Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown Page 7

  “Well, something a little nicer than that.”

  Adam had to go back to the big directors office to finish the day, and as he dropped me off, he said, “I’ll drop you off at the Beverly Center if you want to find something new. You’ll take a cab home.”

  So I did.

  As I strolled the faux marble floors of the Beverly Center mall, I noticed a very strange phenomenon. Every store had the exact same look. Cheap Lycra flowered dresses—granted, in different colors and different types of flowers—were displayed in shop windows. I thought they were all horrible. I hadn’t worn a flowered dress ... well, ever. In 1991. Los Angeles had nothing. No story, one look. There were very few Los Angeles designers, there was no Bloomingdale’s or Barneys like there are now. New York designers didn’t have stores there yet. There was Neiman Marcus and Fred Segal, but I couldn’t even afford to walk into those places. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself though. Maybe Lycra flower dresses were where fashion was going. After all, Adam had informed me a week before of all the firsts that Los Angeles created : “Barbecue chicken pizza, aerobics, EST, and the space shuttle.” Maybe they were on to something with these flowered dresses.

  “This is what I was talking about,” the voice said. “For your own good, go back to the airport!”

  I dispelled the voice and tried on a Betsey Johnson turquoise floral print. It wasn’t me, but obviously neither were my first inclinations of living in Los Angeles. I decided to give it a try and live the West Coast way.

  That was until I realized I’d left my wallet at home.

  I walked the three miles home in defeat. When I finally got back to our apartment, the left shoe of my six-inch platform was pus-soaked from the blister that had formed and popped on my big toe. I ransacked my suitcase for any kind of clue as to what to put on, and settled on a pair of black leggings with a black suede button-down vest over it. To me, it said chic. It might not have been the floral look, but screw ’em all. I was from New York ... by way of Philadelphia.

  If you’ve never been to a movie premiere that you have absolutely nothing to do with and you don’t know anyone else there, I’m telling you now: It sucks. Yes, you get all the free popcorn and all the soda your teeth could ever want to decay for, but truthfully, you will never hear a more silent sound than when you walk down the red carpet with your taller-than-tall olive-skinned boyfriend in matching wire-rim Ray-Ban sunglasses and absolutely no one wants anything to do with you. The spotlight goes out, the sounds of the clicking cameras stop. You almost think you see the throngs of photographers and reporters look at you, then look at one another and say, “They’re no one. Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

  Still, Adam and I walked down the red carpet hand in hand with our heads held higher than high, me in my black on black, he in khakis and a Hawaiian shirt—this time with pictures of tropical settings and pineapples with the words OAHU and HONOLULU and KAUAI captioning the locales. Maybe they didn’t know us now, but how could they know if the picture may have been worth millions someday?

  As we entered the theater and took our assigned seats next to Sylvester Stallone and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Jennifer Flavin, I knew there was a reason I had forgotten my wallet. Jennifer Flavin was wearing my almost-bought turquoise flowered dress, and since I was sitting right next to her, the effect could have been devastating for both of us. I looked out into the crowd and saw an ocean of flowers and Lycra. I felt like Rudolph Valentino’s Lady in Black, but I really didn’t care. I was it. They were not. Screw the voice in my head. I was staying, and if for no other reason than to give Los Angeles one more look.

  It Just Doesn’t Go

  ive years later, there was not a stitch of cool in Adam’s closet. He had adapted to the relaxed linen styles of Hollywood as I pored through the Sunday New York Times Style section, trying desperately to conform to what people living three thousand miles away were wearing.

  “Hi, Nancy,” he’d say, wincing at my black miniskirt, leather hoots, and too much liquid eyeliner. “How’s Sid?”

  “I don’t know,” I’d retort, staring down at his white patent-leather Gucci loafers. “Maybe he’s stuck in the seventies at the country club, ordering a highball. You’ll tell him hello when you see him.”

  You had never seen a couple who had come to look more diametrically opposed. That divergence escalated into an unending series of arguments that only later did I come to discover resulted from our agitation in trying to lead each other in two separate directions we were unwilling to explore together. At least that’s what the shrink said.

  “It’s old-school, baby,” he explained in a ridiculous Rat Pack impersonation one day when he met me wearing a mint green linen suit he’d matched with a mint green tie.

  “It’s grunge,” I shot back as he stuck his finger in the hole I’d created on the side of my thrift-store sweater.

  We had grown up together, but had fashionably grown apart. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it was his white Gucci loafers or my all-black attire on a ninety-degree day that put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship, I will honestly say it was a part of it.

  “That’s your boyfriend?” my boss asked me after meeting Adam, who’d worn gold cuff links to my office Christmas party. “I thought he was your tax attorney.”

  “Sorry about your girlfriend’s leg problem,” a coworker of Adam’s whispered to him in his office one day. “Does she wear those platform shoes because one leg is shorter than the other?”

  I’ve always thought of dating as being like your credit record: After a few years, the bad parts just don’t count anymore. It’s been years since I said good-bye to the romance I’d come to know with my first love. It’s been years since the sadness and bereavement of breaking up pitted my heart. Life went on. I choose not to remember the bad parts of our relationship because what’s the point? So I just don’t. All that’s left in me are those isolated memories of two young people who loved each other very much. I’m envious of that seventeen-year-old girl with the Ray-Ban sunglasses who felt so safe and free to express her devotion. I feel so sad for that twenty-six-year-old woman in perpetual mourning attire who realized that nothing in life is guaranteed.

  It had to end. So we said good-bye. I would never know him as an ex-boyfriend. He would always be my college sweetheart. We might not have been willing to head in the same direction anymore, but he would always have a place in my heart for one simple reason.

  Nine years earlier, Adam, the taller-than-tall olive-skinned boy in the 8-ball jacket, had not only changed my attitude on style, but taught me a lesson that as much as I try to have faith in, I never really believe. I’ve seen it time and time again in the romances of my friends, my family, but I never trust that it will happen again in my own life. So sometimes at night when I’m sad over my latest breakup, I say these words that I try to accept as truth, and hope that they will finally sink in: It will never matter what I’m wearing, or how I think I look. There is always the possibility of a beautiful boy who can see right through it.

  The Vera

  ight after Adam and I broke up, instead of taking that trip to Europe to drown my sorrows in a glass of Venice or Paris, I went to Barneys and impulsively purchased a $4,000 Vera Wang black gown. It’s a fabulous frock, yet very simple. It has a sheath front and a cowl drape in back, with a band of mesh fabric around the small of the back for the surprise of seduction.

  Everyone said I’d gone off my rocker. No one applauded my purchase. “Nuts,” they’d said behind my back. “The chick needs to be admitted.”

  I had no special occasions coming up when I bought the dress The whole thing about it was that I knew I wasn’t buying the dress to wear it in public. I bought it for those sad nights. It was a (and I even fully admit, a very ridiculously expensive) symbol that the best was yet to come. Whenever I got very depressed, which in the beginning was a lot, I’d put on the dress, a hot pair of stilettos, some makeup, and frolic around my apartment until I felt b
etter. I’d talk on the phone, watch television, accept pizzas from the delivery guy, play video games on my computer, pay my bills, and do my laundry, all in my Vera Wang gown. I think I logged a year’s worth of wear in the dress in the confines of my apartment until, slowly, I didn’t need it anymore.

  One day I was sifting through my closet, throwing out old clothes, when I came across the Vera. I had no need to put it on. My source of depression had been gone for the past five years. It was time to move on.

  I took the Vera over to a resale shop and put it on consignment. They offered $750 for the dress, and they’d keep half. Sure, it was highway robbery for a dress that took me two years to pay off, but $325 was fine enough for a dress I was never going to wear again.

  That night the chest pains started.

  It was like leaving a puppy on the side of the road. Something that had made me so delighted at times, something that had touched my soul in the deepest part of my darkest, bleakest time, and I was giving it up for $325. Money was not the issue when I bought it, why should money have been an issue when I parted with it?

  The next afternoon on my lunch break, I ran back to the shop to reclaim my Vera.

  I entered the store and proceeded to present my case.

  “I’ve made a grave mistake,” I said in distress. “I want my dress back.”

  The saleswoman looked at me cockeyed.

  “Which dress was it?”

  “The Vera!” I exclaimed.

  “That black dress?”

  “Yes, the black gown with a sheath front and a cowl drape in back, with a band of mesh fabric around the small of the back for the surprise of seduction.”

  “Oh, we just sold that,” she said with a laugh. “That’s so weird. Here’s your check.”

  Dejected, I left the store with my check and headed over to Baskin-Robbins thinking that I’d drown my sorrows in a $325 vat of chocolate mint.

  I headed into the ice-cream store behind four teenage girls, who were holding up the line talking.

  “He’s gonna love that see-through part in the back,” one girl said to another.

  “I know. I can’t believe I scored a Vera Wang at that store!”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Did you just buy my Vera Wang gown at that consignment store?”

  “Who wants to know?” the tough one of the group asked.

  “The one whose dress it is. And I’ll give you all your money back.”

  “No way,” the new owner said. “That’s my prom dress. You go get a new dress.”

  “But that’s my breakup dress. I need it.”

  The girl looked at me cockeyed. I suddenly felt ridiculous.

  “Oh forget it,” I said. “Enjoy.”

  And as I got my ice cream, I passed the girls on the way out.

  “Hey, what’s a breakup dress?” my purchaser asked.

  And so I sat with them and explained what the dress had been to me.

  “Jeez, that was dumb,” the tough one of the group said. “Why didn’t you spend that money and go to, like, Paris or something?”

  Maybe it was dumb and maybe it wasn’t. Still, it’s nice to know that my dress went on to make someone else happy.

  And maybe next time around, I’ll buy a Vera Wang gown for a much better reason ... hopefully in white.

  The Fake Prada

  had bought this great Prada knockoff bag on a weekend trip to New York City for $40. Please don’t tell the government. It’s a black quilted tote with a magnetic button closure and a zip- pered pocket in the lining. When I got back to Los Angeles, bag in hand, I got more compliments on it than I could count. Even the salesladies at Barneys couldn’t tell the difference.

  “That is a great bag,” one of them said to me.

  I wore that bag for about a year. The triangle Prada emblem on the front slipped off at one point, so I Krazy-Glued it back on. It never came off again.

  One day at about four in the afternoon, I was driving to the Pavilions supermarket in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was a hot sunny day and my air conditioner wasn’t working, so I had to put down all the windows so as not to suffer a heat stroke. If you’re familiar with Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, you know that this is a very busy thoroughfare. Patrons sit outside at streetside cafés; lots of people are always on the sidewalks—something not too common in L.A. That’s why what happened is so odd.

  There was a red light at Santa Monica and Robertson Boulevards, so I stopped, being the honest motorist I’ve always been. I had my head in the clouds. I don’t remember what I was thinking about—most likely my shopping list.

  The next thing I knew, a young man—Caucasian, late twenties/ early thirties, reddish-brown curly hair, and wearing a somewhat-yellowed white T-shirt with green ribbing on the neck and sleeves—stuck his hand into my car and snatched my fake Prada tote, which was sitting on the passenger seat. It only took seconds for the assailant to commit the horrific offense, but to me it all happened in slow motion, and I can still remember the thief’s face to this day. You don’t forget the face of a mugger who steals a highly authentic-looking quilted Prada tote that even the salesladies at Barneys can’t tell from the real thing.

  I didn’t scream. I was actually surprisingly calm about the whole thing. There was traffic behind me and, truthfully, you don’t want to piss off L.A. motorists in traffic. I just know that the person in the car in back of me clearly saw the crime being committed, but did they stop and ask if I was OK? Did they honk their horn? No. That’s L.A. traffic for you. Your fake Prada tote gets stolen right out of your passenger seat? Your tough luck; move it along. I watched the villain run off behind some stores and into an alley as I calmly put on my left turn signal and made a U-turn toward the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department, which is ironically located a block from where the vicious felony occurred.

  I walked in and approached the desk.

  “A bandit stole my Prada bag out of my car,” I told the female officer.

  “Was it real?” she asked me.

  “Practically!” I told her. “It was a really good fake,” I said, speaking in a language only women can understand. “Even the saleswomen at Barneys couldn’t tell the difference.”

  “You know that fraudulent designer bags are also an offense,” she answered, making me feel like a cheap pariah.

  “Yes, I’m aware of that,” I acknowledged, when I really wanted to say, “But all the other girls have them too.”

  She had me fill out a police report, and that was that.

  I went home, canceled all my credit cards, grabbed some loose change I had lying around, and went to McDonald‘s, where I treated myself to a super-size order of fries. Given the tragedy of what had happened, it was only right.

  I was really sad about that bag. It was such a good fake, and I felt really ritzy carrying it around every day. I mean, I didn’t cry about it or anything, but I was a tad emotionally stricken.

  Two days later, I got a call from the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department. They had found my bag. Can you imagine? The thief had cleaned me out of the $40 and change in my wallet and had thrown the bag in an alley. My credit cards and driver’s license were still in the bag. I don’t know who found the bag—no one said—but I thank you, wherever you are today.

  I still have the bag, though I don’t use it anymore. Although, come to think of it, maybe I will.

  The moral of the story? Don’t leave your purse on the passenger seat on a hot day when you have to put all the windows down? I still do, though. Get your air conditioner checked before those hot summer months? Must get to that. The real moral of the story? Don’t cut the tag inside the fake purse that says MADE IN TAIWAN. Not even the most heinous of pinchers will want it.

  The End of the Line

  s I headed into my late twenties/early thirties, I didn’t have anything left that didn’t come from me and only me. I paid my own bills, so if I went over my credit limit, I had no one to turn to. It was all me and, at that poi
nt, after paying my own way through life for the past (give or take) ten years, it gave me a nice Mary Richards “You’re gonna make it after all” buzz. At twenty-seven, however, there was one teensy-weensy little part of my life that I just couldn’t let go of.

  Just before I’d left for college years before, my mother gave me a Bloomingdale’s card and a Macy’s card.

  “It’s just for emergencies,” she had said at the time.

  To most parents, emergencies consisted of being locked out of your dorm in the middle of a snowstorm or to pay a ransom in case I was abducted.

  Here was the kind of emergency she was talking about: “I found a dress for the formal. I’m just sitting here watching The Today Show, and they’re having a spring fashion show. I just saw the cutest pink strapless and it’s exactly what you need. I called Bloomingdale’s. They have it in your size. Use the emergency card.”

  I know. My parents are fantastic.

  OK, so ten years later, with a job of my own, a growing savings account, and no mortgage or car payments to worry about, I still had those cards. While I cannot say that I didn’t use them, it was a very rare day when I did. The fact remained, I could not survive without them, and it came down to a simple little fact: Those cards were my only remains of a wonderfully spoiled Jewish princesshood. They were simply a reminder of a time gone by. If all else failed in my life, Mommy and Daddy were there for me in the forms of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s credit cards. To have those cards taken away from me, even if I never used them again, would have destroyed me. Three thousand miles away from my family and no boyfriend anymore, it would have said to me that I was truly alone in this world. There was no one who loved me but me.

  As I said, I have a wonderful relationship with my parents. Arlene and I truly are the best of friends. Every now and then, however, Arlene gets in a bad mood and needs for someone to feel worse than she does. Since I am her best friend, I am usually that person. One particular night, however, she went for the jugular.