Nine Women, One Dress(57)
CHAPTER 34
’Tis the Season
By Ruthie, Third Floor, Ladies’ Dresses
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.
CHAPTER 35
Curtain Call One
By Luke Siegel, M.D.
Of marrying age
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.”