Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown (22 page)

So I stopped speaking to them until I couldn’t take the grief anymore and called up one day, telling them I would freelance whenever they needed me.

The strange phenomenon about quitting or being fired from a job is all those clothes, which are just not needed anymore. There is too much in your closet that just doesn’t need be there. All those clothes you bought in order to wear a different outfit each day is now unnecessary, since the same pair of jeans can be worn for months on end. And why not? No one except your loved one sees you on a daily basis.

You know when you find a really good-fitting T-shirt or a pair of pants and you buy five of them in an array of colors? The one T-shirt or pair of pants that you favored over the others is the one that gets worn. The others? Donate them. You’re never going to wear them again unless you drop a jar of chocolate syrup on the outfit you normally wear (like I did). When you don’t have a job, there aren’t enough people in the world who are going to see you wear the same thing twice.

At first you continue to set your alarm to 7 a.m. You jump out of bed with the world as your playground and wonder, “Shall it be the museum today? How about a nice matinee after the gym?” You try to make plans with your stay-at-home-mom girlfriends, but they don’t have time for an afternoon matinee or lunch or anything else. There’s soccer practice to drive to, ballet lessons, piano lessons, and tutors to tend to. “You’ll find that out soon enough,” they tell me.

Pretty soon, you realize that the wedding preparations are taking no time at all. Instead of meeting the florist and the cake baker in one day, mix it up. “I’m busy that Monday with the florist,” you tell the baker, “Tuesday is better for me.”

Pretty soon, the flowers are picked, the cake is decided on, it’s too much of a pain to drive to the gym and, before you know it, Paula’s prediction comes true. You find yourself sitting in front of the television at four in the afternoon in the same shirt and pants you’ve been wearing for the last five days, and you’re ticked off because there’s nothing on HBO.

So you clean out your closet ... for the tenth time.

eidi was twenty-six when she got engaged. The engagement party was a Sunday-morning brunch, and Serena and I went shopping with her. She decided on a dress from Bebe in white with red cherries on it. We looked everywhere for shoes, and we finally found the perfect pair in white with red piping on them at the Macy’s in the Century City Mall. You’d never seen an outfit more put-together. The shoes and dress were like a match made in perfect-for-a-daytime-engagement-brunch heaven. The only problem was, the shoes were $500—more than our weekly paycheck at the time. Serena and I took a huddle and wondered if we might all pitch in for them together and make the shoes her engagement present. That’s when a sneaky woman, though not sneaky-looking at all, more like a mom in her mid-fifties with a pink sweatsuit on, whispered to us as the salesman walked away. “Pssst, tape ‘em up and return them after you wear them,” she said.

“What? What do you mean ‘tape ’em up’?” Serena and I inquired.

“You put Scotch tape on the bottom of the shoes, and then you can walk all over the place and not scuff them up. Take the tape off afterward, and the heels are like new.”

This was the smartest thing that Serena and I had ever heard. Heidi thought so too when we told her.

“Are you sure they don’t scuff?” Heidi inquired.

“I’ve been doing it for years,” the woman said as she handed a pair of Yves Saint Laurent black pumps to a salesman. “I’ll take them,” she said, winking at us.

It was worth a try, and they did look perfect with the dress.... We decided to go for the crime.

At the engagement brunch, everyone loved Heidi’s outfit. “Those shoes are perfect,” guests told her as she winked at us.

After the brunch, Serena and I went back to Heidi’s apartment, where we carefully took off the now-soiled tape. Underneath it was a gorgeous, spotless heel. The problem now was the grief in bringing the shoes back. Should we go back to the same Macy’s in the Century City Mall? Maybe bring them to the Macy’s at the Beverly Center?

“No,” I said creating the perfect crime, “let’s bring them to the Macy’s in Westwood. No one goes there.” Which they didn‘t, and the Macy’s in Westwood closed soon afterward.

Then Heidi got a pang of fear.

“I can’t go. I can’t do it,” she cried. “You do it.”

“Why should I do it?” I countered. “They’re your shoes.”

“Technically, they’re Macy’s.”

“No, technically, they’re yours, and soon half of mine,” Heidi’s fiancé Eric announced to us as he entered the conversation.

“You do it, Serena,” we said.

“Are you crazy?” She winced. “I’m not doing that.”

“Would Shawn do it?” Heidi asked, meaning Serena’s fiancé.

“Shawney?” Serena cooed on the phone. “Would you return a pair of shoes for Heidi?”

We never heard an answer.

“This is stupid,” Eric said as he grabbed the box of shoes. “I’ll return them.”

We watched Eric go on his way, and the three of us went back to sorting Heidi’s engagement gifts. An hour later, Eric came home. His face was white.

“They knew you taped them,” he said. “You made me feel like a criminal!”

Thoughts of the woman in Macy‘s, the day of the crime, came into our heads. Could this have been a setup?

“They finally took them back after I made them believe I had no idea what they were talking about, but don’t ever do that again.” He sighed, going into the bedroom and shutting the door.

We never taped shoes again. The fear of returning them scared us out of a life of crime.

When Serena got engaged to Shawn that same year, after hours‘, days’, and weeks’ worth of shopping, Serena bought a cream-colored suit jacket with a matching skirt.

“Go to my tailor,” I told Serena. “She’s really good.” She was. I really liked that tailor and took all of my clothes to her. Unfortunately, she closed down at some point through the years and I had to switch, but this was long before that happened.

“SHE SHORTENED THE SKIRT TO MY ASS!” Serena called, yelling at me. “SHE RUINED MY OUTFIT!”

I hopped into my car immediately and sped over to Serena’s apartment, where I found her practically comatose.

“It’s not that bad,” Shawn kept saying over and over, trying to calm her down.

“I like the length,” I told her.

Truthfully, the skirt was way too short—tragically short—but I’d never let her know until now. She’s always had an amazing body, so it really didn’t make that much of a difference. Had I told the truth at the time, though, the whole engagement party and possibly the wedding would have been canceled. I had forgotten the whole reason I went to that tailor in the first place. Serena’s engagement took place during my short-skirt era, when I liked having my clothes shortened to the ass. Maybe I was the tailor’s only happy customer and that’s why she had to go out of business.

Ten years after these stories became dinner-party fodder, it was finally my turn to find the engagement outfit, and I did not want Lina coming with us.

“She knows what fits you,” Pete complained.

“It’s a sacred thing!” I told him. “Parties and benefits are one thing; this is something close friends do together.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” he reasoned. “Don’t you want to look good? Don’t you want to be a showstopper at your engagement party?”

Of course I wanted to be a showstopper; of course I wanted to be the greatest-looking engaged woman that ever got engaged. But tradition was tradition.

“Tradition is tradition!” I yelled.

“At least let her come with you!” he said.

It was like taking your little sister with you if you ever had one—your 5’6”, obnoxious, opinionated, glass-is-half-empty, thinks-she-knows-you-better-than-you-know-yourself, tells-everyone-in-hearing-distance-that-you-have-no-ass (and how
thank God
she got you out of those stripper heels) little sister, and the only thing you can do is give her the finger behind her back every time she turns around.

“I love it!” Heidi said as she whipped out her boob to breast-teed her latest newborn.

“It’s perfect!” Serena said, beaming.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lina said sulkily about my white Costume National pantsuit, “Casper the Friendly Ghost is now a fashion statement.”

“The hippos are in full bloom,” she said of the flowered Eduardo Lucero floor-length dress.

“If you can wear her dresses,” she said of another designer, “then you know she’s marketing to the masses now.”

I looked over at the girls.

“If you don’t do it, I will,”
Serena mouthed.

“If I didn’t have a child attached to my breast, I’d knock her to the ground,” Heidi vowed.

We knew what had to be done, and I wanted to be the one to do it.

“Lina, could I speak to you privately for just a second?” I asked her politely.

“Oh, the bride is getting nervous,” she said, smirking at my closest friends. “Every bride bitches me out by now.”

“No, I’m not turning into a bitch,” I calmly said, “hut I think that you are.”

“Look, the truth hurts,” Lina said with a laugh. “If you can’t take it, I don’t have to stay.”

“OK, then, thanks for everything and good luck,” I said peacefully.

“Pete isn’t going to like this.”

“I’ll deal with my fiancé, thank you,” I told her

“Good luck,” she said, giving my body the last once-over she’d ever give. “And I really mean that.” Then she walked out of the store.

Five minutes later, I had purchased the white Costume National pantsuit.

And we all loved it, except for Pete.

“What’s the matter with you?” he screamed at me, standing in the driveway in his Banjo-fur sweater when the girls and I drove up to my home with smiles on our faces.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, getting out of the car.

“Ladies,” he tried to say calmly, though it was obvious he was not, “I need to speak with Adena. Can she call you later?”

We all had nervous smiles on our faces, unable to decide what to do.

“Ladies, really, I’m very upset right now and I really need to speak with her, so if you could ... ?”

Heidi and Serena scurried into Heidi’s car, still nervously smiling at me, me nervously smiling back, wishing I could have gotten into the car with them. I mouthed,
“I’ll call you,”
as I walked into the house.

“You had no right to fire Lina! You call her up right now and apologize!” Pete yelled as I stepped inside.

I started laughing, really laughing, with this statement. He was being ridiculous.

“I’m serious, Adena. I am so mad at you right now, I can’t even look at you!”

I had never seen Pete with such anger in his face. He was not the matter-of-fact Pete I knew. He was angry Pete, Pete the angry man, and even though I could not take him seriously, I knew I had to at least put up a front.

“I had to fire her,” I told him calmly. “She was completely out of line. She was saying the most awful things. I just felt it was the right thing to do.”

“Well, it wasn’t the right thing to do. She’s done amazing things with you. Do you know how much better you’ve looked since she started picking out your clothes?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I said, raising my voice.

“When I met you, I was embarrassed by how you looked!”

Hold back.

I took a deep breath. Was he right? Had a professional come in and made me look the way I always wanted to look? Did I really look that bad before and didn’t know it? Was he right? Was he right? Was I wrong? Did I really look that bad before?

“Did I really look that bad before?”

“Yes! You really looked that bad before!”

That was the worst put-down of all.

“So why are you with me?”

“Don’t start that chick shit!” he yelled, handing me the phone. “Just call her right now and apologize, and I don’t want to hear another thing about it!” Then he went into his home office and slammed the door.

I didn’t call Lina. I didn’t do anything for a good five minutes. I sat in our foyer and looked at the plastic suit holder that held my engagement outfit. I stared at it and stared at it, unable to think of what to do next.

And then, I left the suit where it was and I walked out the door, slamming it as loud as I could.

sther and Frank, my mother’s parents, both died suddenly when I was eleven years old. I was at sleep-away camp for eight weeks and came home to find them gone. I loved them so much, and I didn’t get to say good-bye. They weren’t sick when I left. It was all very sudden. There had been a funeral and everyone cried together and no one told me. My brother David told me that for five days, the house was wall to wall with people coming to pay their respects My brother Michael said he clocked it at three hundred people, but David said he thought it felt more like four hundred. I’ve always had a bit of contempt with the family for overlooking me. I suppose, though, when two people you love most in this world die suddenly, nothing makes sense.

I really should have known as soon as I walked in the door of our house. They weren’t there like they always were. Esther wasn’t sitting at the kitchen table sipping iced coffee and gossiping with my mother and fanning herself with a scrap piece of paper she’d found nearby. Her signature costume jewelry cocktail rings and layers of gold necklaces weren’t swaying back and forth as she went on and on about this one’s heart attack, that one’s business that failed, who wore what to the party and what were they thinking, and yelling at my poor dad that the house was still too hot even though he’d already put the air conditioning down to sixtyfive degrees. Frank wasn’t sitting outside on our porch under the yellow-and-white-striped awning, immaculately dressed on a hot August day without a bead of sweat, relaxing in a pair of seersucker pants and pristine white golf shirt, transistor radio in hand, earpiece in ear, listening to the Phillies game, drowning out my grandmother’s nonstop chatter. Their best friends, my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Lou Goldman were there however.