Slim Chance (7 page)

She grinned broadly. Insurance won’t pay for the monthly massages I need for my bad back (
Mademoiselle,
March: “Shiatsu or Swedish? Marvellous Massages, Radical Results”), but they’ll shell out twenty grand for Pruscilla’s intestines to be rerouted. Was there any justice in this world?

“It’s wonderful, really, Pruscilla. I’m
so
happy for you. You know, I could tell you looked different, but I couldn’t place how.” Butter her up for a big raise
before
she offers me the promotion.

“I know, I know,” she said excitedly. “Everything I own’s already big on me. And it’s so easy—the pounds are just melting off! My stomach is the size of a shot glass, so I get totally full after a couple of bites. I have no choice!”

I have to admit, it sounded like a good deal. I wonder if I would qualify? The possibilities raced through my mind.

“How much did it hurt? How long will it take to lose all the weight? Can you still eat cheesecake? Do you have to be obese to have the operation? I mean, do you think it would work for me? Are there any—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Evelyn. This was major surgery. It’s not something to be entered into lightly. Now I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”

Well if that’s how she was going to be about it… “Okay, back to me then,” I said, wishing immediately that I hadn’t. Pruscilla pulled out a red folder marked EVELYN and glared at me.

“I’m going to cut to the chase here, Evelyn. I’m putting you on three-month probation.”

Probation? Was that good?

“I asked Thelma to keep an eye on you while I was gone.”
She opened up the folder and began to read. “Left before 5:30, eighteen times. Arrived after 8:30, twenty-three times. Days absent from work, five. Should I go on?”

The room began to spin wildly. I could feel my face flush red with anger, and more than a little shame.
How could I have been so stupid?

“Thelma was spying on me?” That evil bitch. To think that I defended her.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

“It’s impossible, Pruscilla. Her office is across the floor. She can’t even
see
if I’m at my desk from where she is. And…and…frankly, this is an invasion of my privacy!” I suppose it wasn’t the best thing to say under the circumstances, but I was on the spot.

“You figured just because I was gone, you could do whatever you please? When the cat’s away, so to speak? Well, Ms. Mays, that’s not the way things work around here.”

I sensed that she wasn’t going to fall for a civil liberties defense. “I missed a lot of work, I know, but I’ve been getting really bad cramps and—”

“Please, just stop. Your abysmal attendance is the highlight of this report,” she said, waving the red folder in my face. “You’ve done nothing, absolutely
nothing,
that you were supposed to do. We had a quarterly report due two weeks ago. Thelma told me she had to work up all the numbers herself. That’s
your
job. But it won’t be for long if you don’t smarten up. Three months, Evelyn, three months. If I don’t see a complete and total turnaround, you’re gone. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” I managed to whisper through the tears.

I almost wished she’d just fired me on the spot. It would have been better than staying on in that hellhole and suffering the humiliation that was sure to come. Why does this crap always happen to me? I guess I deserved it this time, but still—why do I always get caught no matter what? For just once in my life, I’d love to actually get away with something.

Bruce, of course, was completely unsympathetic to my professional angst. So I decided, after much thought on the subway ride home, that if Kendra White can’t appreciate the subtleties of what I have to offer the company—and especially if I get canned in three months—then maybe I would be better off somewhere else anyway. Karl Marx had it dead right when he said he wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. He knew that sometimes, even the worst clubs, like the Communist party, can often overlook the genius in their midst. And I know where he’s coming from because Kendra White is probably a lot like the Communist party was back in those days, only with more women and better money.

Bruce says that’s not exactly what Marx meant, that he was putting himself down or making fun of exclusive clubs for accepting lame people or something, and that it was Groucho Marx and not Karl Marx who said it, besides. But I think that proves my point even more, because there’s always a kernel of truth in humor.

In keeping with my new enlightened outlook on things, I felt that the most sensible course of action would be to buckle down at work and hopefully climb my way back up the few rungs I’d dropped on the proverbial corporate ladder. However, at the same time, just in case things didn’t work out, I would also learn a new trade, something that would allow me to work independently
and
make a lot more money. Kendra White, whoever the hell she was, could kiss my size fourteen ass. I knew I was meant for bigger and better things than the third floor of that sweatshop anyway (
Cosmopolitan,
September: “Live Up To Your Professional Potential!”).

But Bruce wasn’t so sure. As if agreeing with Pruscilla regarding my work habits weren’t bad enough, he said that a change of career now would be too stressful for me, what with the wedding coming up. Whatever happened to unconditional love and support?

“Just put in some overtime for the next few months and see what happens,” Bruce said wearily as we waited for a table at the SoHo Grill on Friday night. “Impress the hell out of them.”

“I’ll have a Double Jack,” I said to the bartender. “And he’ll have a Shirley Temple.”

Bruce just looked at me. A few months ago, he would have laughed at something like that.

“What I really need is a new job. No—a new
career.
Something less stressful, where I don’t have to worry about people standing over my shoulder watching everything that I do. Where I can be rewarded for my hard work, instead of making some faceless board of directors rich.”

“I see,” said Bruce. “Did you have something in particular in mind?”

“Ideally, I’d want to do something that lets me use my education, like you. You have a Master’s degree in education. And that’s what you do—you educate. It makes sense. I mean, what’s the point of having a degree if I never get to use it?”

“So, you’re going to be a…philosopher?”

“Don’t be smart.”

“Enlighten me, then. And, um, I think that drink is meant to be sipped.”

“Well,” I snorted, slamming the rest of it back. “So sorry to have offended your hard-coreness.”

“Not at all. Please continue.”

“Thank you. I’ve been doing a bit of research, and I’ve come up with three. Three things I could do that
I
would be good at and nobody else. With nobody there to give me shit.” I knew I was slurring, despite the fact that I was thinking quite clearly.

“Shoot.”

“One: Jewelry maker.”

“Ah, yes. The ultimate philosopher’s day job, which begs the timeless question—how can we know if a bead is ever truly a bead, and not just the illusion of beadery?”

Ignoring Bruce is sometimes the only way to get through
an entire conversation. “Two: Advertising executive in charge of my own entire advertising company.”

“I had no idea you were interested in advertising.”

“You know, in the ’80s, huge advertising agencies were tripping over each other to recruit philosophy majors to sit around tables and come up with things for their ad campaigns, really smart and clever things, and they paid them, like, $250,000 a year,” I informed him.

“I think that’s a myth former philosophy majors tell each other as they serve espressos to twenty-year-old dot-com millionaires.”

“Barkeep? Another drink, please. But none for my friend here. He’s obviously had enough. And thirdly, for my final career move, I would like to be a…what do you call it?…oh YES—an orintholodist!”

“You mean an ornithologist?”

“Thassit.”

Bruce thought carefully for a moment. “While working with birds certainly would be a hoot, I’m not sure New York City is the best place for it, Evie, what with all the paltry poultry here.” A blonde with Elvis Costello glasses sitting beside Bruce snickered. She’d obviously been trying to get his attention since we sat down.

“Birds?”

“Ornithologists work with birds.”

“No, NO! They don’t! I mean, I want to fix kids’ teeth. I love kids.”

“Shhhh. You’re wasted, Evie,” Bruce laughed.

Elvis laughed, too, and said, “I think you better take her home. That’s one fowl chick.”

“For your information,” I snapped, leaning past Bruce to get right in her face, “I’m actually quite fly.”

All of a sudden, the prospect of being a dentist didn’t make as much sense as it had earlier. Rather, it evoked a stream of unpleasant memories of
being
at the dentist, or, more specifically,
of the ginormous retainer Mom made me wear for three years, which she had to work overtime to pay for since she was fighting with Claire at the time and…well, at least I made it to the bathroom on time. Bruce was more amused than annoyed, I think, even though we had to skip dinner. But he got lucky later, so what did he care? If given the choice, all men would rather have sex than eat—it’s a well-known fact.

Bruce later admitted he was wrong for letting me drink so much at such a vulnerable point in my life. And while I admit that I may have been a little out of control lately, the man had been sullen and difficult since Thanksgiving. We’d both been getting on each other’s nerves a lot, and our Friday night dates certainly weren’t as much fun as they used to be. I think it was all the forced togetherness. It’s like scheduling sex—a good idea in theory, but when it comes right down to it, if you need your Daytimer to get laid, chances are you probably have better things to do with your time anyway.

With Christmas just around the corner, we decided that we should spend the holiday apart—him with his family and me with mine. Which was fine with me. The only thing worse than having to endure another Christmas listening to Mom and Claire debate the pros and cons of dating in widowhood would be watching the Fulbright sisters push uneaten pieces of Bertie’s allegedly fabulous stuffed goose around their plates. Not that I could blame them—who the hell actually makes a Christmas goose, anyway?

T
o cheer myself up after a week of bickering with Bruce, kissing Pruscilla’s ass, avoiding Thelma like the plague and not going to the gym even one single solitary time, I guilted Morgan into joining me on a very special shopping trip. Although Mom and I had shared a few special moments in Sternfeld’s that day, when it comes to buying the most fabulous dress I’ll ever wear, I felt my interests would be best served if I had someone there I could completely trust, and that’s Morgan. She hates shopping, but she agreed to suffer through it after some very tricky negotiations.

I thought it best not to give her any time to get out of it, so I ambushed her with the invitation on Friday night.

“But I don’t know anything about fashion, Evie. Don’t make me come.”

True, she doesn’t have an eye for it like I do, but she still wears an awful lot of Michael Kors and Donna Karan for someone who feigns fashion ignorance.

“That doesn’t matter. I still trust you to tell me what looks good and what doesn’t. I know you’ll at least be honest. That’s what I need.”

“No.”

“But it’s your right to be there for me in every way,” I told her.

“My right? Please! You mean my duty,” she complained.

“But that’s part of being maid of honor,” I pleaded.

“Maid my ass. What a ludicrous concept. I am
so
not a maid,” she said, delighted by the irony. “I’m about as far from a maid as a girl can be, wouldn’t you say? And if you throw honor in, well then you can absolutely forget it.” She really thinks of herself as quite the slut.

“Well, you’re honorable, for the most part. I suppose we could call you a
matron
of honor, if you prefer, but I think that implies that you’re married, not just that your maidenhood is a distant memory. Or how about, ‘Trollop of Ill Repute’?”

She mulled this over.

“Come with me, or I’ll tell everybody you didn’t lose your virginity until college.”

“Shut up!” she shrieked. “You know I get extra points because he was my professor.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’d ruin my reputation over this?”

“Yes I would.”

“Okay, I’ll come. But on one condition—I get to wear black and not that horrid beige you’ve chosen for the bridesmaids. It would wash me out completely.”

No color could possibly look bad on Morgan, and she knows it. She just wants to be different—the thought of blending in with a sea of frilly bridesmaids probably appals her. To be fair, I did choose that color with my wicked sisters-in-law-to-be in mind. You see, champagne serves the dual purpose of fitting in with my fabulously elegant white-on-white wedding (
Martha Stewart Weddings,
Winter: “Perfect Pale Palettes: From White to Cream and Everywhere in Between”)
and
looking less than spectacular on all of Bruce’s ash-faced sisters. It’s horribly cruel, I know, but Annie, Kimby and Nicole will look great, and that’s all that matters.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a wedding, not a funeral.” I hope.

“I think it might make a nice statement. Weren’t you the one that told me black and white are really going to be in this spring?”

“Yes, but that’s for purses and prints, Morgan, not weddings, for God’s sake.” Actually, the idea was starting to grow on me.

“Oh well. I’ve got laundry to do tomorrow anyway,” she said.

“Fine, then, wear black. Be a scene stealer,” I said. “But I think it’s only fair that I get to help you choose your dress.” I couldn’t trust her not to show up in something Cher might have worn to the Academy Awards.

“Deal,” she said. “What time will you pick me up?”

“Be downstairs at three. I’ll be in a cab.”

“Isn’t that a bit late?”

“3:00 a.m., Morgan. There’s going to be a long line.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll see.”

She hung up on me, but I knew she’d be there.

Thankfully, there would be only one place to go in my quest for the ultimate gown. Before Pruscilla blocked my Internet access, I came across some very interesting information regarding a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the young and fashion-forward bride-to-be—the Vera Wang sale. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past ten years, Vera Wang is
the
top name in bridal fashion. No self-respecting starlet or socialite would walk down the aisle in anything else, unless they were trying to make some sort of peculiar anti-Wang statement. You know, the type who would get married barefoot on the beach like Cindy Crawford or who would prefer to wear a hemp gown or something lame like that.

But once a year, in a New York City hotel whose name is kept quiet until the last possible minute, there’s a gigantic Vera Wang blowout sale and all her dresses are marked down seventy or eighty percent. People come from all over the country
and start lining up in the middle of the night to get first crack at the best gowns.

Sure enough, there was already a line when we got there, stretching halfway down the hall. Most of the girls had brought their mothers. Some strategy—these slow-witted, middle-aged mommies would be no match for us. Morgan was still a little drunk and obviously hadn’t been to sleep, which was a good thing. I wanted her bitchy and on edge, in case she had to fight someone for a dress.

“Keep your eye out for anything you think would look good on me,” I said as I eyed the crowd.

Morgan just yawned.

“I think we’ve got a good spot, here. The ones at the front of the line will either overshoot the good stuff or be trampled underfoot. There’s one chick up there, though, she looks wily. She brought her own full-length mirror. Smart. Very smart. And her mother’s wearing running shoes. Keep your eye on her, Morgan. And take a look at these….”

I handed her a stack of ads I’d ripped out of magazines. “I’ve already memorized them, and you’d do well to do the same. If you see any of these—and I mean
any
of these—grab ’em. I don’t care if you have to rip a dress out of someone’s cold, dead hand. Just do it. Grab ’em all and we’ll sort them out later.”

“You’re demented, you know that?”

“I’m
determined.
” Okay, and maybe just a touch sick. But this was my one and only chance to be able afford the dress of my dreams. Besides, there was no harm in it, was there? And it was all in good fun.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“It’s almost four now, and the doors don’t open till eight. There’s lots of time to familiarize yourself with the dresses.”

But she just slumped down against the wall and closed her eyes.

By 8:00 a.m., I’d had four cups of coffee and almost missed the doors opening because I was stuck waiting in line at the
bathroom. Morgan waved to me from the crowd and I fought my way forward just in time to make it in with the first group. We would have exactly one hour before they kicked us out and let the next group in.

Inside the room, rows and rows of dresses wrapped in plastic hung neatly on portable silver racks. But not for long. It was like watching an army of ants devour an entire picnic in fast forward. Plastic was flying every which way. Girls were stripping down to their underwear and frantically pulling dresses over their heads while friends or mothers looked on approvingly. Our strategy was to divide and conquer. Grab whatever looks good, and narrow down the field later.

I ran through the aisles wildly pulling out dresses and pushing plastic aside. There were so many to go through. But none of them seemed right. All I could find were rejects—last year’s models, some were damaged, a few weren’t even close to white. A wave of terror swelled up within my chest. The clock was ticking. I saw the girl from line jumping up and down in joy, holding a stunning gown to her chest, while her mother supported the mirror with one hand and wiped tears away with the other.
Dammit! Where was mine? Where was my dress?
I was starting to sweat. People were pushing me from every which way. It had already been almost forty-five minutes—all the good ones were sure to be gone! The room began to get dark. I looked up. The chandelier swayed like it was about to come crashing down onto my head….

I crawled out from the fray, sat down on the floor next to a security guard and put my head in my hands, trying to catch my breath. It was no use. My dream dress, it seemed, was exactly that—a dream. Worse than that, it was a cruel hoax, a false ideal concocted by misogynist male capitalists in order to coax impoverished young brides-to-be into maxing out their credit cards for a gown they’ll wear for six hours, then leave to rot for two or three decades, only to be passed over by their ungrate
ful daughters in favor of what ultimately amounts to nothing more than yet another overpriced white tablecloth.

Then the sea of dresses parted and Morgan appeared from between the rows, my knight in shining armour. In her arms, she bore a single, precious gown.

When she saw me, she ran over. “Evie? Are you okay? What are you doing?”

I stood up and wiped my eyes. “Having a panic attack, I think.”

“Are you okay?”

“I…I don’t know,” I answered. “If you’re aware that you’re losing your mind, does that mean you’re not really losing it?”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring myself. But I’m okay. I think I just had too much coffee.”

“You sure? Maybe we should call Bruce.”

“No, I’m fine. I just need to eat something I think.” I already felt a little better.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. But is this one of the ones from your pictures?” she asked innocently, holding the dress up for me to see.

“It is,” I said calmly, because I could see that it was. If there was one Vera Wang dress that I could have chosen, this would be it. It was a simple, strapless A-line gown in glowing ivory duchesse satin, with delicate beading at the top and at the hem. It was so elegant, so understated, so breathtakingly perfect that it took my breath away. Grace Kelly would rise up from the dead and remarry if she knew this gown existed.

I pulled aside the plastic and touched it carefully. It was real, all right.

“Happy?” Morgan asked.

“Yes,” I said, and hugged her.

“Good. So stop crying. Now are you ready for the bad news?”

“No.”

“It’s a size eight.”

“Eight?” I gulped.

“Eight.”

“All the dresses here size eight, ladies,” interrupted the security guard. “Some even size six. This a sample sale. All the dresses the same size.”

“Thank you very much,” Morgan snapped, “but you should really mind your own business.”

In light of this new information, I examined the dress again. For all its glory, it appeared to have been designed for half a Barbie doll.

“Maybe they’re made big,” Morgan offered. She had no way of knowing what Greta from Sternfeld’s said about all wedding dresses being made small. “At least it’s an eight—it could have been a six.”

A feeling of calm and certainty washed over me. It didn’t matter. Better than that, this was exactly what I needed.

“It’s okay,” I told Morgan. “I’m going to take it. This is it. This is The Dress.”

“These dresses all non-refundable,” the guard offered, looking me up and down skeptically.

“For your information,” Morgan shrieked at him, “
this
is a Vera Wang gown that retails for $8000 on sale for $1800!
This
is my best friend Evelyn Mays, and
this—this
is the dress she’ll be wearing on her wedding day! She’ll go on a liquid diet if she has to, goddammit!”

Could you ask for a better friend than that?

I immediately brought the gown to Mom’s place so that Bruce wouldn’t see it. As soon I took it out of the bag, she had to give me credit.

“I didn’t know they made wedding dresses like this,” she said, examining it carefully. “It’s
very
pretty.”

“The only thing is, it’s a little small.” Best to state the obvious before she started in on me.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“But I’m not worried. I can do it.”

“Well if you say so, Evelyn. How much was it?”

“The real question is, how much did I save.”

“No, the real question is, how much was it?”

“Eighteen hundred dollars.”

“Well, that’s not so bad.” Well what do you know.

“How much did your wedding dress cost, Mom?”

“The crystal beading is absolutely lovely. It’s almost like little drops of water…”

“Mom?” She could be such a scatterbrain.

“Yes?”

“Your dress. How much was your dress?”

“What? Oh. I don’t remember.”

“What did it look like?” There were no pictures of my parents’ wedding. I assume it’s because they eloped, and probably didn’t have time to find a decent photographer.

“Don’t worry about your dress, Evelyn, I’ll pay for it.”

“Oh, Mom, you don’t have to—”

But she cut me off. “I want to. A girl shouldn’t have to pay for her own wedding gown.”

I could tell that this was important to her. “Thank you, Mom. This really means a lot to me.”

She thought quietly for a second, then reached out and took my hand. “If your father were alive, it wouldn’t even be a question. He was an exceedingly generous man. You know he’d have given you the world, Evelyn. If he could have.”

“I know, Mom,” I said, and hugged her.

She doesn’t much talk about my father anymore. I suppose she never did, really. Apart from a few well-worn stories and a handful of old pictures, the impressions and images I have of my father came mostly from Claire. I didn’t even know how he died until I was ten years old. Mom just never talked about it. When Claire found out I had no idea how it happened, she brought me to a tall building downtown and pointed. “He was working construction over the Christmas holidays, to earn a lit
tle extra cash. It was snowing, slippery. And he fell, but just like an angel, he flew up to heaven.” Years later, it occurred to me that he must never have known Mom was pregnant. She didn’t even know until after he was gone.

Later I went home and told Bruce what happened. He was really happy for me, glad I found my dress, and glad that my mother and I were getting along. Some days he’s not so bad, really. Maybe he was even a little bit right about a few things. And maybe it would be nice to have Christmas together, just the Mays women, one last time. Pretty soon, I was going to be a Fulbright. There were worse things to be, I suppose. But for all their blondness and thin ankles and perfect posture, they can’t hold a candle to us.