by Monica Ali
The first thing Lydia had learned, the first among many first things, when she had taken the job she had held, or that held her, for most of her adult life, was never to fiddle with any part of her wardrobe or makeup. Yes, they had taught her that explicitly, though there was much that they had not. It was a lesson she could hand on to Amber. Amber, who could not pass a mirror without checking it, who used a window if a mirror was not available, who was fearful of being looked at by everybody and terrified of being looked at by no one. But poise, Lydia had decided, was overrated. Only fools and knaves gave a fig about that.
“You look great,” she said. “New skirt?”
Amber said that it was and probed Lydia for a detailed opinion, explaining that it was from a range she was considering for the store. Lydia wore jeans and a T-shirt nearly every day but Amber seemed to think she knew a great deal about clothes and fashion, which was not an impression Lydia was ever aiming to give.
They sat on the repro fainting couch by the window. Amber had bought it, she said, for the husbands who became a little dizzy when they saw the price tags. “Though there’s nothing in here over four hundred bucks,” she had added, a little wistfully.
“I’ve got to show you these photos,” Amber said now. She retrieved the gossip magazine from the counter. “This one was taken last week. And then here she is in the nineties. Doesn’t she look so different?”
“Don’t we all?” said Lydia, barely giving the page a glance.
“Her nostrils are uneven,” said Amber. “That’s always a telltale sign.”
Lydia took another bite of her panini so she didn’t have to say anything.
Amber started reading aloud. “‘She may have had a lower eye lift and, judging by her appearance, her surgeon may have employed a new technique by going in underneath the actual eyeball—this reduces the risk of scarring and can have excellent results.’”
Lydia pulled a face. “Why do you read this stuff ?” She waved the sandwich at the stack of magazines on the coffee table.
“I know, I know,” said Amber. “It’s ridiculous. She’s definitely had Botox as well.”
“Who cares?” said Lydia. “Her and every other actress her age.”
Amber tucked her hair behind her ears. Last year she had cut bangs and this year she was growing them out and her hair kept falling over her eyes so the tucking was a repeated necessity, but it had also become part of her repertoire of self-adjustments and taken on an apologetic quality. She laughed. “I don’t know why I read this stuff. But everybody does. There’s even a college professor comes in here and she spends more time flicking through the magazines than flicking through the racks. Guess she doesn’t like buying them herself, but what do you think she reads at the hairdresser’s? Not one of her professor books, for sure.”
Lydia held a sliver of pastrami out to Rufus. “Well, we think it’s silly, don’t we, boy?”
Rufus licked her fingers in assent.
“Oh my God,” said Amber.
Lydia loved the way Amber said oh my God. It was so American. It reminded her of how English she felt after nearly ten years in the States, and that when everything else about her felt not so much hidden as worn away, her Englishness, at least, remained.
Almost ten years. It was 1997 when she arrived—not only a decade but a millennium ago.
“Oh my God, I’d forgotten—I’ve got these gowns in back I really want you to try. They are going to look so fabulous. I can’t wait to see.” Amber ran into the stockroom, and Lydia watched through the open door as she shucked plastic-sheathed dresses off the revolving rail and laid them over her arm.
When she’d arrived in Kensington, it was Tevis who had sold Lydia the house, but Amber with whom she’d first made friends. They had shared a table in the bakery, there were only four tables so you normally had to share. Over a cappuccino for Amber and an Earl Grey for Lydia they recognized in each other an instant acceptance, and Lydia, who for seven years had made only acquaintances, was relieved to give herself up to this inevitability. She was careful, of course, but after a few conversations, filling each other in on their backgrounds, there wasn’t much need for caution, and Lydia found herself wondering why, for so long, she had held back from everyone.
That first afternoon Amber told Lydia about her marriage, to her childhood sweetheart, how he’d cheated on her with her best friend, how she’d forgiven them both because “it just kind of happened,” they were attorneys in the same law firm and she was a stay-at-home mom and looked kind of schlubby most days, and how when she looked in the mirror she felt sort of guilty about the whole thing. She’d given herself a makeover, of course, and they did “date nights” and talked and got a whole lot of issues out on the table, like how he hated her meat loaf and had never been able to say. And it had been sweet and dandy for a while, before she found out about another affair, with a waitress at their favorite “date night” restaurant, but he said it was “only physical” and she had forgiven him again. She’d cried about it anyway, as anyone would, and it was Donna who comforted her. Donna, her best friend. Who was still sleeping with her husband as probably everyone knew except Amber, who, when she walked in on them, in the moments before they noticed her, fought the urge to tiptoe away and pretend to have seen nothing. At the age of thirty-nine with two children and no career, it seemed more sensible to treat it as a hallucination than to face the howling truth.
“You had to move out all this way from Maine,” said Lydia. “I think I know why.”
“I don’t know. Getting away from him?”
“You were afraid you’d forgive him again.” Lydia touched Amber’s hand.
“Oh my God, you are so right. He was such a bastard. But”—she shrugged a little apology—“he would have talked me around. Not the talk, more the way he walked, the way his jeans fit. I’m so stupid. Why did I stay so long? Really? Because I liked the way he moved, and I liked the way he smelled.”
Amber emerged from the stockroom and Lydia made way so that she could set the dresses down on the couch, which Amber did with such tenderness that no mortician at J. C. Dryden ever took more care in laying out the deceased.
“Ten gowns, three sizes, six-fifty wholesale. Tell me I’m not crazy.”
Lydia wiped her fingers on the seat of her jeans before unshrouding the first offering. Closet, the store, turned over nicely on the staples of wraparound dresses, A-line skirts, and little beaded cardigans favored perennially by Kensington women, supplemented by the prom season business, flirty numbers in fuchsia and gold and white that retailed around $300, and formal floor-length durables that offered good bosom support and value to the Kensington matrons who invested for a silver wedding and expected, God willing, to be seen through to the diamond anniversary. The good women of Kensington were not short of a dime but wise enough to know that dimes didn’t grow on sweet gums and, besides, there was little occasion for occasion wear.
“Wow,” said Lydia, “gorgeous.” Should she ask if the dresses were sale or return? She didn’t want to dishearten her friend. Inspecting the needlework would give her time to think, and she traced a finger around the embroidered neckline.
Back when they had first met, Amber had poured out her story and it had seemed as natural and expected to Lydia as tea being poured from the pot. She hadn’t been able to reciprocate exactly, but had talked about moving to the States in her thirties with her husband, how exhilarating it had been to get away from stuffy England, how everything here had been both strange and familiar, and how the marriage had not worked out. She was expert at telling the story and when she was talking it didn’t feel like telling lies. No names and dates and places, best to leave that vague, just the weaving of little details—the novelty, for an English person, of having a flag fly over one’s own home, the thrill of finding Marmite in a grocery store, the way she’d picked up words and phrases she had never dreamed she would use, ass, hang it, darn.
Over the weeks and months that followed there were que
stions, because when Amber wasn’t with Lydia the story reduced to a bundle of threads that Amber would gather and later hold out for repair. Lydia told her some things that were not true—that she didn’t have children, that was the worst, denying them got harder, not easier, over time, as if each telling made it more of a reality. Some things she said were true enough, for example, that her husband had been cruel. Amber never pushed too hard. And Lydia had done this professionally for a large part of her adult life—given moments to strangers that they treasured as candid and intimate, not knowing her at all. For this there had been no training, but it turned out that she had the gift. Amber and Tevis and Suzie were no longer strangers and they knew as much as she could let them, but in the early days what Lydia had supplied was a sense of taking them into her confidence, and they had supplied much of the material: assuming her husband had been violent, that he was a man of some influence, that she did not want to be found.
Amber held the fitting room door. “Please,” she said. “Try it on. I want to see.”
“Why don’t you put it on?” said Lydia. “This green is definitely your color. You should take one for yourself.”
“Oh, I tried them all already. I’m such a short ass, they don’t look right on me.”
“Nonsense,” said Lydia. “Stop putting yourself down like that.”
“Quit stalling, and get your butt in here.” Amber shooed her in.
The dress was a pale green column with silver embroidery and soft ruffle flowers sweeping up diagonally that made Lydia think of Valentino, though of course the work was not as fine.
“Come out here,” called Amber.
There was no mirror in the fitting room, because Amber said Kensington women were too quick and ready to make wrongheaded assessments without giving the outfits a chance: a few pins in the hemline, a switch of blouse, a scarf at the throat, could make all the difference.
Lydia strutted out like a catwalk model, hand to hip, face set, head turning left and right. Amber applauded and whistled and then took Lydia by the shoulders and turned her to face the mirror.
“Beautiful,” Amber murmured, “just beautiful.”
Lydia took a breath. Ten years since she’d worn a floor-length gown. There was a hot little hole in her stomach that she would not on any account pay attention to, focusing instead on equalizing the length of her inhale and exhale.
“Fits like a glove,” said Amber. “How about that?”
“Not quite,” said Lydia. “I’d take it in just a fraction on the hip.”
“Know what?” said Amber. “You’ve got to have it. It’s a present. I knew these gowns were going to look great on you, you have the figure, but I didn’t know how great. And I didn’t even know if I’d coax you into one. Thought I might have to get those jeans surgically removed.”
“And when, exactly, would I wear it?” said Lydia, examining herself in profile. “Not very practical for cleaning out kennels. Can you imagine if I wore it to one of Suzie’s cookouts?” As soon as she had spoken she regretted it. She had just pointed out why Amber had been wrong to invest so heavily.
Her friend gazed at her without speaking, her face frozen for a moment in its previous rapture, as if it had not yet received the bad news from her brain. “Oh,” she said finally, “get Carson to take you somewhere nice.”
“I will,” said Lydia, rallying. “I’ll do that. Can I try the others on too?”
“Of course,” said Amber, sounding deflated. “Then pick out the best one. It’s on me.”
They passed the afternoon with Lydia trying on one after another and when a customer came in the gowns were much discussed, two women even donning the dark blue taffeta and promising to come back the next day. Amber’s spirits were thus restored. By five o’clock they had cleared up and sat down with lattes.
“How’s Serena?” said Lydia. “And how’s Tyler getting on with the violin?”
“Oh, I keep nagging him about practicing but it’s a waste of breath. Serena’s up for a part in the school play—Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.”
“Fingers crossed,” said Lydia.
“If she doesn’t get it . . .”
“I bet she does.”
“Tap lessons, singing lessons, ballet class—but they all do, you know, it’s just so competitive out there.”
“Wait until you hear. Don’t start worrying about it now.” Lydia gestured at the rack where they’d hung the new stock. “Will you keep one for yourself ?”
Amber tucked her hair. “Oh, I don’t know. I might end up with a few more than that.”
They looked at each other and started to giggle.
“I mean,” said Amber, between fits, “unless evening gowns become popular on the school run.”
“You never know,” said Lydia. “Stranger things have happened.” She sipped her coffee and choked.
“Not around here.” Amber patted Lydia on the back. “When I was in high school,” she said, her hand still resting between Lydia’s shoulders, “I was such a dreamer. I walked around in a dream. I was pretty but not spectacular, my grades were nothing to write home about, I had friends but I wasn’t Miss Popular, I wasn’t on any A-teams.” She paused for a long moment, as if she had fallen back into the old dream. “But it was like I was carrying this big secret around inside of me, that I’d never tell anyone, only one day they would see it because inside I was just so special that the world, when I got out and lived in it, was bound to make me a star. I didn’t think I’d even have to try. It would just happen, it was bound to, I was sure. So I was never really paying attention to anything around me, I was waiting for my life to begin. When it did, I’d be wearing these fabulous dresses and people would be a little surprised at first and then they’d say, of course, Amber, we should have guessed. It would all be perfect. The dresses, the houses, the cars, the charming prince who would propose.” She laughed and rubbed Lydia’s back, though she hadn’t coughed again. “What a doofus. Maybe I still am.”
Lydia pulled Amber’s hand away from her back and held it between her own. “Listen, you’re not a doofus. All girls feel like that.”
Amber smiled. When she smiled there was something touching about it. The way she showed her top gum made her look open to attack. “I bet you were more sensible.”
“Oh, I was hopeless at school,” said Lydia. “Thick as a plank, that’s me.”
Amber ran up the road to get to the drugstore before it closed and Lydia waited a couple of beats after the door had shut before reaching for the pile of magazines. She pulled out the three that were from this week and rested them on her knee. First she centered her thoughts: she would not get upset either way. If she found what she was searching for she would tear out the page and put it in her purse to examine at home. If she found nothing, she would not take it as a blow but simply try again next week. She turned the pages and quickly discarded the first magazine. Then the second, then the third. Nothing. It was a blow. How could it not be?
Her cell phone bleeped and she read the text message from Carson. Pick you up at 7. Ok? She texted back yes, and then Amber returned and said she’d bumped into her new neighbor and he’d asked her out to lunch next week.
“Is it a date?” said Lydia.
Amber pulled at her blond bob and straightened her skirt seams. “I guess. No. I’m not sure. Maybe he’s just being friendly.”
“Will you go?”
“Lunch is probably not a date. And he’s a neighbor. So I should go.”
“What if it is a date?”
Amber pursed her lips. “If it’s a date he’s outta luck, he’s too short for me.”
“You’re all of five feet three.”
“I don’t need someone tall, but tall enough, you know? So the gap is safe. Like if I wear heels it’s not a worry, and so if you kiss you know the angle’s going to be right.”
“Ah,” said Lydia. “Well, Carson is only a couple of inches taller than me. Think I should get rid of him?”
“No!” s
aid Amber. “Don’t listen to me. I already told you how silly I am.”
Lydia stood up, tipping Rufus to the floor and gathering her purse and cell. She gave Amber a hug and promised to call her tomorrow to analyze the lunch proposition further, by which time Amber might have gleaned more intelligence. She took the green dress, the first one she had tried, deciding she would drop off cash with Amber’s assistant to save them both the embarrassment of fighting over it now.
It was a quarter of six by the time she got home and the air was a little chill but Lydia desperately needed to swim. The pool was unheated and she completed the first length underwater, turning her mind to ice. She swam steady lengths of crawl after that for thirty minutes, feeling nothing but the extension of her arms, the stretch in her back, the flex in her thighs, and the gratitude that always came over her for this release. When she had finished she stood for a moment in the shallow end facing the house. It was the first place she had bought in the States. The first she had bought anywhere. She had owned a flat in London before her marriage, but that had been bought for her. The house was a one-and-a-half-story bungalow, with a low-pitched roof and deep eaves. It had square columns at the front and back that made it seem solidly rooted, and wood sidings that she had painted a soft dove gray. She had completed the job herself, politely declining all offers of help. A neat, modest home in a good neighborhood at the north end of town, set in nearly a sheltering acre lined with maples and basswoods that made it invisible from the road and other properties, and Lydia had said, I’ll take it, before Tevis had got her upstairs.
She climbed out of the pool, wrapped her towel around her, and went inside. In the kitchen she paused before her open laptop, knowing she could search the Internet and find what she had been looking for in the magazines. But if she started she would never stop. She had to keep the bargains she had made with herself.
Lydia went up to the bedroom and turned on the lights. She peeled off her swimsuit and showered, and when she had dried her hair and pulled fresh jeans out of the closet she noticed the gown slung across the bed.
