Nine Women, One Dress (19 page)

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.

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.”

The friend held it up. It
was
the dress of the season. Which I knew only because my bubbe had texted me a picture of it on the cover of
Women's Wear Daily
a few months back with the caption, “Grandpa's going out on top.” I'm usually not this chatty with my patients, especially given the fact that the pretty one obviously had a serious boyfriend, but my grandpa is my idol, and with his retirement imminent I was feeling extra-proud of him and his accomplishments. I took out my phone and found the picture while the nurse set up her IV.

“Look, your dress was on the cover of
Women's Wear Daily
!” The itchy Jewish girl—Samantha Schwartz—took my phone. She smiled and handed it to the gum-chewer, who looked duly impressed.

“It's her dream to be in
WWD
,” she said.

The Benadryl was delivered and I attached it myself. “This may make you sleepy, but the rash should start clearing up quickly. Now let me take a closer look at this dress.” As I grabbed the dress, a familiar smell hit me. A deeper sniff of the fabric instantly transported me back to my first year of medical school, when we first began working with cadavers. Formaldehyde—not a smell one easily forgets.

“Where did your boyfriend buy this dress?” I asked.

“Bloomingdale's…I mean, it came in a Bloomingdale's bag,” she responded tentatively.

I sniffed it again, in a few different spots. “I hate to tell you this, but this dress is covered in formaldehyde.”

Samantha Schwartz immediately threw up at my feet and then began to sob loudly. There was absolutely no consoling her. Her gum-chewing friend explained what Samantha's boyfriend did for a living and therefore what must have happened. I have to admit, I almost cried for her. What kind of idiot would take a dress off a corpse and give it to his girlfriend? I've seen a lot of crazy in this ER, but this may have been the worst.

My phone buzzed once again, and this time I welcomed the distraction. Even if it was my bubbe again.

Luke, If you don't have a date I know a nice girl, Mrs. Mandelbaum's niece, who you can bring to the party. I'm worried for you to come alone.

“Is that your bubbe again?” Samantha asked between sobs. She could clearly use some distraction as well, so I told her everything. I smiled. “She's trying to convince me to bring a date to my grandfather's retirement party. She says she's worried about me coming alone.”

The gum-chewer spoke up. “She should be worried. So should you. A nice Jewish doctor going alone to a party that's probably packed with nosy grandparents of single girls. You'll be live bait.”

Samantha blew her nose and agreed. “She's right. Just bring someone—anyone.”

I looked down at her leg. “Look, the rash is clearing up already.”

She smiled. “Thanks…I feel much better.”

“You can get dressed and go…”

We all realized my blunder at the same time: she had nothing to wear but the death dress. I bit my lip. The gum-chewer rolled her eyes, and Samantha started to sob again.

“Believe me, this isn't the first time an ER patient has had to go home in doctor's scrubs. I'll get you a pair.”

As I left I heard her tell her friend, “As close as I'll ever get to a Max Hammer. And on my birthday. I want to die!”

Should I?
I debated with myself. It wasn't like me, but it
was
the obvious move here. I took out my phone to text my grandmother back.

If I bring a date, Bubbe. Do you think Grandpa can get me a dress?

I waited in the wings just like I had before my first fashion show, only a few months ago. Back then I was scared to walk; now I was scared to speak. I heard my cue and stepped out onto the stage of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. I felt my breath being pushed out of my body. My first line was coming, and I was sure I would manage nothing more than a whisper. But as I spoke something completely different happened. I became my character. I became Daphne Beauregard.

I was her, fighting for my sanity, fighting my horrible husband, fighting not to be sent away for the lobotomy that I knew was coming. When I cut myself with the pieces of the broken Niagara Falls snow globe during the second act, the gasps from the audience were audible. They were there with me. With Daphne, I should say. All except the three women sitting in the house seats in the third row. My mama, my sister, Carly, and my grandma at their very first Broadway play.

They were there with
me
.

Women's Wear Daily
, claiming to have discovered me, wrote a story on it. The writer shared it with me that very night at a little celebration thrown in my honor at Sardi's.

In a rag (trade)-to-riches story, Alabama native Sally Ann Fennely went from the runway to the Great White Way after just a few months in New York. After debuting in the pages of Women's Wear Daily, Miss Fennely caught That Southern Play producer Earnest Cooper's ear with her beautiful southern accent at Sardi's last month. He brought her in for a reading, and the first-time actress snagged the lead. It is said that Cooper was angry and fed up with Hollywood divas on Broadway after Jordana Winston left the show without cause or warning. He is quoted as saying, “Why cast a star when you can create one?” He is delighted to have discovered what he feels is a true southern delicacy, Sally Ann Fennely. From the rousing applause and the buzz in the theater following her debut, it's safe to say the audience and critics were delighted as well. Ms. Winston, who is in Japan shooting a diet soda commercial, could not be reached for comment.