“I’ll be back to check on you.”
Daphne imitated a woman with confidence. “I’ll let you know if I need help.”
“Of course.” The woman dipped her head, thrown back to the world where class differences ruled. Daphne, shamed at pulling rank on someone who spent her day schlepping clothes to women with thick wallets, gave a genuine smile.
“Thank you for finding this.” She held up the ugly dress as a peace offering. “I sincerely appreciate your help.”
“No problem. Trust me. It’s suitable for the occasion.”
Daphne’s chest constricted at meriting no more than “suitable for the occasion” in the stratum of fashion hierarchy. Not “gorgeous,” or “sharp,” or “exciting.” Not even goddamn “pretty.” At her sister’s painfully elegant wedding, Daphne would wear something “appropriate,” like something the Queen of England might wear.
“Breathtaking” would be left for others. “Suitably clad and wearing a stunning shade of lipstick” was Daphne’s fate. She placed the hangered dress on a hook—a cherry Life Saver among the black caviar for which Daphne lusted. On the corner chair, she piled her street clothes: black cotton pants with an elastic waist and the black tunic top that she pretended she wore for the lovely lines and not because it skimmed over her body without stopping.
A closer examination of the outfit revealed three pieces, beginning with a slip intended to glide over the holy horror that foundation gar ments made of one’s fleshy mounds. Then there was the actual dress: a study in upholstery for wide hips and big asses, holding only the grace of a decent bias cut. A long, shapeless jacket, designed for the sole purpose of coverage, finished the unholy trinity, the three whispering a woeful haiku:
No part can be seen
Fabric with no joy no hate
Simply sensible
A costume aimed at an old woman who gave up the fight years ago. “I’m only forty-three!” she wanted to scream.
Daphne caressed her chosen collection of urbane black dresses, low-hanging fruit plucked from impeccably aligned racks. Sane choices, with forgiving flowing fabrics. Crepe. Rich materials with enough weight to fall properly, but not so thick that they didn’t drape sadder parts.
Nothing zipped. Daphne refused to try anything larger than an 18; not that she had a clue what size she should wear, always choosing new clothes by shape.
Quietly, careful not to make a crackling sound, she pried a peanut butter cracker from the snack pack in her purse and crammed it into her mouth. Chewing the orange Ritz to a fast pulp so she could swallow before the twig returned, she let the rush of mashed carbs and salty, nutty fat soothe her.
TIP: Chew your food
40 times.
To lose weight!
—High school wisdom
OUTCOME: 1 month masticating, 15 pounds lost.
Diet advice floated through her head as blood flowed through her veins. A year ago, when Marissa, the third and youngest sister in the family, announced her wedding, Daphne vowed to lose many dress sizes before the nuptials.
She didn’t.
With nothing left to try, she ripped the twig’s disaster from the hanger, threw the jacket onto the chair, and held up the square sheath, a baggie for a body. Close inspection revealed swirls of deep mauve on deeper mauve—matte on satin, insult on insult—a veritable carnival of wretched pinked-purpled-red.
After casing herself in the slip, Daphne wiggled the dress over her head, but it refused to stretch over her breasts. She lifted it off and stepped into it feet first, facing away from the mirror as she slid her arms into the cap sleeves. Cap sleeves? What were they but yarmulkes for the fat on the top of one’s shoulders, undersized half circles emphasizing the wiggles underneath?
She tugged the mercifully lined fabric up over her hips.
A quick tap on the fitting room entrance and then, without waiting, scorched-red lacquered nails snaked around the door and inched it open.
“Need any help?”
“I’m fine.” Daphne resisted slamming the door, but when the woman kept pushing, the constancy of politeness won over Daphne’s dignity, and she relented.
“Let me zip that up for you.” Bony fingers twirled Daphne in a magical salesperson move that forced the customer to face the mirror. Daphne focused on only the lovely Chanel Pink Explosion blooming on her cheeks.
Twig tugged at the zipper, sending Daphne further into a state of mortification so overwhelming that her cheeks might remain red forever. After what must have been a year, the zipper passed the impossible zone of what her mother had long ago named Daphne’s “Namath back,” an expression Daphne thought a Jewish saying, until Bianca, her athletic sister, explained their mother was comparing Daphne’s build to that of a long-retired football player.
“There you go!” Twig patted her shoulder as though they’d fought a battle together.
There was Daphne. Not in a dramatic black something that highlighted her cleavage. No. There was Daphne in matte and satin, a bursting mauve frankfurter, her stomach screaming for a corset, her double-D breasts straining the material.
“Here.” Twig sounded sorrowful as she held out the jacket, a blessed covering into which Daphne’s arms slipped as though offered a reprieve.
Daphne’s breadth of joy at how the ugly sack covered her Namath back grieved her. But the dress zipped. The jacket buttoned.
Flattering, classic, edgy—none of it mattered. Surely her sister would serve enough wedding champagne to drown out this monstrosity. Daphne needed coverage. And she needed to get out of Saks.
Both dress and jacket fit, yes?
Daphne nodded at Twig. “I’ll take it.”
CHAPTER 7
* * *
DAPHNE
By six o’clock, Daphne had convinced herself the dress worked fine. With the right jewelry and makeup, her hair waving down her back, the outfit would fade away. Pink streaks—just a few—in her hair would edge it up.
She placed a few pieces of soft butterhead lettuce around the chicken arranged on an oval platter.
But mauve . . .
Daphne hip checked the swinging door connecting the kitchen and dining room, regretting having invited her parents to dinner. Tonight, simply being with the kids and Sam exhausted her.
“So, how’d you do shopping? Any problems?” Sunny’s questions assaulted Daphne the moment she reentered the dining room.
Daphne placed the chicken breasts next to a bowl of steamed spring vegetables. This was food meant to suppress her mother’s needling. “Everything was fine.”
“Was I right about Saks or what? Everything they sell fits a size smaller than you’ll find anywhere else.”
“You sound just plain crazy, Mom.”
“Can I see it on you after dinner?”
Daphne’s middle school identity emerged. Sunny would pull the fab ric away from her daughter’s neck to see what size Omar the Tentmaker had provided.
In seventh grade, Daphne lived in fear of his shop. Sunny, home from a day of shopping for back-to-school clothes with her twelve-year-old daughter, would throw a Bloomingdale’s bag on the brocade chair, forever in the foyer of their lavish house in the Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill, and exhale as though having escaped a day in the trenches.
“Do you realize how long it took to find skirts that fit you?” Her mother invariably shook her head in disgust. “Keep this up, and next time we’ll be visiting Omar’s.”
Later, when Daphne recognized Omar’s as a mythical place, and was armed with college awareness, she called out Sunny for the cultural insult and never shopped with her mother again. Why had Sunny led chunky Daphne into the boutique areas catering to teens camera ready for Seventeen magazine? Racks of clothes suitable for her sisters, Bianca and Marissa, mocked Daphne with their refusal to contain her. Sunny dragged multiple outfits to Daphne, who huddled in the fitting room wearing one of her father’s discarded white business shirts—wrapping and rewrapping herself in the age-softened cotton each
time her mother left.
“But you could be so lovely,” her mother said when Daphne complained. “Let me make magic!” That was Sunny. Determined to carve all she loved into her vision of perfection.
“Any rolls in the kitchen?” her father asked.
“You don’t need rolls,” her mother addressed the question aimed at Daphne.
“I didn’t say I needed them, Sun.” He squeezed her arm with affection.
Daphne couldn’t decipher her father’s behavior, apparently unaware of the emotional issues churning around his wife and daughter. Sunny had fretted about what she considered her daughter’s deficits since Daphne could remember. Her oldest sister, Bianca, suffered from acne. Every eruption meant being dragged to the dermatologist. Even with medical attention, Bianca experienced scars and humiliation—including those from their mother.
Surprising nobody, Bianca became a dermatologist. And married a surgeon.
None of them escaped Sunny’s scrutiny and management. Scales for Daphne, the slathering of products for Bianca, and for Marissa, a push toward every acceptable boy Sunny found. She wanted neither a blemished, fat, or lesbian daughter.
Daphne guessed her mother semisucceeded with Bianca, who managed her skin as though it were a Fortune 500 company always in danger of failing. And Marissa might be marrying a woman, but both brides would be wearing lipstick and gowns.
Now Sunny had only Daphne left to sculpt into her image.
Daphne’s father surely crafted his unnoticing persona to live his life in relative serenity.
“I have challah in the freezer,” Daphne said. “I’ll pop it in the microwave.”
“The microwave destroys bread. Don’t bother.” Her mother transferred the smallest chicken breast from the platter to her plate. “He doesn’t need it.”
“You know dinner without bread depresses me.”
“It depresses you, Gordon? What, are you recovering from your years in a concentration camp?” Sunny poured ice water into her glass.
“I find it empty. What can I say? My mother spoiled me.”
“Ah, the ultimate emptiness of a breadless meal. Didn’t Kafka address that heartrending issue, Grandpa?” Audrey made a contrived face of suffering.
Daphne’s mother rolled her eyes. Sunny and sixteen-year-old Audrey often acted as though they were the same age. “That your mother always stuffed everyone with mounds of bread doesn’t mean Daphne should do the same. You should applaud, not chide her.”
“How did I chide her?” Gordon asked, exasperated. “I just said I wanted a roll.”
And off they went. Two people deeply in love arguing over the same issue for more than forty years of marriage. Her mother could monitor her father’s gut within a millimeter of expansion.
Sam left the table. Moments later, the sound of the microwave whirred.
“See what you did, Gordy?” Sunny turned to Daphne. “What’s he doing?”
“Tuning in Mars.” Audrey’s sarcasm brought raised eyebrows from Sunny.
“No comments on what we serve are allowed tonight, Mom.” Daphne tried to sound lighthearted.
“What did I do?” Sunny directed a faux-puzzled expression at her husband.
Her father ignored his wife and held out his plate for chicken. Sunny rested tongs on first one piece and then another, settling on the second biggest breast. She placed the largest on Sam’s plate.
“We have butter on the table?” Sam walked in carrying a basket of the steaming challah. Daphne imagined the bread, hot and eggy, breaking apart on her tongue.
“What this family needs is a live-in shrink.” Audrey flipped her hair, a deep red wedge of angles, darker than Daphne’s but thick and straight, whereas Daphne’s sprang out in a mix of waves, curls, and frizz. Still, it was in the red family, proving kinship along with their full lips. “Maybe one who could help Mom notice that food alone does not a family make.”
“For goodness sake, Audrey. Between you and your grandmother, it’s amazing I get to have any food on the table. Last week the two of you treated the steak as though I were presenting a corpse. Now bread’s the enemy.” Daphne regretted the words the moment they escaped.
“You’re never wrong, are you?” Audrey looked as though tears might spill any moment.
“I’m sorry, baby. I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on you.”
Audrey shrugged and stabbed a spear of asparagus.
“Promise me we won’t be like this when I bring Rosie to dinner.” Gabe speared a chicken leg. “This is what I came home for? We’re like a bad episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“The sphinx speaks.” Audrey tapped her brother on the shoulder. “Thank you for once again representing the warmth of our family constellation.”
“Are you marrying this girl?” Daphne’s father coated a piece of bread. “One year in college and you’re bringing potential wives home?”
“We’ll be fine with Rosie, honey.” Daphne tore off the golden end of the warm challah, pointedly ignoring Sunny, and crammed it in her mouth, the sweet doughy warmth coating her tongue and wrapping her in safety.
“Why would we ever act like ourselves in front of company?” Sunny asked. “If we did, how could Grandpa and I have married off any of our daughters?”
TIP: Sometimes the strongest cravings for food happen when you’re at your weakest point emotionally. You may turn to food for comfort, consciously or unconsciously, when you’re facing a difficult problem, stress, or just looking to keep yourself occupied.
—Mayo Clinic
WISDOM VIA: The weight loss therapist Sunny forced on her.
WEIGHT GAINED: 8 pounds.
Sunny called Marissa after dinner, granting Daphne breathing space. Her mother rat-a-tatted as she paced the hall in her heels, clicking on the hardwood, every sound invading the kitchen where Daphne was cleaning up the dinner detritus. “Nobody wants wedding cupcakes! I don’t care what Lili says. The cake is plenty. Does she think we need to gild the lily? What’s so funny?”
Her mother waited a beat, probably lifting her brows to the invisible audience—a signature Sunny bit. “Please, Marissa, have something classic. Petits fours.”
Daphne scraped uneaten bits of chicken and salad into the sink. After running the disposal, she reached for the leftover bread, about to throw it down, and then stopped. She considered giving it an overnight egg bath, letting it swell to twice its size. Come morning, the French toast would call Julia Child’s ghost to earth. Toasted challah was also sublime with butter melting into every tiny crevice of the bread. Sam did prefer scrambled eggs and toast over sweets in the morning.
Butter never tasted better than at room temperature. Bread never appealed as much as when it was about to be tucked away, when it was calling for you to pluck off just a little more. Daphne tore off a corner of the challah and touched it with a whisper of butter. Just the tiniest amount.
She could tear the bread in pieces for freezing, ready for a tiny pan of stuffing to surprise everyone. She mentally composed a recipe as she nibbled.
Challah stuffing? Bits of butter dotting the top. Eggs thickening it. Carrots and celery sautéed with onions providing texture and surprise. The bread softened with warm milk. Would the onion overpower the challah? Would sweet bread even work for stuffing? Perhaps bread pudding was a better bet.
She took one more piece, just a shred.
Her mother walked in carrying the Saks shopping bag. “You’re still eating?”
Daphne tossed the bread into the trash. “What are you doing with that?” She nodded at the bag.
“I saw it while I talked to your sister. What, it’s a state secret?”
Her mother sat at the table and crossed her legs, the very picture of preservation in action: gym-toned and portion-controlled to a constant 108 pounds, and injected with age stoppers, courtesy of Bianca. Sunny bragged ad nauseum about the benefits of having a dermatologist for a daughter. She seemed to think that Sam’s work as a cardiovascular researcher who co
uld find a cure for the diseases plaguing half of her father’s extended family could never compare with Bianca’s skill injecting Botox.
Sunny pulled the outfit from the shopping bag as though the dress and jacket weighed fifty pounds. She held the clothes up and away with both hands. “Pink, Daph?”
“Mauve.”
Sunny held out her hands in an imploring gesture. “Sweetheart, mauve is pink for old ladies. And with your hair? You’ll be a cartoon. I told you to let me help you.”
“I really like that dress.”
Sunny snorted. “Nobody could like that dress. Darling, you know that you can do better. There are tons of lovely dresses in . . .” She stopped and peered at the tag in the neck of the dress—as though she hadn’t already checked the number. “Eighteen? A size eighteen! And this fabric! What in the world?”
“It’s silk Dupioni.”
“Which means unforgiving, unless it’s very expensive.” Sunny bunched it up tight and released it. “Which this isn’t. See the wrinkles? Imagine how creased it will get at the wedding. I would have led you to Tadashi. Or . . .” Her mother pursed her lips, probably trying to think of one other designer willing to cut its dresses like Omar the Tentmaker.
Daphne used so many tricks against crying. Dig your nails hard into your forearm. Stretch your calves up and down till they scream. Imagine punching a hole through the wall.
“How did you let this happen, Daph?” Sunny held the mauve disaster higher. The outfit swelled each time it swung into Daphne’s vision until reaching proportions able to cover the circus fat lady. Hair streaks? Edgy jewelry? The only way to wear a dress like that was with a mask.
Sunny placed the fabric next to Daphne’s face. “On top of everything else, it has a beaded neckline? My God. What a nightmare.”
CHAPTER 8
* * *
DAPHNE
Daphne; sisters Marissa and Bianca; her sister-in-law-to-be, Lili; her mother; and Veronica—Daphne’s assistant from Alchemy—were crammed inside the one-bedroom hotel suite designated for wedding makeup central.
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