Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown (19 page)

“So, what would the stylist do?” I asked him like I didn’t know. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure of the whole process.

“She’d grab a whole bunch of stuff for you. I’d like to see you in a dress; you don’t show off your legs enough,” he said, leaning over the bed and caressing my calf.

“Someone else told me that once,” I said, looking down at the gams, “but what about, like, accessories and that kind of thing?”

“She gets you all that stuff. Shoes, jewelry, anything you need. I already asked Lina, this stylist I know who’s done stuff for me in the past, if she wouldn’t mind working with you.”

I had already thought of him as the most wonderful boyfriend on the planet, but this, this kicked him up to the stratosphere.

“So how many outfits does she come up with?” I asked, sitting back on the bed, mostly for cushioning in case I fainted from the xhilaration.

“A bunch.” He smiled, knowing that had I been connected to an EKG, the thing would have been beeping off the chart.

“And then I just pick one out? What if I don’t like anything she brings?” I asked in sheer delight.

“She goes out and finds more stuff!” he said outwardly looking so fulfilled, since he knew he was offering me my version of the Hope Diamond.

My smile said it all. I suddenly knew how Charlie felt, being offered Wonka’s factory.

“Will it be expensive?” I asked.

“Send me the bill.”

“No,” I said, getting up. “Forget it. I can’t have you buying me expensive outfits like that. It wouldn’t feel right. I’d feel like one of those women.”

“What women?”

“The ones with the breast implants and perfect bodies that Los Angeles is known for.”

“Don’t worry. You could not be further from being one of those women,” he said, taking me into his arms.

“I can’t decide if that’s a compliment or not.”

“You take it as you’re nothing like those kinds of women, or any woman. You are one-of-a-kind.”

“You are good,” I said with a laugh.

“No, seriously,” he whispered as he looked into my eyes. “You really are one-of-a-kind, and this is something I want to do for you. Let me do it.”

“I don’t know if this is the right time to say this,” I said, nuzzling my head into his neck, “but I think I‘m, like, in love with you.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “If I knew that getting you a stylist was going to make you fall in love with me, I would have gotten you one six months ago.”

We kissed passionately as he added, “Because that’s when I fell in love with you.”

I could have died happy then and there. Had a bus come plowing into the bedroom and killed me, it would have been absolutely fine. I had a man who loved me, peace of mind, and, above all else, a stylist who would make me look amazing in that casket.

’m just going to admit it.

Having a stylist come to your house with the perfect Prada black empire-waist dress is a euphoria that the depths of imagination just cannot duplicate.

You might have thought that the Five women were waiting for Jesus to resurrect himself at my door, and it was getting on my last nerve.

“You’re making more of this than it needs to be!” I screamed at Heidi as she put the carefully decorated tray of crudités along with three kinds of dip on my coffee table.

“Who knows how long we’re going to be here,” she said as the other four dug in.

My mother called from Philadelphia.

“Is she there yet?” she asked Felicia, who had picked up the phone.

“No,” Felicia announced, “we’re still waiting.”

“Put me on the speaker phone,” Arlene told her. “I don’t want to miss a second. I’m there in spirit girls!” my mother shouted.

“MOTHER, PLEASE!” I shouted back at her. “Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this? It’s not my wedding, you know!”

“I pray to God, if it could only be,” Arlene implored.

“I think our girl is nervous,” Felicia told everyone present and the one in absentia. “She’s giving that cranky tone.”

“OUT!” I shouted. “ALL OF YOU, OUT! MOTHER, GOOD-BYE!”

Just as I said that, the doorbell rang. We all went silent.

“Get the door,” I instructed Rachel.

“Should I?” Rachel pondered as she looked at Heidi, who looked at Serena, who took a carrot and dipped it into some sun-dried tomato dip. Felicia handed her a napkin.

“Well,
I’m
not going to get it,” my mother announced.

“Hello!” the voice from outside shouted. “Is anyone there?”

“My God!” Susan grumbled, walking swiftly to grab the door. “There are women in the world who couldn’t care less about something like this.”

Susan ran over to the door and opened it, and a heap of wardrobe bags came toward her with a violent thrust, sending Susan’s long black curls hurling backward. Behind the bags was Lina the stylist.

“I just have to grab the shoes,” Lina said, disappearing from the door as quickly as she came.

The Five and I dragged the garment bags into the house and into my bedroom.

“What’s happening?” my mother inquired over the speaker phone.

“Nothing yet,” Serena informed her. “We’re taking the clothes back into the bedroom.”

“And here’s the last batch,” Lina said, getting to work and entering my bedroom with stacks of shoes.

“All those shoes?” Rachel gasped. “How are we going to decide?”

“How many shoes?” my mother asked.

“What is that?” Lina sourly inquired.

“I’m the mother,” Arlene introduced herself from the speaker phone.

“Pleased to meet you,” Lina answered as she gave me a quizzi cal look.

“She likes to be a part of things like this,” I embarrassingly admitted, watching Lina zip open the first garment bag.

“Pete mentioned that he wanted you in a dress,” she said, ignoring my explanation and taking a once-over of my body. “Now that I look at your figure,” she continued, taking her hands and putting them on my waist, “I think the Vivienne Westwood would sit nicely around your torso.” She circled me like a shark. “Oh, wait ... no, forget the Westwood; you have no ass and the dress will hang in the back.

“It’s the curse of our family,” Arlene confessed from the speaker. “None of the women in my family have a backside.”

Lina continued circling me, the Five watching Lina watching me as she examined my body. She threw her hair on top of her head, took a pen from her purse, and stuck it in the bun she’d created to make a stylish up-do. Then she threw her hands on her hips and let out a huge sigh.

“OK, the good news is that you have nice shoulders. The bad news is that everything else has to be pushed up and pulled in. We’re going to need a girdle for your stomach, the bust gets a padded push-up bra, we’ll use a shaper for those thighs, and of course we need some pads for that flat ass. By the way, Pete said you were five three, I don’t think you’re five three.”

“She’s five two and a half,” Susan defended, putting her arm around me quite possibly to control me from grabbing the metal spreader from the ranch-dressing dish on the crudités tray in order to stab myself in my girdle-required flab of a stomach.

It was becoming clear to me as to why all those Los Angeles women Pete and I mentioned got boob jobs and worked out incessantly to achieve perfect bodies. Stylists like Lina tore them from flabby limb to floppy chin.

“Trust me though,” she said, “you’ve got a much better body than a lot of actresses I’ve worked with.” She mouthed the names of some A-list actresses.

“No!” we gasped as Lina ballooned her cheeks when mentioning the blond siren with the enormous thighs.

“I was wondering what the deal was with those turtlenecks!” We all shouted, laughing when Lina mentioned the goiter problem on
Vanity Fair’s
pick of Hollywood’s latest American sweetheart.

“I can’t hear! Who’d she say?” my mother begged.

The Vivienne Westwood white dress with accents of gold-encrusted flowers and a bustled back went on first.

“Oh, that’s awful,” Heidi agreed, circling me along with Lina. “Her ass is way too flat in that.”

“Don’t worry, Dean. It’s a common thing,” Felicia said. “Lots of women have no asses.”

“It’s so funny,” Lina remarked. “Pete’s ex-wife had a flat ass too.”

“So I guess guys do make passes at girls with flat asses,” Susan joked.

“Next!” Serena commanded.

I threw on the John Galliano bloodred pouf skirt. as Lina cinched the bustier top, throwing me back to prom night.

“Absolutely not,” Arlene shouted from the phone as Heidi described the dress. “How’s she going to sit in the seat?”

“Good point,” I said, grabbing another dress.

The vintage Carolina Herrera black strapless cocktail dress was too snug.

“Renée felt the same way,” Lina divulged as I turned to Serena, who mouthed,
“Zellweger.”

“She was still at her Bridget Jones weight,” Lina said, handing me the Stella McCartney.

“You want to be in Stella,” Lina sharply advised, “so pray that this fits. Stella is so environmentally friendly,” she explained. “And that is so in right now.”

Unfortunately, the rust-colored corset wasn’t friendly to my environment.

“Oh God no, take it off! Take it off!” the girls shouted in unison.

According to Heidi, the Calvin Klein mini A-line shift in white just didn’t feel right.

“It’s just not ... you. I don’t feel your personality shining through,” she said, visibly searching for words.

The Marc Jacobs 1950s-inspired pencil skirt didn’t sit right, according to Felicia.

“It’s too sophisticated,” she said.

The Donna Karan tuxedo jacket made me look like an
Annie Hall
reject, according to Susan.

“La de da, la de da, la take it off,” she said, waving her arms.

The Ralph Lauren asymmetrical silk charmeuse floor-length in midnight blue was simply not made with my body type in mind, Lina concluded.

“It’s Claudia, Elle, Cindy, and Kate, but no offense, not you.”

Rachel felt that the printed chiffon Anna Sui would have been more suited for daytime.

My mother had to take another phone call, but disagreed with Rachel before hanging up, and Rachel took back her statement and said, “And then again, it could be for nighttime too.”

The Catherine Malandrino pleated leather skirt did nothing for my calves, according to Heidi.

“It’s the cut of it or something; it just knocks your calves n half.”

An hour into our fashion show, Pete showed up in a yellow T-shirt and red pants.

“Are you working part-time at McDonald’s now or something?” Susan joked.

“I’m not the fashion plate,” he said, kissing me on the cheek and looking over all the clothes. “Hey, let’s see that black dress,” he casually remarked.

I put on the Prada empire-waist chiffon strapless.

“It’s perfect,” Pete said, surveying the last of the crudites on the tray.

“I like it,” Susan said.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Heidi said.

“She’s a dream in it,” Felicia contentedly responded.

“It just looks like it says
premiere.”
Serena sighed, sitting back on my bed.

“If you all say it’s right, I think so too,” Rachel concluded.

“Great,” Pete said. “Anyone want to order a pizza?”

And that completed one of the greatest shopping experiences of my life.

want to know who the jerk was who decided that bulbous was unpopular.

What’s wrong with a little girth hanging out of one’s dress? What is so horrible about some extra padding in the derriere region? Somewhere along the way, the guys (and no doubt they were guys) at the girdle company got together with the guys at the corset company and said, “Hey, I know how we can take advantage of women’s insecurities for the next couple of centuries....”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to dream that one day we all got the notion that breasts got more attractive the lower they got? To think of the day when the pear-shape body would be the body to try to achieve, and microminiskirts would be the norm to show off our cellulite with sex appeal and merriment?

Next week, my boyfriend and I are going to the first big gala premiere of the year and here’s what I’m wearing: I’ll be in a bra that makes my breasts look bigger, a body shaper to make my stomach look smaller, six-inch stilettos to make me appear taller, and I’m covering it all up with a black dress that, as Lina the stylist put it, “makes you look so thin, you disappear when you turn sideways.” Do I really want to look so thin that I vanish?

Uh, yeah.

Whether we like it or not, we live in the unfortunate age where you can never be too thin. No matter how much we American women try to tell one another that the average size is a size ten, there’s always going to be some wiry broad in the store on the verge of tears because she has to get the pants in a size four when she’s always been a size two.

Heidi’s cousin Nancy has the most perfect body of anyone I know. When she gave birth to her daughter last year, she was like someone in the movies who had the baby and all of a sudden her belly instantly went back to the way it was before she was pregnant. Still, Nancy complained that she had “excess skin” around her stomach. She and Heidi were both asked to be bridesmaids at Heidi’s brother’s wedding the following month, and Nancy was steadfast in getting rid of that extra skin. Every time I spoke to Nancy for the next few weeks, she was in the middle of doing crunches.

The night of the wedding, Nancy looked ravishing. Friends were coming up to her in droves, unable to believe she’d just had a baby. As Heidi and Nancy were standing next to the bride and groom, I saw Nancy tap Heidi on the back. Later, Heidi told me what happened.