Lily White Lies(6)
Charlotte had spent the last hour fielding phone calls from her son, Bobby, who wanted to know when she would be picking him up. He usually spent Saturday’s with Kevin and seemed to enjoy his time there, but she could always tell when boredom set in by the frequency of his calls and the urgency in his voice.
“Here we go, dear!”
As Helen requested my attention, I noticed she was tapping a foot anxiously. I had stopped waiting in the dressing room between each new gown after the first eight or nine and now sat on a couch in the middle of the lobby, wearing no more than my white bra and panties. I thought the chance of any man walking through the front door was slim, assuming all men hated this sort of thing as much as Brian did.
I obediently followed her to the cubicle where I would try on yet another dress.
“This one is definitely you. From the minute you walked in to the shop, I could see you in this gown. Of course, I wouldn’t have brought it out had you found one you liked among your choices, but somehow I knew you wouldn’t. I’m pretty good at judging this type of thing after all these years.”
After twelve or so gowns and three hours of standing around, I was no more in the mood for Helen’s chatter than I was for sex with Brian. Funny, I thought. It was more than eight hours before I would turn in for the night and the thought of sex was already darkening my mood.
She unbuttoned what seemed like hundreds of tiny, pearl buttons sewn to the back of the dress, and held it out when she was through.
“Okay, do you want to step into it?”
An honest reply would have been no, but I stepped into the dress carefully, while I held my hair back, out of her way.
As Helen began the task of buttoning, I admired myself in the mirror. I wasn’t certain yet whether I liked it, but from what I could see, it held more promise than any of the previous gowns had. I turned my head toward Helen as I felt her hands come to a stop less than halfway through the buttoning.
No matter how hard she tried to keep from staring, in the mirror I watched as her eyes involuntarily returned to the scar that ran from my left shoulder to the top of my right buttock. It hadn’t occurred to me earlier that the ugly and unexpected scar might make her uncomfortable. I had lived with it for so many years; I often forgot it was there. And giving thought to the scar meant giving thought to how I got it so I found it easier and much less painful to forget.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! If I had—I wouldn’t have chosen a scoop back—maybe you’ll want to choose another...” She timidly began to slide the dress from my shoulder.
Taking hold of her hands, I calmly said, “Helen, please finish buttoning this for me.”
“But…”
“But…” I offered a consoling smile, “so far, I like this one best.”
I felt her hands tremble slightly, as she slowly began to button the dress again. I stood silently for a moment. Although I wasn’t really in the mood for explanations, seeing how upset she was I felt as though I owed her one.
“I received that when I was very young. So young really, that I don’t remember the pain of it much now.” I stared at an imaginary object within the mirror, as I continued, “It was a car accident. My parents and I were on our way back from my grandparent’s house in Willoughby late one night when we were hit head-on by a drunk driver.” I casually smoothed the bodice as if I were talking about something as trivial as recipes, my voice showing little emotion. “I was hurled through the windshield by the force of the crash and as awful as that sounds…” I hesitated. “Well—I was the lucky one.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
Before Helen had a chance to shower me with expired condolences, I urged her hands back to the buttons.
“Thank you, but the time for I’m sorry was twenty-five years ago. Now, it’s time to look ahead.” Pausing long enough to lighten my tone and expression, I added, “Let’s see what this gown looks like with a veil.”
Helen worked in silence after hearing the condensed version of my tragic past and I gave little more thought to the subject. Instead, I focused on the trip to the nursing home I would make once I finished here and the must-attend dinner party later this evening. Dread shrouded me as I thought of the pompous men in expensive suits who would speak loud and laugh even louder in an attempt to impress the guests of honor. Sometimes I thought it was an unspoken rule among lawyers that the one who was able to get the most attention, garnered the most prestige. Brian and I rarely discussed his work and I was secretly grateful for that. I had little interest in the practice of law or the cock-and-bull it was built upon.