Nine Women, One Dress(7)
“Just calmly late, though, not White Rabbit late,” he warned.
I promised to act calm and Albert was happy. Natalie returned in an elegant little black dress, and quite surprisingly, for the first time in a long time, I felt happy too.
CHAPTER 3
The Red Carpet
By Natalie, the Beard
Age: 26
“That’s a beautiful dress,” he said as we stepped into the limo. It was. I wanted to tell him all about it. How it was a Max Hammer, or rather the Max Hammer, the hottest dress of the season. How the first shipment sold out in just a week and how I was so excited to be wearing it, even though the price tag was digging into my back. But I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was only borrowing the dress and would be returning it after tonight. Not that borrowing it was such a terrible thing to do. I mean, I know it’s not an excuse, but everyone does it. “Buying” a dress, wearing it, then returning it is such a common practice that it was given a name—wardrobing. I guess once it was commonplace enough to get a name, retailers had to take measures; we got a memo just last week saying that giant tags are being created to attach to the front of all dresses, making them unwearable until the tag is removed. This little black dress that I’m borrowing may represent the end of an era.
“Thank you,” I said, like six beats later.
“Can I pay for it?” he asked sweetly. As much as I didn’t want him to know I was going to return the dress, it seemed worse to let him think I’d bought a dress that cost two weeks’ worth of my salary to go on a last-minute date with a movie star, so I came clean. “Don’t worry, I’m just borrowing it.”
He suddenly seemed embarrassed. “I could have bought it for you. You could have kept it.” He added, a bit pathetically, “You must think I’m such a loser, getting a date at Bloomingdale’s.”
“No, I don’t. I’m borrowing the dress, you’re borrowing me.” I thought about what I’d just said; borrowing me made it sound like I was some kind of paid escort, but Lillian had promised me the guy was gay. She was tabloid-obsessed and whispered in my ear, “It was all over the papers today. He’s definitely gay, don’t worry.” She knows me better than to think I would risk being taken advantage of by some scorned movie star. No way. And she knows that I have temporarily sworn off men, especially ones who walk into the store looking for a date.
“Please don’t worry about it. I’m happy to be going with you. I don’t even want to keep the dress.” He didn’t seem to believe me, so I changed the subject. “I think it’s ridiculous how much scrutiny you’re all under.”
He nodded in agreement. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt with him. He didn’t act like a big movie star. When I talked he looked at me—really looked at me, like I was the center of his attention.
“I hope you’re not disappointed—the movie’s not very good. And speaking of scrutiny, there’s a chance that your face will be plastered all over the papers tomorrow. You realize that, right?”
“I never thought about it,” I lied. In fact I was counting on it. It was the reason I’d said yes without a second’s hesitation once Lillian told me Jeremy was gay: the thought that maybe, just maybe, they would take our picture and put it on Page Six of the New York Post or, better yet, in that section of New York magazine that shows the most beautiful people wearing the most beautiful dresses in the most beautiful places. Either way it would stick it to Flip.
Flip was my ex-boyfriend. His real name is Philip Roberts. I couldn’t believe he was ever my boyfriend, let alone now my ex-boyfriend. I didn’t even want to go out with him at first. He had asked me out every day for nearly two weeks before I finally agreed. It was last winter, and on cold days he, like many commuting New Yorkers, cut through the store from Third to Lex, dodging the perfume sprayers, on his way to and from work. At the time I worked in men’s gloves, where I would meet a lot of men, some of whom would ask me out. I heard it all. As Ruthie, my older coworker, would say, they were right off the cob. Lots of corny glove references like “perfect fit” and “looking for the match to this glove” and, the worst and most common, “You know what they say—big hands, big…feet.” Which isn’t even the correct reference, and is so not true, by the way.
Flip was less cornball than that. I didn’t say yes the first few times he asked me out because he was older than me and short, with bad hair and a bit of a unibrow. But he grew on me. I didn’t say yes the next few times because I liked it that the challenge was making him try harder. I didn’t say yes the few times after that because it was beginning to feel like he wanted me just because he couldn’t have me, like some kind of prize he was trying to win. My gut told me that in the end I might not be enough of a prize for him and I’d get hurt. This isn’t about my insecurities, though I do have them—who doesn’t? I’m pretty enough, and I’m smart and funny and kind, but he didn’t really seem to value those things. He was a fancy lawyer who grew up on Sutton Place and went to an Ivy League school. I was a salesgirl at Bloomingdale’s who had never lived outside Astoria, Queens. I had no desire to leave my comfort zone, and wanted to find a man who would love me for me. But he wasn’t giving up.