The Colleen situation would take a little longer to figure out.
She moved on to the booths selling handicrafts. A dark, round-faced woman explained her “worry dolls” in halting English. If you took the six tiny dolls out of their yellow oval box and put them under your pillow at night, they’d absorb all your worries for you.
Ruth was drawn to the woman as much as the business: make the dolls, get a booth, sell them. No Buy and Get a Bonus, no office politics, no dress for success. She bought one set for herself and one for Josh.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. On the trip home, she’d focus on setting up the Violins & Wine focus groups and, maybe, the meaning of her dream. And Colleen.
“HELLO?” SHE EXHALED into the phone as she ran into the house, fearing it was David worrying about her.
“Hi, Ruth, it’s me.”
“Vivian, how are you?” Ruth took off her coat and deposited it on the floor. “I really had fun on Sunday, and I’ve been meaning to get back to you, but it’s been—”
“No problem, you don’t have to worry about the polite thank-yous, I know you had fun, I did too. It was so great to see you guys together after all these years. And Carlos … well Carlos may not have seemed to you to have a good time, but you have to understand he never does anything that isn’t political. That was a lot of progress, and he enjoyed it. Believe me, he did.”
“Okay, if you say so.” She took off her sneakers and dropped them on her coat.
“I’m calling to ask a favor. It’s funny that you’re really the perfect one to help me out with this, and if I hadn’t bumped into you last week, I don’t know what I’d do. Because, really, I need help and there’s no one else I could ask.”
Ruth took the bait. “What could I possibly do that nobody else could?” Her suit jacket landed on top of the sneakers, then, with some one-handed acrobatics, the pantyhose.
Vivian explained that she and Carlos were going to another of Ida’s concerts in a couple of weeks. She just found out that Ida’s boyfriend would be there and he was bringing his parents.
“Who’s the boyfriend? Do we like him?” She threw her legs over the arm of the chair.
Vivian painted a verbal picture of Ida’s boyfriend, his good values—meaning the same values as hers—and the fact that he made Ida happy. She wasn’t so thrilled about his being a lawyer for a big corporate firm, but was dedicated to getting him to switch to litigation so he could do pro bono work. The problem was his parents.
They were investment bankers and, according to Vivian, the kind of people who think the poor are responsible for their own hard luck, who think anyone who wanted two BMWs could just roll up their sleeves and work hard for them.
“These people have no patience for people with a hair out of place. Like me.”
Ruth remembered meeting David’s parents for the first time, when they came to visit him in Africa. They were conspicuously white, even compared to white people. Colorless. His mother carried a leather purse that smelled brand new, and she carried it with the strap at her elbow so her arm was folded in front of her, as if she were at a cotillion. And David’s father kept leading her around with his hand on the small of her back, calling her “Mother.”
“Oops,” Ruth said. “So how do you four manage to be civil in front of the kids?”
It turned out Vivian and Carlos hadn’t met them yet. But she knew exactly what they’d be like.
“So, the favor?” Ruth asked.
Ida had asked them, just this once, if they’d wear clothes like everyone else wore. “Not your hippy clothes,” she’d said.
She knew it was a lot to ask. But she thought that, the first time they were meeting the Danforths, it would be easier on everyone if they could tone it down, just a little, maybe help things go a little more smoothly.
Carlos, of course, refused immediately. Vivian mimicked his Spanish accent as she told of the interchange:
“You didn’t think we were so terrible when you were arrested for demonstrating outside the student union and we were the only parents who were on your side. Then it was all right to be alternative, right? But now that you’re hooking up with Mr. Country Club, we embarrass you? You want us to change who we are? Not on your life. If he loves you, he just has to live with who we are. And so do his parents, chiquita.”
Vivian agreed it shouldn’t matter what they looked like, they were who they were. But she also wanted to help Ida out. She succumbed to Ida’s argument that it wasn’t the same as pretending to be someone else. They’d just be trying not to ignite knee-jerk prejudices with their clothing. They had plenty of time to ignite the prejudices later. Her attempt to placate Carlos was a refusal to change her hair.
“Of course, I wouldn’t know how to calm down my hair, anyway.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Ruth said. “Some parents have to work two jobs for their kids, sweating and slaving and not getting any sleep. Others have to dress up. We all make sacrifices.”
“Very funny.”
“The favor?”
Vivian told Ruth that she sewed her own clothes. She had trouble finding things she liked that fit her and, besides, she enjoyed the freedom to visualize herself the way she wanted and turn the vision into reality. She’d been doing it for so long, though, she didn’t know where or how to shop for clothing anymore. And she certainly didn’t know how to shop for “regular” clothing.
“And I think you probably do, right?”
“You’re asking me to go shopping with you?”
As if she were confessing her crimes to a judge, she said, “Yes, I’m asking you to help me shop for something to wear to Ida’s concert so I can look like one of the regular people.”
Ruth laughed.
“You can just say ‘no,’ you know, you don’t need to make fun of me. God, I can’t believe I actually built up my courage to ask you and—”
“No, Viv, that’s not why I’m laughing.”
Meanwhile, David had gotten home. He held the tea kettle up with a raised-eyebrow question on his face. Ruth nodded as she continued. “It’s because I always feel like I’m the one who doesn’t know what to wear to these things.”
“I’m sure you know better than me.”
David held up three kinds of herb tea. She pointed to Apple Cinnamon.
“Why don’t you sew something?”
“It’s a lot of work to sew something I’m only going to wear once, at least I hope it’s only going to be once.”
“I’m happy to help you. Want to go on Saturday?”
“This Saturday?”
“Day after tomorrow. Before you change your mind. And before Carlos talks you out of it.”
“It’s a date.”
“Write it down.”
She joined David at the kitchen table. They blew into their cups and sipped, silently at first. After a day at work and then a phone conversation with Vivian, Ruth drank in the silence as much as the tea.
David spoke first. He had indeed notified the district of his retirement plans. She didn’t like it, but was mostly reconciled to it. Even so, when he told her he’d done it, she sucked in her breath and blinked back tears.
“Hey, come on, honey. We talked about this, you knew I was going to do it. Right?”
“You’re right, no problem. It’s just so final. The end of something.”
David opened his mouth to speak but Ruth jumped in.
“I know, I know, it’s the beginning of something, too, the glass is also half full. Let me just wallow for a second. I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I was going to say. If you’re going to finish my sentences for me, finish them correctly.”
“Sorry.”
“I was going to say that I know what you mean about it being the end of … ”
“What do you mean?”
“When I left the meeting, I started looking at people and seeing the ones I’d miss and the ones I’d be glad to be rid of. I sort of jumped into the future and saw i
t all in the past tense even though I’m still in the present. Kind of spooky.”
“Yeah, spooky,” Ruth said. Thank goodness, she thought. It wasn’t that she wanted David to be unhappy, but she was glad he was experiencing some upset, that the thought of ending the career he’d loved for years wasn’t like rolling out of bed. Made her feel a little less crazy.
“Why don’t you tell me about your day?” he said. “Wallowing of a different sort, just for distraction.”
She ran through her day as they finished their tea, went upstairs, and went to bed. She let him put two of the worry-dolls under his pillow. She kept four.
CHAPTER 13
In Shopping Veritas
IT WAS UNUSUALLY WARM, and Ruth finally chose light gray slacks with a short-sleeved green knit top. No scarf, no jewelry. Not too suburban, but also not too hippy-dippy as if she were imitating Vivian. She gulped her coffee while returning two phone calls, then took out some frozen chops to defrost for dinner. She checked to see if the lettuce was still good or if she needed to get more on her way home. Thank goodness it was all right; one less chore to remember to do. She rushed out the door.
Forty-five minutes later, Vivian emerged from the depths of the subway exit at 17th Street, red-faced, short of breath, hair and eyes wild. She stood out from the crowd because of her loud voice and louder Hawaiian shirt, whose reds, yellows and purples argued with each other over who got to be the boss.
Ruth wished she’d worn something less goody-two-shoes. She looked at her watch; eighteen minutes late, even though the meeting place was a ten-minute subway ride from Vivian’s place, while she herself had managed to get there on time from Jersey.
Vivian said, “It was hard getting out of the house. Fifteen minutes doesn’t count as late, though, does it? Carlos needed to run his latest crusade past me for feedback and when I made a few suggestions, which was what he’d asked me for in the first place, no sugar-coating or anything, exactly the way he gives it to other people, he got all defensive and upset, so that became a whole big thing. Then—”
“No problem, I just got here.”
“So where are we going? And can I afford it? I told you about my budget, right? Carlos is upset enough, without my spending a lot, and even if he weren’t upset—”
“Down girl. Relax. I heard everything you said, you can trust me.”
Vivian shook her head and exhaled loudly. “I’ll try.” She kissed Ruth’s cheek then grabbed her arm and whistled “We Shall Overcome” as they walked north in lock-step, arm-in-arm, just as they had done hundreds of times before, long ago, in a village far from New York.
Three old women with beseeching eyes and empty tin cans sat on a bench. Vivian took a few coins out of her pocket and gave it to one of them. The recipient smiled, enlarging the view of her few discolored teeth.
“Only one?”
“She was the ugliest.”
“Still give preference to the ugly?” Ruth said.
“They still need it, don’t they? Everyone’s still drawn to pretty people, aren’t they? It was true in the village and it’s still true. And it still stinks.”
“I thought we’d go to Loehmann’s first because—”
“I’ll tell you what; when I see an ugly person’s support group, I’ll know my little affirmative action isn’t necessary. But there never will be, and you know why? Because no one wants to be a member. It’s lookism, plain and simple. Hey, you work for a cosmetics company, you know what I’m talking about. Why don’t you do something like makeup that makes everyone ugly so the people who are naturally ugly won’t feel bad?”
“All I said was—”
“I can’t remember the last time I was at Loehmann’s, probably it was when my mother took me to buy a dress for my junior high school graduation. I remember it perfectly. Pale pink dotted swiss, capped sleeves. I must have looked like a tuna sandwich. Thank God there are no pictures. Also I remember that dressing room.”
They walked past the easy chairs where men—mostly older, mostly reading the newspaper—waited until called upon for their wisdom.
“Yes, Doris, it’s pretty.”
“No, it doesn’t make you look fat.”
“I like the red one better.”
They passed the casual wear department, with oceans of minimally-varied jeans and T-shirts, continued on past the jewelry, purses, and hats, to the back of the store, to the racks of “evening wear.”
Vivian put her head down and squared her shoulders as if she were gathering her courage for hard labor. She strode to the size sixteen section and went through the offerings at a manic pace. The hangers clicked as if they were angry. Ruth stood off to the side and watched silently as Vivian quickly rejected the first fifteen choices at warp speed, then looked up and saw Ruth watching her.
“‘Evening wear’ is a category I have no experience with. ‘Late afternoon’ is the dressiest I ever get. Or maybe ‘Afternoon milk and cookies.’”
Ruth was about to suggest a second look at the rejected gray pants suit four hangers back when Vivian said, “Look, Ruthie, you go look at stuff yourself and I’ll look at stuff myself, and then we’ll do show and tell.”
“But it’s really better to decide about each piece together.” This was going to be tougher than she thought. Vivian was really wired. Wired and weird. “That way—”
“Nope, too methodical. Can’t do it that way. You go down that aisle, I’ll go down this one and then we can meet in the middle. Believe me,” she said as she rolled her eyes, “I can live with the life-shattering possibility that there just might be one perfect outfit here somewhere and we might miss it if we’re not together, God forbid.”
She remembered that this was exactly how Vivian used to make her feel—half of her wanting to slink home, the other half wanting to smack her. She reminded herself that Vivian was a compassionate oxymoron, caring deeply about humanity but less so about individual bits of humanity. “I just thought the whole point was that you wanted my help.”
“Sorry, try not to be offended, Ruthie, I do appreciate your help; this shopping must be making me a little loony.”
Ruth looked up and waited for the rest of the explanation she thought she was entitled to.
“First of all, this whole idea of dressing up for Ida is wacky to begin with and is becoming an issue between Carlos and me and he’s getting nutty about how I’m choosing her over him.” She closed her eyes and shook her head like a wet dog.
“I’ve never gone shopping with a girlfriend, I hardly go shopping at all, shopping is not something I do, I have no experience with this, so consider my behavior the behavior of a beginner, okay? I just don’t know how to do something that I don’t really know how to do. If you know what I mean. I’m kind of a mess; bear with me.”
“No problem.”
They split up and spent the next fifteen minutes wending their way towards each other from opposite sides of the “evening wear” racks. Ruth rated each garment according to her checklist of criteria. Budget. Not too self-consciously dress-up. Vivian’s size, and what would flatter or at least downplay it.
Vivian, more intuitive and more negative, covered ground faster than Ruth. When they met, like two tunnel-diggers who wind up face-to-face, Ruth had ten hangers over her arm to Vivian’s two. At their summit meeting, they saw they’d both chosen the same black pants suit, so eliminated one. Vivian then rejected five of Ruth’s choices. “Too Republican. We’re down from twelve to six. Let’s go face the music.”
The try-on room’s monitor must have been selected by the same central casting agency that used to hire the matrons in the movie theaters, the ones who made the kids take their feet off the seat in front of them. With her slightly humped back and her sensible shoes, she enforced the “five garments per person” rule as if she were dispensing divine justice.
The huge room had mirrored walls and a community of overhead fans. Each woman had the illusion of having her own territory by virtue of two hooks about eighte
en inches apart, while, in truth, everyone undressed, dressed, and preened in front of their neighbors. It was a lesson in the infinite varieties of female anatomy and the uselessness of modesty.
They chose two adjacent spaces far from the entrance. Vivian was on Ruth’s right, and had the temporary luxury of an empty space on her other side, so she could spread out a bit. They hung their garments on their respective hooks to maintain the charade that they had each selected three.
Vivian started with the electric blue dress that was a second cousin of the flowing robe she’d worn to the concert where they’d encountered each other in the bathroom. Ruth wondered if Vivian had selected it because she actually liked it or as a strategic move, to stake out an extreme taste-baseline from which she’d only budge so much. It was hideous, really. Its shapelessness would usually be camouflage for a large woman, but the color overruled any softening effect. It looked like a huge neon sign.
“I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout evenin’ wear,” Vivian said, “but I sure think it looks like a tablecloth. I know Miss Scarlett looked great in a curtain, but somehow I don’t think this works for me.”
Ruth tried to hide her relief. “I agree.”
Vivian slipped the dress off, let it fall to the floor, and side-stepped out of it, like a snake shedding its skin as it continued its thrust forward. She looked through her hangers to choose what would be next. Ruth picked up the blue tent and put it back on its hanger.
“Excuse me?” A woman in bra and thong undies had walked over from the other side of the room, seeming unconcerned about the amounts of her body that couldn’t fit into those two small pieces of cloth. Ruth didn’t know whether to avert her eyes from her overflowing body or her skewed teeth.
She asked if they’d be taking the blue dress and, if not, could she try it? As Ruth gave it to her quickly before she changed her mind, the woman handed over one of her own rejects. “Here, take this in exchange? Then our numbers will be the same as when we walked in and we won’t get in trouble with the Wicked Witch of the West? When we leave?”
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