White Dresses

by Mary Pflum Peterson

  I smiled at all the right times, laughed when appropriate, posed for photos. But my heart never got over the near attack it had been subjected to in the moments before that first ring of the doorbell. It continued to pound in my chest as if it had been forced to run a marathon when it was only in good enough shape to run a mile. At every moment, I was worried—­were the last of the piles safely stuffed away? Would someone open the door to the mountains of debris when I was out of their sight?

  The photos snapped of me with guests on that Sunday afternoon show that yes, my relatives and parents and I did manage to clear the house of the heaps of debris and mail and papers in the moments before guests arrived. But those same photos show something else: our efforts could do little to hide the badly scuffed coffee tables, the sagging couch, and the broken chairs that inhabited the home. The carpet had noticeable stains on it; the wallpaper, a paisley pattern that announced itself as a relic of the 1970s, was faded; and two of the lampshades were ripped. There were so many signs of disrepair in the house—­too many to count. No amount of fresh lilacs could possibly have masked the fact that our home, with its twenty-­year-­old furniture and broken appliances, was in a state of decline.

  For seventeen years, my mother had been my everything: my North Star, my confidante, my nurturer, my comforter, and my biggest defender. She’d nursed me through countless crushes gone wrong. She’d stayed up late helping me type up the college admissions essays I’d initially written by hand in spiral-bound notebooks. She was the true definition of selfless, unconditional love, always putting her children above all else, always there to offer words of wisdom. And yet on this most fundamental of levels, when it came to keeping house, she had failed me miserably. And she had not only failed me in private. Now she had failed me in public. The image I had worked so hard to cultivate—­learned, cultured—­had been irrevocably compromised. And so had my impression of my mother.

  Every child reaches that point when he or she realizes the parent is fallible. I had seen glimpses of the fallibility before, certainly during her hospitalizations. But for the first time I had come to realize that not only was my mother human—­sometimes it was she who was the helpless child in our relationship. It was deeply unsettling.

  And as much as I adored my mother, was grateful for all the love and support she had given me, I longed, more than ever, to break free.

  When I put on that starchy white Daisy Buchanan dress on graduation night and marched into Beaver Dam High School for the final time as a student, it was with a renewed sense of purpose.

  My valedictorian remarks compared life to a road. “How fast can we go?” I asked my fellow classmates. “Where are we headed?” I didn’t know the answer to either question. I just knew I wanted to take a route that would get me as far away from the situation that I was in as quickly and safely as humanly possible.

  I collected a myriad of awards: two more four-­year scholarships, the top English department award, the John Philip Sousa Award. The list went on. By evening’s end, my arms were overflowing with checks and certificates and trophies and flowers and diplomas.

  And as the applause faded and the gymnasium emptied and the lights of the school were extinguished, my heart burst with pride, my mind clouded with confusion. Daisy Buchanan had left the building—­and was going home to one big mess.

  Chapter 9

  LWS (Little White Suit)

  June 1999

  I stood in the Benetton boutique in Atlanta’s Lenox Mall, perplexed. I needed one more suit for my upcoming trip to California. Problem was, after spending the better part of the day at the mall, I couldn’t seem to find It.

  When I accepted the position as a rookie reporter for CNN Newsroom, a program designed with the intent of enabling young recruits like me to cut their TV journalist teeth, I was told investing in a few good suits was part of the job. And not just any suits. They had to be suits that looked good on camera. I had a red suit. And a black one. And a black suit with red stripes. But I required one more—­something for my upcoming shoot on the set of the hit teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210. I needed something that, in the words of one of my favorite cameramen, would “pop.”

  I was twenty-­three and still getting used to the world of TV news. I’d dreamed of becoming a journalist since I was a little girl. And now that the dream was becoming a reality—­real assignments! hair and makeup! nights at the anchor desk!—­it all felt surreal. I had my own car. A boyfriend. I even had my own checking and savings ­accounts. Best of all, I had my own space. My own space in a historic old duplex in downtown Atlanta. Even my own walk-in closet. It was so different from Beaver Dam. For the first time in my life, I could move the thermostat as I pleased. I had heat! There were no stacks of unopened mail, no plastic bags full of junk, no broken appliances. For the first time in my life, I was in control.

  And this, I hoped, was just the beginning. I didn’t want Atlanta to be my last stop. If things went well, CNN Center would be a stepping-­stone to more exotic locations, to ever-­bigger adventures. I worked for CNN. CNN! It was the world’s news leader. I worked for the same organization that employed Chris­tiane Amanpour, the bravest of female war correspondents. My next stop, I hoped, would be the far reaches of Europe. Maybe even the Middle East.

  But to conquer those places I had to first conquer the fictitious Brandon and Kelly and the set of Beverly Hills, 90210. And to conquer Brandon and Kelly, I needed one more suit.

  Walking past a collection of floral sundresses, I ran my hand across the fabric of a powder-­blue suit on one rack then a gray suit on another. Those were all right, but they wouldn’t jump through the screen the way I wanted them to, or the way others would expect them to. The camera, I was quickly learning, loved certain colors and certain fabrics more than others.

  “If you’re looking for a suit, we also have something in white,” said a voice from behind me.

  I turned to meet the eyes of an attractive blond saleswoman. She was a few years older than me and wore a floral shift.

  “White?” I was intrigued.

  “Yes, white,” said the saleswoman, disappearing through a doorway behind the cash register. Moments later, she reappeared, carrying It.

  The suit that hung in the saleswoman’s hand was a bright white cotton-­polyester blend. It featured two pieces: a sleeveless white shift dress that zipped down the back and hit three inches above the knees, and a sleek white blazer that closed at the front with three white buttons. I smiled. It reminded me of the white ensemble Sharon Stone sported in Basic Instinct: clean, simple, sexy.

  “Would you like to try it on?” asked the saleswoman.

  I looked the suit up and down approvingly, using the same eye and head motion men increasingly used when they looked at me as they prepared to ask for my number. It happened everywhere now: bars, restaurants. Once, a pilot even asked me out on the airplane during a flight from Atlanta to New York. It still came as such a surprise to me, to think that after all these years, men found me attractive. Often, I’d look behind me when the especially handsome men smiled in my direction, certain they couldn’t be looking at me. In Beaver Dam, I’d been invisible to men. Here in Atlanta, things had definitely changed.

  Looking at the suit, I liked what I saw. This Little White Suit would have made Beaver Dam Mary blush. But for bona fide Adult Mary? It was perfect.

  “I’d love to try it on,” I told the saleswoman. “And I can already promise you I’m wearing it home.”

  You’re going to wear that?” my mother asked me.

  It was June 1999, and I stood in a hotel room in Muncie, Indiana, wearing the white suit I’d bought three summers before for my CNN trip to California. My mother was clearly unhappy with my fashion choice, but that was only one of my worries.

  My thoughts were in Berlin, where I was currently living. I’d flown to Indiana from Germany the day before and was still jet-­lagged.
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  My thoughts were in Turkey, where CNN now wanted me to move. They were launching a twenty-­four-­hour Turkish network, based in Istanbul, and since I’d recently covered the Turkish general elections, they wanted to know if I was interested in moving there. I didn’t have long to decide.

  And above all, my thoughts were on my late grandmother. In an hour, Aurelia Arvin Diener’s memorial ser­vice would be under way.

  My mother’s mother had died some six months before, on December 26, 1998. But because of an especially harsh winter, my mother and her siblings had decided that they would wait to celebrate her life until warmer weather set in.

  Aurelia’s passing marked the end of an era. Al Diener had died two years before after a battle with leukemia. Now Aurelia would join him in Oddfellows Cemetery in Dunkirk—­and, presumably, in heaven. The dual passing of Al and Aurelia was particularly hard on my mother. Difficult though her childhood had been, she had held tight to her parents and to her visits to Indiana as a source of stability, especially after the divorce.

  “I’m not sure who I am without my parents,” she’d told me, weeping, in the moments after she learned of her mother’s death.

  “Sure you do,” I’d told her at the time.

  “I do?” she’d asked.

  “You’re a mom. My mom.”

  “Yes,” she said, the smile returning to her voice. “That’s absolutely right.”

  On that day in June, everyone had gathered for Aurelia’s ser­vice. In addition to my mother, there were her siblings. Mimi had made the drive from her home in Rochester, New York, where she continued to reside with a longtime friend and fellow former nun, Jody, who had become an unofficial member of our extended Diener family. I had come to consider Jody my honorary godmother. Patty had flown in from her home in Beverly Hills with her husband, Marv. Kathy and Mike had flown in from Denver with their respective families. And Al Joe had made the drive down from Illinois.

  Besides Aurelia’s six children, there were cousins and former neighbors. And there was even my father, who still considered himself a member of the Diener family. After initially being angry at my father after he left my mother, Al Diener had forgiven Dale. The rest of the Diener family had, for the most part, followed suit. So my father had invited himself to the fete. They were all there when I flew in from Berlin. I had to make the trip. For my mother—­and for my grandmother.

  The tenth of Aurelia’s thirteen grandchildren, I had inherited my grandmother’s love of writing and had been asked to present a eulogy at the ser­vice. I was proud to do so. As a child, I had been oblivious to my mother’s rocky relationship with her mother. The memories I had of Aurelia were positive ones. I saw her, along with my grandfather, three or four times a year: once in the summer, once at Christmas, and typically over Thanksgiving and Easter breaks. My grandfather was the more gregarious of the two, frequently helping my brother and me with our chemistry and math assignments and talking to us about his beloved Republican Party. My grandmother was, by far, the quieter of the two, often retreating to a back bedroom to nap or read in silence. Still, I found her to be warm, funny, even generous during our visits. On one occasion, when I was twelve, she gave me her collection of beautiful hats, housed in a series of fancy hat boxes from LS Ayres. I loved all of them—­the floral creations and the pillbox hats alike. On another occasion, she asked me to take a seat beside her and together we talked about her quest to write the perfect valedictorian address during her senior year of high school.

  “I compared life to a river, Mary Elizabeth,” she’d told me, laughing. “It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever written. I called it long and winding. Can you imagine?”

  Sitting in the living room at the Pine Patch, in front of that same fireplace where my mother had posed for the newspaper photographer with her Girls Nation trophy all those years before, we’d compared notes about favorite poems, beloved authors. At the age of nine, I told her about my love of Nancy Drew. She, in turn, introduced me to Agatha Christie.

  “If you love mysteries, no one compares to Agatha Christie,” she said, plucking one of her many Christie works from her crowded bookshelf and pressing it into my lap.

  My mother would often gaze at the two of us during these conversations. She’d stand in the doorway that connected the Pine Patch’s living room to the dining room—­one foot in the living room, one foot out—­looking both pleased and confused by our bonding sessions.

  “I wish my mother had talked to me the way she talks with you,” my mother told me one night during a visit to the Pine Patch, as she prepared to climb into the double bed in the guest room I already occupied.

  “Don’t feel bad, Mom,” I said, shrugging. “She’s probably trying to share things with me she always meant to share with you. Don’t you think?”

  She nodded then and smiled.

  Toward the end of her life, Aurelia Diener attempted to soften her relationship with my mother. She may never have fully understood the dark days my mother experienced in Oldenburg or in the aftermath of her divorce from my father. But Aurelia Diener loved my mother.

  In her final years, she rewarded my mother with glimpses of that love. After Al Diener died, my grandmother took my mother’s hand. “Of the six children, Anne, you were the most like him,” she confided.

  My mother repeated the story to me often, relishing not only the words, but the fact that the words had been uttered by the woman who knew and loved Al Diener best.

  Aurelia gave my mother further encouragement in letters. Years after my grandmother died, I found in my mother’s purse a well-­worn letter from Aurelia, penned in the early nineties.

  “Do you know how pretty you are?” the handwritten letter asked. “Perhaps I’ve never told you so I’ll tell you now: you are as pretty on the outside as you are on the inside.”

  Aurelia may not have known how to express warmth in those early years of motherhood. But she’d worked to make at least some amends before her death.

  Because of Aurelia Arvin Diener’s love of the written word, I worked to carefully craft a well-­written eulogy that would have made her smile. And because of my growing love of clothing—­and her old love of accessories like those hats she’d given me—­I selected an outfit for the occasion that would command attention. That’s why on the morning of the memorial ser­vice I plucked from my suitcase not a black suit—­but that Little White Suit I’d originally purchased from the Benetton in Atlanta.

  “You’re going to wear that?” my mother repeated as she stood to glare at the outfit.

  I shrugged, half disappointed and half amused by her reaction. I was twenty-­six but suddenly felt as if I were twelve.

  “You said it’s a memorial ser­vice, not a funeral, right?” I asked my mother. I watched as she continued to scrutinize my attire.

  “Right,” said my mother hesitantly.

  “A memorial is a celebration of life,” I responded. “And white, you always said, is the embodiment of celebrating life. Especially in the church. It marks the transition from one point to another.”

  My mother mulled over my words for a minute and slowly nodded. “Good point,” she said at last.

  “You argue like a Jesuit.” She sighed. “But can’t you do anything about the length? You’re going to be standing in front of a church full of ­people.”

  I smiled. The white suit featured one of the shortest hemlines of any skirt I’d ever owned. It barely reached the middle of my thighs, even when I was standing perfectly straight. When I paired the ensemble with white three-­inch heels, I looked like a sea of legs capped off by a hint of white. Bending down was not an option. But it didn’t matter. I loved the look. I loved looking statuesque. Most of all, I loved the attention that the white seemed to command. And commanding attention was what working in TV was all about.

  My TV journalist career was something I’d worked toward for yea
rs. I’d first gotten the bug in the second grade, when my teacher, Mrs. Laatsch, assigned me the task of serving as anchorwoman for a class project aimed at exploring the news. I went home that night and started studying the television newscasts, looking for sources of inspiration. There were relatively few women on the airwaves back then, but the one I saw, Jessica Savitch, left quite the impression. As a correspondent and cut-­in anchor at NBC, she was a pioneer; a beautiful young woman amidst a sea of graying men. With golden hair and a presence that walked the fine line between glamorous and authoritative, Jessica was who—­and what—­I wanted to be when I grew up. So when we recorded our first elementary school newscast, and I sat down at my little anchor desk in front of the camera, I announced with great confidence: “Good evening, I’m Jessica Savitch.”

  My mother was instrumental in facilitating my love of Jessica—­and of the news in general. Like her mother, she loved reading newspapers and magazines cover to cover and appreciated good writing. Often, she’d read favorite passages of an article aloud to me, noting their construction. When it came to television, she was equally intrigued. Long before the days of the Internet, she would photograph famous news events, fixing her camera—­so old it had one of those little flashcubes on top of it that rotated each time it snapped a shot—­on the television screen during moments she deemed noteworthy. She did that when Richard Nixon resigned, again when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter.