Borrow-A-Bridesmaid

by Anne Wagener

  So I do. I surrender to the mayhem and start running, pushing and fighting to get through. I make it to the far wall, where a row of narrow dressing rooms bursts with gowns. Multiple pairs of feet are visible below each door, shimmying out of clothes and into dresses.

  When I see a door pop open, I bolt for it. A bride and her mother emerge, both crying: They’ve found The Dress. The bride hugs the oversize bag to her chest.

  I sprint to the open door, my heart galloping in place, but as I clutch the side of the door, one of Andrea’s Bustle Bitches throws her entire body weight against the door, slamming it closed and almost taking my fingertips off. Where did she come from? I swear she dropped from the ceiling on a web of stealth.

  A blast of adrenaline makes me clench my teeth. I grasp the door handle and position my body in front of the doorjamb, on the off chance that I’ll be able to pry my way in. But my attempts to pull the door open are futile. Her biceps flare at me, showcasing their superior strength and willpower. If she’s going to use her body, I’ll have to use my mind.

  Keeping my hand on the door handle, I turn my head a little to the left and gasp. “Oh my God, it’s a Vera Wang original!”

  She bares her teeth at me. “Nice try. My bride hates Vera.”

  What now? She elbows me in the side, and the pain is so sharp that I slump over. She’s about to wedge me out completely and take over the handle when a flash of inspiration sends me pancake-flat to the floor, belly to carpet. I grab the legs of the changing stool and pull myself into the stall. It’s not exactly Entrapment—halfway through, my butt nearly gets stuck—but I make it. I stay crouched until I see the Bustle Bitch’s ballet flats disappear from the other side of the door. “Ha!” I say out loud.

  I slide the lock into place and collapse on the tiny stool. The sounds of rustling plastic bags, flopping breasts, shrieks, and, below all that, generic department store music, float into the room. I close my eyes, almost, almost wishing I were at the airport.

  As I recover my breath and debate whether to text Alex my coordinates, the handle rattles. My butt pops off the stool and I yelp. Bustle Bitch strikes again!

  “Piper! Let me in!”

  Alex. I pull the door open and she tosses a few dresses at me—they feel like they weigh about twenty pounds each. After I hang them up, pressing them tight against each other, there’s not much space to maneuver. Wordlessly, she’s de-fanny-packing, stripping off her jeans. My face flushes. I turn away, grabbing the closest dress and unzipping it. My fingers brush the tag.

  “Size fourteen?” I eye Alex surreptitiously in the mirror.

  “Well, I’m a six, but you have to grab what you can. You can always get the dress altered.”

  “Ah.” I don’t understand the point of trying on a dress that could fit three Alexes in it, but I help her step into it, flushing again as I notice her fancy underwear. Of course her underwear is pink and lacy and perfectly feminine. The corset makes her look like she’s covered in delicate pink fondant, the kind that makes you want to peel it off. I wince as I remember my underwear has a giant frog on it. They’re probably on inside out, since I dressed in the dark.

  Surprise, surprise: The size 14 “isn’t quite right.” An hour and no perfect dresses later, I’m scouring the shelves and becoming increasingly frustrated. The racks were stripped completely bare after the opening chaos. Now most of the dresses are back on the racks helter-skelter, sassy purple size 20s next to prim white size 2s. I heave a huge sigh.

  “Hang in there,” says a nearby voice with a slight Southern accent. A tiny blonde smiles at me.

  “Thanks. It’s my first time.”

  “You’ve got it written all over you, honey. Are you a bride?”

  I catch myself before disclosing I’m the hired help. “Bridesmaid.”

  “Do you have a dressing room?”

  Wait, is this subterfuge? Maybe she’s trying to weasel her way into our stall! I give her the most intimidating look I can muster, given that I’m wearing inside-out froggy panties.

  But the blonde’s smile doesn’t falter. This event is drawing me into its madness. Relieved for what seems to be a kindred spirit, I return the smile. “Yes, thank goodness.”

  “Then you’re golden.” She nods to a bride a few feet away who’s changing in an aisle while her friends stand in a semicircle around her. “The key is persistence. And don’t forget about the alteration staff—their booth is over by the front door. They worked wonders for my best friend last year.”

  “Thanks, good to know. Godspeed.” I give her a relieved smile as I turn back to the racks. I spot a scalloped neckline and reach for it, fumbling under the plastic to grope for the tag. An 8—close enough.

  I grab a few more options and return to the dressing room, feeling as if I’m wrestling a baby whale made of fabric and plastic. Alex opens the door in her lingerie and shoos me in. I begin to strip the first dress from its bag, trying not to look at her boobs, which, according to my peripheral vision, are basically perfect and flatteringly large on her tiny frame. My friend’s mom once referred to mine as “mini-muffins.”

  Alex lifts her hands up expectantly as I struggle to hoist the next contender over her head, smoothing it out as it settles around her subtle curves.

  “Ooh!” she croons, catching her reflection. It’s the 8 with the scalloped neckline. She fluffs it out around her stilettos (which I discovered are the exact height, to the centimeter, of her wedding shoes).

  “Alex, that looks great!”

  She turns, admiring it from each angle. And then she bursts into tears.

  “Whoa,” I mutter under my breath. Emotional support is not in the contract. I crouch down to where she’s sunken into the dress. I tentatively put my hand on her shoulder.

  “We’re having problems,” she says.

  “Who?”

  “Greg and I.” Oops, duh. “He’s really stressed out with work and doesn’t care about any of this. I tried asking his opinion on a few things, and he said, ‘That’s your thing.’ Obviously, I can handle it, but it’s a slap in the face that he doesn’t even pretend to care about our wedding.” She shakes her head, wiping tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “Get it together, Alex!”

  “I’m sure Greg will understand if you tell him how much the wedding means to you.” I’m fumbling. Awkward, silly me. My voice sounds like my bookstore voice, a farce of me being calm and together.

  “It’s not just that.” She sighs, tears dripping on the floor, making dark brown spots on beige carpet. “I miss Mom.” She begins to sob. “I can’t do this without her.”

  I bite my lip and then venture, “So your mom’s—”

  “Passed,” she whispers.

  Tears well up in my own eyes. I rub my hand over her back in large, slow circles. “You can do this, and I’m going to help you through it. You’re not doing it alone, okay?”

  She looks up at me, mascara trails leaking from brown eyes that look so much softer and more vulnerable than before. “I miss her so much.”

  I nod. A lightning bolt of guilt: When’s the last time I visited my mom?

  We embrace in the tiny dressing room, amid the crinoline and plastic and discarded clothes. I close my eyes, feeling again the girl attraction I’d felt as we pressed together outside the store. Empathy rises up and spills out of my eyes as I hold her. We sit like this for a long time, and I think of how it must look to women walking by looking for a dressing room. When they crouch down to check if the room is occupied, they’ll see the bottom half of a crumpled bride and a tear-spotted carpet.

  When I get home, I’m going to take out the blue notebook and try to capture this strange mix of existential thought and emotion:

  In this moment, I love everyone in the entire store, even the Bustle Bitches. Because underneath the determination and the unadulterated aggression, I imagine that e
very one of us wonders what the hell we’re doing. Here in Filene’s Basement. Here on earth. The pursuit of the perfect dress is perhaps a perfect distraction from the pursuit of larger, scarier questions.

  If I’m honest with myself, maybe that’s why I’m here, too. Not because I have a wicked jones for organza and tulle (though the fact that I even know those words now scares me a bit). But because working jobs where I’m waiting in the wings of other people’s lives means I don’t have to stand in the spotlight of my own.

  Ten

  All day long I’ve been falling apart. First my brain was eaten by bride zombies. Then work gnawed on my soul as if it were a rawhide bone. My shoes were the last thing to go. When I hear a thump and a soft curse outside my door, I realize I must have left them in the middle of the hallway before I collapsed facedown on my bed.

  I lift my head off the pillow as Lin appears in my doorway, holding a Corona in one hand and my errant shoe in the other. “How was your date?” I ask.

  “Not just a date. A meet-the-parents thing.”

  I push myself up, batting at strands of hair that seem to be everywhere. “Right! And?”

  He smiles. “Steve made impeccable banh xeo, which, much to Mom’s chagrin, impressed her. She still wants me to marry a nice Vietnamese girl, but I think she’s warming to the idea of a hot sous chef. Methinks I even saw her check out his bum.”

  “Did not!” I’m sitting upright now. “Damn. So, meet the parents. This is serious.”

  Lin nods, perches on the edge of the bed. “I have whiplash, it’s happening so fast. I feel comfortable one second, scared the next—a freaky combination. Like I’m strapped into a roller coaster, nice and cozy, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, but little do I know I’m about to be dangled off the edge of a cliff and accelerated from zero to eighty in the next second.”

  I hold out my arms to him and he obediently curls himself into them. “This isn’t Ryan,” I remind him. “And it’s okay to let yourself fall.”

  As we pull apart, he peers into my face and pushes aside more strands of hair to reveal the redness around my eyes. “Oh dear Lord. What happened? Did you get in a girl fight?”

  I sigh. “Long story. I’ll tell you in the morning. I’m taking a quick rest before I read Charlie’s screenplay.”

  Lin grins at me like an idiot. “Nice.”

  I grin back and fall onto the purple pillows, suddenly feeling very awake despite my seventeen-hour day. “It’s my homework before we meet up tomorrow.” I pop off the pillows again. “But what am I thinking, right? He’s only here for another week, then he’s going to fly back west, like—”

  Lin puts a finger over my lips. “This isn’t Scott. And it’s okay to let yourself fall.”

  Try as I might to worry about the future, the thought of diving into Charlie’s words makes me loopy with joy and anticipation.

  Lin leans over to kiss me on the forehead. “Look at the two of us, all starstruck and goofy.” He wraps his arms around me. “Well, don’t let me keep you. Happy reading, Muse.”

  After Lin goes to bed, I print the entire screenplay on the laser printer my parents gave me as a graduation gift, and despite the small fortune in ink I’m using, there’s something visceral about holding someone’s manuscript. It sits before me in a perfect stack, white pages lined up at the corners.

  Lin has left a glass of merlot next to me—the house wine at Steve’s restaurant. I take a sip and begin to read.

  THE LIFT

  Charlie Bell

  I run my finger across the Courier font. I picture his fingers dancing across the keyboard, the story unfolding before his eyes.

  To the soundtrack of cicadas and the occasional lazy honk from the Beltway, I begin to read.

  And read and read.

  I’m following the story on two levels: One, I’m seeing flashes of the scenes unfold in my mind’s eye; two, I’m seeing Charlie’s fingers at home on the keys, hammering out letters in parallel lines while his brown eyes tick back and forth, left to right, line break, repeat. He twists his lips to the left in thought, engaging that ever-loving dimple.

  Most of the action takes place in the elevator of a thirty-six-story office building in L.A. The first scene opens as JOHN ARMSTRONG, 22, steps onto the elevator, heading to the seventeenth floor for a job interview with a recording executive.

  JOHN adjusts his tie, his face a sunrise lit with optimism, hope. Next to him, ELENA VARGAS, 37, watches him, the left corner of her mouth pulled slightly upward in amusement.

  JOHN and ELENA form an unlikely friendship while their respective work situations unravel—JOHN’s optimism faltering under the weight of corporate corruption and ELENA losing the battle against sexual harassment as she strives for the company’s hotly contested vice presidency.

  At one point, while the elevator is stopped during a power outage, JOHN takes a long look at ELENA.

  JOHN

  Truth or dare?

  ELENA

  Truth.

  JOHN

  Tell me a secret.

  ELENA

  What kind of secret?

  Her black pumps, long ago kicked off, sit beside her—one upright, one resting on its side.

  JOHN looks at her, expectant.

  ELENA

  (continuing)

  Oh, fine. I’m not wearing any underwear. Is that what you want to know? Perv.

  JOHN grins.

  JOHN

  Nice. But I meant a real secret. Something no one else knows.

  The emergency lights wink down at them from the elevator ceiling like little stars. Their own universe.

  ELENA

  I lied at my interview. For McCall Smith. I said— I said I was an account manager at my last job. I was a receptionist.

  JOHN

  Ballsy.

  ELENA

  Do you believe in karma? I mean, all that’s happened, I keep thinking it’s payback for that first little lie. I’ve always felt like I had to try and be someone I’m not. I actually hate my job.

  JOHN

  So quit. Be who you are. I like who you are.

  ELENA

  You don’t even know me.

  JOHN

  I know you press the elevator button three times when you’re running late. You’re full of this restless potential—you’re all entropy. Crazy, beautiful entropy. And you have this tiny birthmark on the back of your neck that’s shaped like Texas. And you sometimes eat a king-size Reese’s instead of lunch. And— and you’re better than this place.

  ELENA

  John.

  That one word says everything. She gives him an ancient look. Their lips meet.

  Upon reaching this point in the screenplay, I close my eyes (Charlie’s fingers stop typing, his pointer and middle fingers tapping restlessly against the keys) and think for the gazillionth time of our kisses as I fall back on the bed, the bittersweet taste of wine on my tongue and Charlie’s screenplay clutched to my chest.

  I keep reading until the dawn stretches pink fingers across a sleeping sky. Lining up the corners of the pages again, I put a gold star in the upper right-hand corner. I pick up the composition book in which I’ve neatly inscribed my comments.

  As I flip through the wide-ruled pages, I catch snippets. Things like: “Not sure about John’s motivation here.” And “I felt I took another kind of elevator when I was reading this. One that went down from the top level of your consciousness deep into underground Charlie-world. I like Charlie-world. It’s a destination sure to please the sensitive and romantic.”

  The green digital numbers on my alarm clock read 4:52 a.m. I’m not working today, which is a small miracle. It also gives me a buffer from Sal, who was off yesterday but is sure to watch the security tapes and realize I was an hour late to work. I couldn’t very well leave Alex wee
ping in the dressing room, could I?

  Setting my composition book in the exact center of the manuscript stack and placing my phone on my bedside table, I collapse into bed and fall into a restless sleep, my dreams cycling through scenes from his screenplay. I transpose myself and Charlie into the power-outage scene. We’re stuck between floors thirty-seven and thirty-eight, kissing and kissing. Neither of us even considering picking up the little red phone to call for help.

  “I need to meet Steve,” I pronounce several hours later as Lin and I sit on the balcony, drinking coffee. I got as much beauty sleep as I could, before the pleasant top notes of the Beltway’s standard weekend traffic jam finally dragged me out of bed.

  “I know, it’s crazy that you two haven’t met yet. What with Steve’s schedule at the restaurant and your airport schedule— Well. No more excuses. We’ll do it soon. This week. And do I get to meet Charlie?”

  “You totally should! Maybe after—”

  “After you get him alone again so you can properly ravish him?”

  I flush. “Yes. After that.” Anticipation rises in me like . . . an elevator. Heading toward the top of a building where I can get a different perspective. Meeting Charlie has filled me with a hope that I thought had left me right along with Scott. I keep reminding myself I’ve only known him for a week, and we only have one more week together. But it doesn’t matter. The elevator keeps heading up.

  “So.” Lin raises his eyebrows. “Dish. Tell me about the screenplay. Was it chock-full of rampant lovemaking scenes?”

  I’m rolling my eyes when my phone rings. Charlie’s name flashes across the screen. “It’s him!”

  Lin squeezes my hand. “Well, answer it, silly!”

  “Charlie!”

  “Hey.”

  I set my coffee mug on the railing. “I can’t wait to see you. What time is good?”

  A beat: Charlie is silent. I pull the phone away from my ear to make sure I haven’t lost the call, but there are four happy signal bars at the top of the screen. Lin gives me a questioning look.