sure,” Annisa stutters, apparently unsure where Lisbeth’s story is heading.

  “She needs a dress, but she obviously doesn’t have time to order one because the wedding is in a few weeks. And if you don’t help us out today, she is going to need to buy some dreadful, off-the-rack-type thing. So. Do you think you could help us out?”

  “It’s going to take about six months to get your dress in for the first fitting,” Annisa tells us.

  “Exactly,” Lisbeth exclaims in her happiest voice, as if bestowing an academic medal on the salesgirl. “Which is why I want to purchase this sample dress today.”

  “Our samples are not for sale,” Annisa says firmly.

  “I know they’re not technically for sale,” Lisbeth needles. “But I’m willing to pay today—in cash—in order to walk out of the store with this sample. Which is actually doing you a favor. I mean, how many women want to own a dress that has been on the bodies of half of Manhattan? Shoshana will never make money off this sample. But we are willing to pay for it.”

  “All of our gowns are custom-made for your body. It’s an integrity thing. Shoshana would never want her name on a dress that didn’t fit the bride perfectly.”

  “And I respect her integrity, but Rachel has found the One, the Dress—with a capital D—and she doesn’t have time to order one. Plus, I think you’ll agree just looking at her that the sample fits her perfectly.”

  “It’s really impossible,” Annisa tells us, smiling curtly.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Lisbeth sings. “Can I speak to your manager?”

  “My manager is going to tell you the exact same thing, but if you’d like to speak to her, by all means, I’ll go get her.”

  By this point, I’m fluctuating between dying of embarrassment and still secretly hopeful that Lisbeth will be able to talk them into striking a deal. If anyone can do it, it’s my sister-in-law-to-be-again. But even she may have found her personal brick wall in Ayelet, the store manager, who, Annisa informs us, she had to pull out of a very important meeting with Shoshana herself. Ayelet stands stiffly, as if she’s still serving in the Israeli army, eyeing me up and down while Annisa fills her in on our conundrum.

  “No,” Ayelet barks, drill sergeant-style. “Cannot be done.”

  “But Annisa didn’t tell you about how my sister-in-law-to-be is really a famous writer, and she’ll be telling all of her readers about her dress. Millions of people are just waiting for her to reveal which designer she’ll be wearing.” I don’t bother to correct Lisbeth’s exaggeration but instead focus on looking as needy as possible.

  “Order a dress,” Ayelet counters.

  “But we can’t,” Lisbeth sighs loudly. “We don’t have time. The wedding is in just a few weeks.”

  “Then I’m sorry,” Ayelet tells us, not really sounding apologetic at all. She turns to Annisa and informs her that she needs to return to Shoshana. And Annisa, sensing that she is not going to make a sale today, unsnaps the eyelet closure and helps unzip the back so I can get out of her dress and leave the store.

  “Crap,” Lisbeth tells me, as we walk outside, frantically scrolling through her phone. “If she had brought up Shoshana, I’m sure she would have seen how gorgeous you look, and she would have agreed to sell it to us.” She finds whatever contact she is looking for and dials the number, plugging her free ear with her finger to keep out the New York noise. “Judd, you need to do me a favor.”

  She explains the entire situation to her friend, repeating the main details again and again. Size 6 sample, Lamed dress, the one with the cerulean sash. She repeats Shoshana’s name so many times that it ceases to sound like a real word. Finally, she thanks him profusely, murmurs something unintelligible into the phone, and snaps her phone shut with a look of satisfaction.

  “I’ve put my friend on the case. He’s calling all of his fashion magazine friends to see who would have access to a Shoshana sample from some back issue of Vogue or Martha Stewart Weddings. They sometimes keep the stuff they use in a shoot. It’s a long-shot, but if anyone can unearth another copy, it’s Judd. And don’t worry, I have other ideas in place. If I have to make nice to Anita, I will. You know that she could have walked out of that store with the sample.”

  “Ayelet wouldn’t have stood a chance,” I agree. “That means a lot that you’d actually speak to your mother on my account.”

  “Well, that’s Plan D, if Plans B and C don’t pan out,” Lisbeth quips. She looks at her watch. “We have a half hour before our appointment at Carolina Herrera. Do you want a slice of pizza?”

  “Do I want a slice of greasy, salty pizza right before I have to strip down to my cotton panties and try on form-fitting gowns?” I question.

  “Don’t stress so much,” Lisbeth tells me. “That’s all a myth perpetuated by online sites like Jezebel. Pizza does not make you bloat.”

  We push our way into a dingy by-the-slice place that I would have never entered in a million years if not for Lisbeth. She immediately makes friends with the young man behind the counter, and he throws in two free Diet Cokes for us to celebrate our impending nuptials. Only Lisbeth would be able to make straight men fall in love with her even while announcing that she’s about to marry her girlfriend.

  I clean off a table with a paper napkin and try to find an ungreasy spot to rest my purse while Lisbeth carries over the two hot slices, the bottoms of the paper plates already soaked with oil and melted cheese. She takes a careless mouthful, burning herself in the process, and sips down half her Diet Coke while she fans her tongue.

  “Don’t you feel so relieved that you have such a huge thing off your plate?” Lisbeth says. “I mean, to find your dress in the very first store we try.”

  “It isn’t that much of a stretch when you begin at Shoshana Shalom’s,” I note. “And I don’t actually have a dress yet. I have an idea of a dress. Plus, the dress is just one of my problems. I have to get a photographer, finalize the menu, and hire an officiant. And I still don’t have invitations chosen, though they need to go out in the next two weeks. I really think that we may need to reconsider this November date. I mean, if we can’t get the invitations done in time, it makes sense to postpone a few months, don’t you think?”

  “Invitations,” Lisbeth scoffs. “That’s the one thing you don’t have to worry about. You have an artist in the family.”

  “You could make 100 invitations in the next two weeks?” I ask doubtfully.

  “It’s called printmaking. Once I make the plate, it’s just a matter of churning out the copies. I can set aside work on Marriage Proposal for a few days. I can get started in the morning.”

  My heart squeezes itself into my throat, competing with a lump of pizza, as she takes away one more barrier between walking down the aisle and having an excuse to postpone. Well, that didn’t go exactly as planned. I didn’t expect her to actually volunteer to make the invitations, but now I’m in a position where I would look like an idiot if I didn’t accept her help. I am sure they will be exquisite, a piece of art for every guest attending the ceremony. How many brides can say that a famous artist designed and hand-printed their wedding invitation? I would be insane to turn down her offer.

  I smile weakly and nod my head. “But that has to be your wedding gift, okay? I just feel terrible putting you out, Lis. It has to be difficult to give up working on your own project. I mean, Marriage Proposal is such an emotional piece . . .”

  She waves her hand to dismiss me and takes another bite of her pizza. “Really, it’s going to be fun. We’ll go out for coffee after Carolina Herrera and brainstorm ideas. So you have the venue and the invitations and m
usic. And you are set with your dress,” Lisbeth says, as always positive that her plans will come to fruition. “I had one more hanging in my dressing room at Shoshana’s that I wanted to try on, but I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of a sale if they were going to be so shitty to you about the sample. I just want something perfect.”

  Protesting again is pointless; she’s not going to bite and reel back the offer like a caught fish. I have no bait. Nothing. I’m in an empty rowboat without oars, spinning around while I try to find a way back to shore, even though I’m not exactly sure what the shore represents in this analogy.

  I zone out as Lisbeth chirps on about string quartets, chuppahs, and personalized vows, returning to the conveyor belt of anxious thoughts that travel through my brain. Dress, invitation, rabbi, photographer, dress, invitation, rabbi, photographer. I allow the to-do list to loop instead of continue on to the next machine: vows, marriage, and everything after. Vows, marriage, and everything after. It’s safer to stick to items that I can wrap my mind around. Adam, who emailed me his thoughts on menu ideas this morning, sweetly telling me that he’d defer to my opinion on which type of chicken to include since I am the food expert. I can wrap my mind around coq au vin or poussins with pecan rice stuffing.

  I tune back into Lisbeth’s monologue about floral art. This can’t be only Emily’s calming, maturing influence, because Lisbeth is looking positively blissful over the idea of flower centerpieces.

  Part of me is jealous that she is relishing every tiny detail in the sort of way that only a person who is truly beyond committed to the idea of marriage can. Her brain is obviously not half working through the wedding details and half working through anxiety. She’s not only certain that she has chosen the right person to spend the rest of her life with, but she’s certain that marriage is the right way to go about growing old together.

  But the other part of me is curious how she has come to embrace marriage in a way that she has never embraced any other element of mainstream culture. It would be the easiest one to write off: who wants to be a part of a group that doesn’t want them in the first place? But she has grabbed marriage in a long, steamy embrace rather than greeting it with a lukewarm handshake. And it suddenly occurs to me that the answer to all of my niggling fears may be contained in the unlikely, frenetic mind of Lisbeth Goldman.