As I followed him to the elevator, though, I began to feel like somewhat of a celebrity, a VIP. When I stepped into the rarefied femininity of the bridal salon, I paused at the entryway to look at the displays. There were so many dresses, most of them in opulent pearl hues, complemented by soft pink lighting.
A camera flashed from somewhere in my peripheral vision, and I blinked in annoyance. Clearly, my adoring public wanted to see pictures of a bereaved Brooklynite in her jean jacket, dazzled by all the beauty before her.
Luke unfolded his tall frame from a velvet couch and walked right up to greet me, and a glamorous woman with impeccable hair and makeup walked up behind him. “Julia, this is Maeve, your bridal consultant. Maeve, this is Julia Cross. She is a brilliant photographer and is about to become my bride.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss…”
“Please, call me Julia.”
“Come with me, and we’ll discuss what silhouette you prefer. I’m looking forward to spending the day with you, my dear, and you will make a most beautiful bride.”
Wait. The whole freaking day? How long can it possibly take to try on a few dresses?
I thought, but rather than complaining out loud, I said, “Thank you, but I… Well, I was going to just rent a dress.”
Maeve held her hand over her chest and gasped, as if I’d just informed her that her entire family had been murdered. “
Rent
?” she asked in disbelief, as if I was speaking some sort of foreign language. “My darling, no bride should ever, ever, ever wear a dress worn by another, nor should she ever have to return it! You mustn’t be so cruel to yourself. You deserve your own dress, one you will want to keep forever.”
“Well, I like simple things, but my dad…” I paused as I thought of him and how happy he would be to know I was standing in Saks, among all those pricy gowns I could never afford, the kinds of dresses that Mom and I had spent hours gluing into my hopeful scrapbook so long ago. I looked back up at Maeve. “You probably know we’re doing this for him. He’d want me in a princess dress,” I said quietly, feeling very small and a bit overwhelmed.
“I think we can manage. Here we have a Marchesa silk-faille, off-the-shoulder ball gown, with pleats at the bodice.” She pointed to a creamy dream of a dress, and it almost took my breath away.
The expanse of the dress was embellished only with tucks and pleats, devoid of lace, beads, and frills that might have actually made it look gaudy. It looked like something that would have been hanging on the costume rack in one of those old movies my mother so loved, like something Grace Kelly would have worn.
I looked at the extravagant piece wistfully but shook my head. “It’s stunning, but it’s not really me. It’s too elegant, too perfect.”
“There is no such thing as too perfect when it comes to bridal, sweet girl. You can be as elegant as you like, Julia,” she said.
Suddenly, I was jarred by her saying my name. I wasn’t used to my name being uttered by such a woman in such a place. It sounded too ladylike coming off her lips, as if my name didn’t quite fit me any better than that dress would. Everything about my upcoming nuptials was fake, a huge farce, and I felt like some sort of imposter standing there, not even comfortable with my own name.
“All our bridal services are at your disposal so you can create something magical, to make this one night into the most memorable of your life, my dear,” Maeve said, tapping her perfectly manicured, long nails on a glass cabinet full of sparkling tiaras and headpieces.
I nodded doubtfully and walked closer to a tulle-skirted ball gown by Reem Acra. It was strapless, with a sweetheart neckline, but it had a deconstructed, loose, free look to it, and that appealed to me. It looked traditional, fit for a princess like I knew my dad and my mom would have wanted me to be, but there was more to it than that. “I’d like to try that one,” I said, glancing over at Maeve.
“Are you sure, dear? It certainly isn’t the most popular choice.” She looked at me curiously, scrunching up her nose like she’d just smelled rotten eggs, but finally nodded.
“I’m sure…and I’m not worried about being popular.”
Ignoring me, she strolled across the gallery to a white silk gown, strikingly unornamented, with a corset top and spaghetti straps. “If you are looking for something a little less…fancy, what about this one?”
I was surprised to find that she understood my taste a bit. As I looked at her suggestion, I bit my lip. It was too much, exactly what I wanted. The trouble was just that. I wanted to get married in a dress like that, rather than just pretend. It wasn’t the ruffle and lace armor I was looking for to help me make it through the biggest game of charades I’d ever played. That dress deserved to be worn in a real wedding, and I could not possibly disgrace it by using it for a ruse. I shook my head. “No, it’s too, uh…too me, if that makes sense. If I was really getting married, I’d take that one in a heartbeat, but this wedding is for my dad,” I said hesitantly.
“Hmm,” she said, stroking her chin. “From what I understand of your remarkable story, the event is actually for both of you, a chance for a beautiful goodbye.”
“I s-suppose,” I stuttered.
“When I heard your story, I wanted to smile and cry at the same time, like I always do at weddings,” Maeve said. “My husband passed away when our children were small. I know he would have loved to have seen Rose at her wedding last year. This is a gift you can give your father, Julia.”
I nodded. “You’re right.”
“Then let’s try all three, shall we?” she said.
I nodded again, at a loss for words.
The Reem Acra was first into the fitting room with me. On the peg, it looked somewhat weightless, but on me, it hung like a nightgown, no matter what sort of bustier and shapewear they layered on me. As much as I loved it on display, I loathed it on me. It required a taller, slimmer bride, and that was not me. I looked like a chiffon-draped muffin in it, and no amount of alterations or double-sided tape was going to allow me to pull that look off. The dress cost more than all of my clothes and shoes combined, but somehow, it made me look like a bag lady. Out of courtesy, I waited as Maeve adjusted some industrial-looking clamps to secure it in place, and I stepped onto the dais before the mirror and immediately broke into a series of groans and cringes. I was not looking forward to Luke’s verdict, but I cleared my throat to entice him to look up from his tablet.
His mouth quirked at the corner with amusement. “Cupcake,” he said.
“I know,” I answered miserably.
“Next please,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, and he returned to his email as I scurried off, eager to get out of the white nightmare.
I tried on another dress and came out. I twirled around and he looked up.
“Is this the dress?” he asked. “The one you’ll wear when you dance with your dad?”
“I don’t want to dance with him, Luke.”
“Huh? Why not? I mean, isn’t that sort of the point?”
“That came out wrong. Yes, I want to dance with him. But… I just…don’t want it to be over,” I said, tears beading in my eyes.
“I know, Julia,” he said. He looked up at me with sadness in his eyes. “Is this what you want him to see though?” he asked, pointing at the mirror in front of me. “This will make him happy, won’t it? Isn’t that what you’re really trying to do?”
“Yeah, I think he’ll love this one. But it’s not my favorite.”
“Julia, what he wants most of all is for you to be happy. That’s all your dad’s ever wanted. You know that. He told me so last night on the phone.”
I dropped my gaze to our hands, still clasped. The whole situation was somewhat uncomfortably intimate and personal. There I was, in a wedding dress, talking about my father’s hopes and dreams, discussing my real identity, and gawking at some stranger in the mirror, all while the love of my life stood by, the love of my life that I would never really have. “This doesn’t make me happy,” I said, wondering if he’d realize I was talking about far more than the dress.
“Then let’s make it better,” he said. “How about that one over on the wall, that lacy one?”
How can he be so oblivious?
I thought, but I couldn’t help giggling a bit when I looked at his suggestion “It looks like a flamenco dancer fell in a vat of bleach,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the garment in disgust.
He smiled. “At least it has personality. This one belongs on a china doll, not on you.”
“I can’t wear that, Luke. It’s too—”
“Bridal?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Well, you need to try on a few, since the first few bombed. That’s what brides do, right? On that one show, they try on fifty of them while their snarky girlfriends and their mother make all these snide remarks under their breath and roll their eyes, until she walks out in some dress that makes her bawl.”
I laughed. “You’re right. I guess I’ll try the flamenco dress,” I said, indicating what turned out to be a Monique Lhullier Chantilly lace gown. The deep V bodice was flattering, but the shape-hugging silhouette was too tight around my more-than-ample hips. I looked like a very dressed-up, fancy pear. I liked the sweep train, and the lace was beautiful, but on me, the whole thing looked sadly out of place.
Luke must have noticed the mismatch, because he shook his head. “I guess I’d better leave this to the fashion experts, huh?” he said, looking me over and sticking his tongue out as if he’d just eaten something bad. “It’s sort of…awful. You look like a deflated Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man. You wear that thing, and somebody’s gonna show up at the wedding and try to kill you with a proton pack.”
“Gee thanks, Luke. You do such wonders for my ego,” I said.
I was beginning to feel quite insecure, because no matter how high the price tag was on the designer gowns I was trying on, I looked like absolute crap in them. It was like being a smelly, old wino in the fine leather seat of a Lamborghini. I didn’t really mind that I didn’t have a designer body, since I didn’t exactly long for the couture lifestyle like my friends Zack and Kate did, but it was a little hard on my self-esteem. It didn’t help any that the photographer kept snapping pictures of me in the awful dress. I didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t tell her to stop, so I just plastered a fake smile on my face in the fake dress that I did not want to wear in my fake wedding. I only hoped she would have the wherewithal to avoid photographing my sorry-looking ass in that dress, because it really did look like a flattened seat cushion.
After a few more failures, I let Maeve lace me in to the Amsale ball gown. The texture of the silk, the matte finish that seemed to gleam a little without any shine, the drape of it, and the subtle corsetry of the bodice made me look more womanly. I was far less pear-shaped in it than I was in the last one, and I almost fell in love with the dress instantly. It was heavy, and I felt like it tethered me to Earth, as if I was at risk of flying apart.
On the contrary, the elegant Marchesa created a shape for me that I’d never even aspired to. It was a brilliant design, and the pleats gave the illusion of a bust and waist that God had certainly not blessed me with. It looked and felt like an elaborate costume. I felt like an actress, some sort of hypocrite pretending to be a girl I was not. For that reason, I knew it was perfect; the entire reception was really nothing more than a scripted performance anyway. It fit the bill, for it was something beautiful and alien, something that reminded me with every swish of my skirt that it wasn’t me, that it wasn’t real, and that I was really just a groomless girl who would not really spend her life with her hired groom. In a million years, I never would have chosen such a dress for myself. It was too flawless, too removed from the person I knew myself to be. When my eyes fell on such stark whiteness, such perfection, I instantly thought of stain remover rather than roses and rings.
Maeve expertly twisted my long hair, pulled it back, and pinned it up, then attached a veil “A true vision, darling,” she said, smiling up at me. “I am sure your father will be delighted to see you like this.”
I looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of some wedding cake-topper staring back at me. It was like the woman I was looking at was merely a porcelain figure, like her smile was made of glass, frozen and fragile. I held my head carefully still, just gazing at myself for a minute, fearing that the veil might fall off and break the spell. When I stepped up on the carpeted circle between all those mirrors, I felt entirely like a mannequin on display.
Luke laid his tablet down and walked up to me. He took my hands and held them, looking me over from head to toe. I had totally captured his attention.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, awestricken.
I couldn’t stop grinning. “Thank you.”
“You look like a radiant vision,” he said. “I can’t take my eyes off of you.”
“So you approve?”
“I love it.”
“I love it too.”
Maeve unpinned my hair. “Stay right here,” she said, then came back a few minutes later with a jeweled headband instead of a veil. She positioned it in my hair and let my dark waves cascade down, falling loose across my shoulders.
I grinned at my reflection, then swept eagerly onto the dais and twirled, squealing like a little girl playing dress-up. There I stood, brittle and flawless, looking like one of the models I always photographed for magazines. It was like an out-of-body experience, like I was looking at some other person, someone I didn’t know.