Nine Women, One Dress (10 page)

It
was
a nice idea. Very caring, for a lying wretch. “How about a silk scarf?” I asked.

“Well, actually I have another reason,” he said. “My wife and I are very different.”
Here it comes
, I thought. The old “my wife doesn't understand me” routine. He continued. “She likes to go out nearly every night—she's very social. And I'm more of a homebody. Lately she's been saying I don't listen to her wants.” He stopped and looked at me, a puzzled look on his face. “I don't know why I'm telling you all this.”
I do
, I thought.
So you can use the caring-husband-with-a-distant-wife routine to pick me up
. The sympathy play. Pathetic.

He continued. “I want to show her that I'm listening and will go out more. So I want to buy her a dress she can go out in. With me. Like a romantic gesture.” He picked up one of the dresses and asked, “How about this one?” He held it up next to me. Then, looking me up and down in a way that made me blush involuntarily, he said, “Actually, you look to be about the same size as my wife. Can I hold it up against you?”

He'd picked out a really beautiful dress—the kind of dress you would try on just for kicks and then buy because you couldn't bear to leave it behind.

“Want me to try it on?” I offered.

“Would you?”

He took the bait, and I took the little black dress and headed for the dressing room, channeling my inner Mata Hari (although I think her seductions and spying ended in her execution).

“Can you zip me? It's hard to reach…” I whispered, testing out my charm in the dressing-room mirror. The dress was gorgeous. Looking at myself in it made me long for somewhere glamorous to go. I didn't dress up much anymore. I worked a lot, and anyway, I just wasn't invited to many things where one would wear something elegant like this. This dress felt like it was from another era. Not old-fashioned—timeless. And I was dateless. Maybe we made a good pair, this timeless dress and dateless me. Maybe I should tell him it was ripped and buy it for myself, I thought. Coming back to reality for a moment, I had to admit to myself that I didn't feel comfortable wearing something so look-at-me. Since I was an unmarried woman with a circle of mostly married friends, it seemed like the only people I would be calling out to in a dress like this were other women's husbands.
Other women's husbands!
Eye on the prize, Andie! I put on the used dressing-room heels to up the ante on my sex appeal. I checked myself in the mirror and went out to show Caroline's cheating husband. I couldn't believe what I was doing. But the dress made me feel so confident, so seductive—it made me feel like everything would go my way.

John was sitting on a chair eating almonds. He barely noticed me. I guess I wasn't such a great seductress after all—I had to cough just to get his attention. For a shameless philanderer he sure had some less-than-predatory methods. Either that or I had totally lost my mojo. Though wearing that dress, I didn't feel like I'd lost any mojo at all.

“Want an almond?” he offered.

I did. I hadn't eaten since lunch.

“Did you ever notice that when you bite into raw almonds it sounds like the first few notes to the song ‘Build Me Up Buttercup'?”

It may have been one of the strangest questions I'd ever heard, but it made me smile. I'm a really good judge of character, and it didn't seem like this man had any interest in picking me up. Not with a nutty line like that, I thought, making myself cringe at my corny joke. The twins called it “mom humor.” I asked him for another almond and thought about his question as I listened to the crunch. I agreed, and he seemed happy that I got it.

A saleswoman approached us cautiously. “Are you buying that dress?” she asked. But her tone was slightly off—it almost sounded like she didn't want us to buy it. Maybe she wanted it for herself? I wouldn't blame her.

“I'm not sure. Are we?” I asked the man, who I was starting to believe really was just looking for the perfect present for his wife. He explained to the saleswoman that he needed something silk for his twelfth anniversary. She discouraged him from picking out a dress as a gift, saying it was a known fail.

“Men rarely judge their wives' dress size correctly, and there is nothing worse than that. Too big and it's ‘You think I'm fat!' Too small and
they
think they're fat! Buy her a beautiful silk evening bag. It covers everything you want.”

This woman knew her stuff. I didn't want to take the dress off. I spun around in it a few times. John stood up and thanked us both for our help and excused himself to look for a silk purse.

I knew I needed to follow him and keep at it. But seeing myself in the dressing-room mirror again made me stop.

“I wish I had somewhere to wear this dress,” I said, drawing the attention of only the saleswoman.

“A dress like that has no business waiting around for a chance to go somewhere.”

Neither do I
, I thought as I motioned for her to unzip me. She did. So much for channeling Mata Hari.

“I'll take it when you're done,” she instructed. “I have to hold it for another customer.”

I knew I'd detected a hidden agenda—
hidden agenda!
I'd gotten so caught up in the dress I'd forgotten I was still on John's trail. I threw on my clothes and caught up with him by the escalator.

“Want some help picking out a purse?” I asked, feeling more like a stalker than a seductress. He nodded. Actually it was more of a shrug, but I went with it.

We headed to the first floor to look at the purses, and he put a lot of thought into his choice. My gut was talking to me very loudly by this point, and I didn't think there was any way this guy was cheating. If I had any doubt, it was obliterated when the salesgirl offered him one of those small free gift cards. He whipped a Hallmark-type anniversary card out of his pocket. On the soft pink envelope he had drawn a big heart. In my experience, these just weren't the actions of a cheater. For the first time in a while, I felt a surge of optimism about the possibility of finding a good man. I couldn't wait to tell Caroline the good news.

“How to dress a Broadway diva?” is a question I would have felt confident answering after the thirty-seven productions that have made up my reputable career as a costume designer thus far: eighteen Broadway, twelve Off-Broadway, and seven summer stock. But the current production I am working on,
That Southern Play
, has me doubting it all.

Set in the South, the play has been trumpeted as an homage to the works of Tennessee Williams, most evidently
The Glass Menagerie
and a lesser-known play called
Suddenly Last Summer
. Like
That Southern Play
, they both examine insanity. The insanity in this production, both on and off the stage, involved the lead character, Daphne Beauregard, being played by the Hollywood screen star Jordana Winston.

Being a costume designer for a period piece is usually my favorite kind of work; I enjoy the challenge of creating a past world.
That Southern Play
is set in that small sliver of the sixties before the hippies and the British invaded our culture. When people still dressed for dinner and things like white gloves and ascots were common accessories, especially in the South. As I sketched out my ideas and collected treasures from costume and vintage shops around the city, I felt lucky to be a part of this new production. Just like those unsuspecting proper folk in the early sixties, I had no idea what was coming.

The nightmare began on day two of rehearsals. Day two was the day that the infamous Hollywood leading lady Jordana Winston arrived onstage, or on set, as she mistakenly kept calling it.

It has become common practice of late to feature Hollywood stars on the Broadway stage, and if you ask me, which no one does, it's a travesty. The Tinsel Town effect, as it's called, may boost sales, but it certainly doesn't boost morale, at least not among real Broadway thespians. Prominent stage actors worry that they will disappear from Broadway's future if screen actors continue to scoop up leading roles and Tony Award noms. Some are cast just for their names and aren't even right for the parts. This was especially true in the case of my latest diva, Jordana Winston.

Ms. Winston arrived straight off a megamillion-dollar box office smash, and boy, did she know it. Between her ego and her entourage, it was thought she would need two dressing rooms. This was after her request to airlift a movie trailer onto the ninety-year-old roof of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre was denied. I'm sure the renowned
New York Times
critic Brooks Atkinson, for whom the theater is named, would have had a choice word or two to say about Ms. Jordana Winston. I only wish he could be resurrected for opening night!

Ms. Winston had her own stylist, her own makeup artist, her own trainer/nutritionist, and her own mancubine masquerading as personal manager. (It was quite clear to all what part of her person he managed.) Luckily, all but the last were forbidden by Actors' Equity and sent packing. The diva was furious. She had no idea of the union rules. In fact, I've heard that she has yet even to sign her contract.

She was impossible throughout all her fittings. She kept insisting that she was a smaller size than she was. Her previous stylist must have been letting out her entire wardrobe at the seams, though it's infinitely easier to take in a larger size. She must've been more concerned with the size of Ms. Winston's ego than the size of her ass. I had no patience for such nonsense, and when Ms. Winston realized it she threatened to have me fired. She didn't scare me.

Even though that stylist flew back west in a huff—on a broomstick, no doubt—she still had one opportunity to make my job more difficult. Last week the cast was invited to do a photo shoot for an upcoming
New York
magazine spread on the best new plays of the season. Of course
That Southern Play
was included. The instructions were to dress up, and Ms. Winston's West Coast stylist loaned her a Max Hammer that
WWD
had dubbed the
it
dress of the season. I have to admit it was a good choice. It was very flattering and had not yet reached saturation point in the press. I sent it back to the stylist within a day of the shoot, and unlike most of my dealings with Jordana Winston and her people, this transaction was seamless. Until yesterday, that is, when I was told a reshoot would be necessary because Ms. Winston had gotten her leading man fired. Mine was not the only livelihood she'd been threatening.

Poor Austin Williams. He was an unknown, cast as Ms. Winston's charming, rebellious husband. Yesterday he was let go for no apparent reason. At least that's what the press said. All they knew was that he was to be replaced by his understudy for the run of the show. But the real story was obvious from the first dress rehearsal: the unknown Austin Williams was a star. You felt it the moment he stepped onstage; he owned it the minute he spoke his first line, and as each line left his lips you became more and more glued to him. Glued in such a way that you would find it hard to avert your eyes in case you were to miss one movement, one breath, one perfect utterance in that perfect southern drawl. The problem was, he wasn't meant to be the star. Ms. Winston was. And when put next to this beautiful specimen of theatrical perfection, she was reduced to scenery. Faded right into the background. That is, until she spoke and her painfully inaccurate accent, waxing and waning like a crescent moon, shocked you into paying attention to her again, only making you more grateful to have Mr. Williams there to both save and steal the show. Clearly Ms. Winston was no dummy, and though everyone kept telling her how wonderful she was, she knew that next to Mr. Williams she would not survive.

The reason I knew this? The screaming from her dressing room was so loud that the dressers and I literally locked ourselves in the costume room. It lasted for days. The producers were on edge, the director unhinged, and the other actors took to hanging out in the costume room as well, since it was the farthest from the carnage. I even had Austin's understudy, a sweet kid from Juilliard, gluing sequins. And then yesterday the main producer came asking for him. He looked like he'd just returned from war.

He said, “Kid, you're on.”

The kid jumped up, knocking over a box of sequins. “On…for rehearsal?” he asked, confused.

“On for the run of the show. The
Playbill
s are being reprinted as we speak.”

New York
magazine agreed to reshoot the photo on a moment's notice, and I called my very favorite saleswoman in all of Manhattan, Ruthie from Bloomingdale's, to see if she could help me with the dress. She told me she thought she could, and I agreed that I would stop by the store tomorrow.

The next day when I walked in she came out from the back room to greet me with a smile and the Max Hammer. I knew she'd come through. I've known her almost the entire time she's been here. You don't see so many of these tried-and-true New Yorkers anymore, the hardcore no-nonsense type. I always love doing business with Ruthie.

“Here you go!” she said, handing me the dress. “It's the last small. I nearly lost it to a customer right after I hung up with you yesterday. You may have to steam it out—it's really made the rounds, this dress, seen a lot of action.” She laughed.

“So has the actress who's wearing it, I'm told!”

She laughed harder. I was happy the dress wasn't perfect. I hated being entrusted with a brand-new dress and then returning it in poor shape. I was confident that Jordana Winston would stretch it, stain it, and then leave it in a ball on the floor. Especially since she'd asked to keep it through the opening-night party.

“I'll have it back to you early next week. Is that okay, Ruthie?”

“Absolutely,” she said, adding, “Break a leg, little black dress!”