Well Behaved Wives(33)
It had been a while since she’d enjoyed similar outings in New York with Dotsie. Those were always special because she was with her best friend. Now here Ruth was, with her new friends Carrie and Irene in the very next rooms. Of course, Harriet was there too. She was tolerable. Ruth knew she should be studying, but, darn it, she was having fun. She was afraid she was losing sight of her goal of trying to study.
Ruth didn’t know what to make of Lillian, upper crust and coiffed, yet not quite a snob. “I chose clothes for you,” Lillian had said. “But wear what you want.”
Was it some sort of test? A trick, perhaps?
Maybe Lillian didn’t truly know. Wouldn’t that be something. Ha. Ruth had gone and lost her mind among the mannequins. Women like Lillian and Shirley—even Harriet to some extent—stood steadfast, certain of everything.
Well, Ruth might not be certain of everything, but she was crystal clear on one point. Despite the promised transformative properties, these clothes wouldn’t magically appear on her body. She would need to choose.
Wearing only her slip, stockings, and brassiere, Ruth rifled through the clothes, serenaded by the clicking hooks of the hangers as they slid along the rack. While she might not have a sophisticated fashion sense, choosing appropriate clothing had elements of a grade school exercise. Common sense, not fashion sense, was in order here.
The too-small skirt and sweater had been placed among the selection as a trap, or rather a decoy, for sure. At first glance, they looked suitable, but on closer inspection, that low-cut neckline wasn’t right for lunch with the girls.
Another trap was that black dress. Ruth wouldn’t be fooled. Even she understood that black was for formal functions and funerals. She paused for a moment, wistful. If only she could benefit from the women’s combined expertise and find an outfit appropriate for eventual law firm interviews. She stopped herself from contemplating that further. Today wasn’t about the job Ruth wanted; it was about the life she desired.
She ran her hand along fabric-covered buttons. She turned over the tag on a gray dress that Dotsie, who favored green, would have dubbed “drab with a pleated skirt.” She checked the label.
Arnel acetate
$9.97
The whopping price tag made her decide this was the perfect frock. She should choose expensive clothes for a make-believe lunch at a fancy restaurant.
When Ruth and Asher had first arrived in Philadelphia, two naive weeks ago, the fancy lunch had been real, not imagined. Ruth couldn’t believe that, after the wedding blowup in New York, Shirley would treat her to a day out. A very special day.
The reality was, Ruth learned, that though the outing highlighted Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross’s house—even shopping at Wanamaker’s—it had been designed to assess Ruth.
Even lunch at the Grand Crystal Tea Room. Their visit to the largest, most elegant restaurant in Philadelphia (oysters!), and one of the fanciest places Ruth had ever been, had been finely calculated. After the wedding outburst, Shirley claimed this treat was her attempt to personally share her city with her son’s wife.
Ruth appreciated the effort, thanking Shirley a dozen times. She imagined daughters attended fancy lunches like this with their mothers, something she’d never experienced, and it touched her. Made her feel a tad more like other girls. Girls who grew up with mothers.
Amidst the gratitude and richness of the day, Ruth had utterly failed to notice fashion. It never occurred to her that clothing could matter so much.
Unlike her mother-in-law, who was impressed, but not overwhelmed, by the restaurant, Ruth had been awestruck by the crystal chandeliers and yellow velvet chairs. She soaked up every detail, fixating on Shirley in order to mimic her nuanced affect and movements. The way Shirley folded her hands and flipped her hair. How Shirley ordered her meal, sipped her tea, placed her flatware.
While Ruth had hoped Shirley would love her because Asher did—the way her father had with her brothers’ wives—she would take no chances. For Asher’s sake Ruth hoped to develop a mother-daughter relationship, but she realized Shirley just wanted to mold her into a perfect housewife. She carefully stockpiled tidbits of information about the things that mattered to her mother-in-law—Shirley’s friends’ names, her favorite games, magazines, shops, food—all to be used to woo the woman, just in case loving Ruth didn’t come naturally to her.
Now she stood in her underwear in Saks with a secret and a husband who seemed to have forgotten his promise.
What looked best? She didn’t know.
Ruth clutched her own blue button-down blouse to her chest and pushed through the saloon-style louvered doors. She was surprised neither Lillian nor Maryanne were around to help her choose. No matter. She would ask Carrie, her new friend.
Her brassiere, garter, and stockings were on display as she tiptoed across the common area to Carrie’s dressing room and pressed her cheek to the door.
“Psst, Carrie, can you help me? It’s Ruth.” This is what girlfriends did, wasn’t it? They helped each other with outfits.
“I’ll come over in a minute.”
Not the response she’d hoped for. Ruth was surprised to realize she was dying to see what clothes hung in Carrie’s dressing room. She wondered if they would be much different from her own. Who was she—now wanting to study different outfits—and what had she done with Ruth, the studious one? She returned to her dressing room, hung her blouse on a hanger, and pawed through the clothes. Corduroy slacks with a matching jacket? Hmmm. Appropriate for apple-picking, not a tearoom. The next choice: a skirt and shirt set—alphabet print in Dacron polyester and pima cotton. Too whimsical.