[2013] Note to Self- Change the Locks

by Heather Balog

Bouncing my knee nervously, I clutched my cell phone in my sweaty hand. Where was she?

  My mother patted my knee reassuringly and offered me a feeble smile. “She’ll be here, dear. Don’t worry.”

  I couldn’t return her optimism as I glanced at my cell phone for the fifteenth time in five minutes. Twenty minutes late and no call. Just great.

  The uninterested salesgirl examined her fingernail beds briefly and then consulted her absurdly large rhinestone watch. I had never seen such a large watch. Maybe it was supposed to be that big to match her enormous eyes. She really looked like a bug with those round eyes sunk into her emaciated face.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to reschedule your appointment if we don’t start now,” the girl remarked with absolutely no sincerity in her voice whatsoever.

  My mother rubbed my shoulders and reassured me once more, “She’ll be here. I’m sure she wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  As I reluctantly got to my feet, I couldn’t help musing, That’s what you think, Mom. Apparently, she’s nuts.

  The salesgirl, whose name was Sally, frowned as I stood and smoothed down my wild split ends. I was desperately trying to grow out my hair because of the style I found in a bridal magazine. I had eagerly waved the cut out picture in front of Claudia, my stylist, and she shook her head emphatically, no.

  “But why not?” I whined. Claudia had been cutting my hair since I was fourteen so I had a habit of acting like a teenager in front of her. Much to my chagrin, she tended to treat me that way, too.

  “Because your hair is not long enough for this style.” She pointed the tip of her comb at the hair style in question. “And you see how those waves are? That will never hold in your hair because your hair is too thick.”

  I pouted until Claudia sighed and informed me that she would consider it if my hair was at least two inches longer. Thus why it was well overdue for a cut.

  “Well, then, I guess we should get started.” Sally rubbed her bony hands together with mock enthusiasm. It made her look like a fly getting ready to eat. I resisted the urge to laugh as my mother and I followed her to the dress racks. She spun around sharply and eyed me up and down with a look of distain. I’m sure my hoodie and jeans did not endear me to her, as the rest of the clientele in the shop were in business casual attire. But why should I get all dressed up to take my clothes off and try on dresses for hours?

  Sally pursed her bee-stung lips and stuck her angular jaw out before pulling several dresses off of the rack. She never even asked what styles I liked. Instead, she just sized me up with her insect eyes and chose for me. Piling the plastic encased monstrosities on her waif-like left arm, she marched off toward the fitting area. I shrugged my shoulders at Mom. I was assuming we were expected to follow.

  Sally whirled around as she stepped onto the carpeted platform and with annoyance in her voice, she held up her free hand. “Stop! You can’t come back here!”

  I screeched to a halt and my mother, whose reflexes were not what they once were, slammed into me. “Isn’t this where I’m supposed to try on the dresses?” I couldn’t help feeling confused. This was a bridal gown shop, right? I was the bride, right?

  Letting out a low “huff”, Sally gazed down at me from the platform. “You need an assistant.”

  I pursed my lips and wrinkled my brow. “Um, isn’t that what you are?” Call me crazy but I wasn’t catching the gist of this at all.

  She sighed with exasperation. “No. I choose your gowns for you. The assistants help you try them on.” Okay, so what you really meant to say, Sally, is, I am above helping you in your dress, that’s what we have minions for. Duh.

  “Okay.” I shrugged my shoulders with absolutely no idea what else to say. Sally continued staring at me. Finally, she tugged the curtain shut in my face. My mother and I exchanged perplexed looks before returning to the couches in the reception area. I settled back onto the posh chair and gazed around the room, unimpressed with my surroundings.

  The walls were all painted a bland, non-committal off white hue. The chairs, sofas, window treatments, all white as well. In fact, I was hard pressed to find anything in this hoity-toity shop that didn’t look like it had been spray painted with white out.

  The shop girls ambled around aimlessly in their uniform of white dress pants and cream colored blouses, head high, chest stuck out, all looking like someone had rammed a curtain rod up their butts. None of them looked like they were actually doing any work, yet they all managed to appear highly effective and non-approachable. I couldn’t wait to see my “assistants”. Or did she just say “assistant”? Maybe girls in hoodies only got one. This was the last time I was letting Nora make an appointment for me.

  I swallowed hard as I realized that maybe I’d never even talk to Nora again. I found it hard to believe that my cancelling our standing Wednesday margarita night could be the end of a ten year friendship.

  Yet, that was nearly a week ago. After writing until three in the morning, I had more than the fifteen pages I had promised Jim. I had written nearly fifty pages and twelve-thousand words of the story that was literally flying off my fingertips as I typed.

  Jim had been very impressed with the beginning of the manuscript and read the whole thing while we were sitting at the coffee shop. I had to fight the impulse to stare at him while he read, waiting for his reaction at key points. Would he laugh as Wendy tries to squeeze herself into a bustier and the seams split? Would he choke up when Joe tells Wendy that she is his soul mate?

  Instead, I lowered my eyes, drank my tea, and forged ahead with my writing as Jim read.

  After more than an hour of stealing furtive glances over the top of my screen at Jim, he finally laid the pages down on the table. He said nothing. Instead, he brought his palms together and started a slow clap. “Bravo,” he finally remarked with a smile.

  I grinned, giddy with excitement. “You really think so?”

  “Uh, huh!” he nodded his head affirmatively. “Absolutely cannot wait to see how this ends.”

  After parting with Jim, I excitedly texted Nora on my way home about the progress of my new “novel” and how Jim had loved it. No answer came. I thought perhaps I had forgotten to hit send, so I resent the message. Still, no answer. After about two hours of repeatedly checking my phone for new messages, I finally dialed Nora’s cell. It rang hollowly until it clicked over to voice mail. Nora’s sultry pre-recorded voice filled my ear. I attempted my best upbeat attitude as I left a lighthearted message, but I was shaking inside. Nora never ignored my calls. Not even when she was with a patient, which in my opinion, was the sign of a terrible therapist, but a loyal friend.

  I went to bed that night trying to convince myself that there was some reasonable explanation for Nora snubbing me. Maybe she was sick or had lost her phone. Then, I really started to imagine what could have happened. What if she had been kidnapped or hurt or something sinister had occurred when she was out alone the night before? Panic caused my heart to thud noisily in my chest and my pulse to race. Every disturbing scenario imaginable filled my mind in rapid succession. I couldn’t sleep.

  At two in the morning, I threw on flip flops and crept to my front door. Simon was snoozing peacefully on the couch. I paused for a second, only to make sure he was sleeping. He appeared so serene and benign.

  Damn you, Simon. Why couldn’t you truly be like that? Our lives would have been so much simpler.

  Shaking off my musings on Simon, I opened the front door, stepped out into the faintly lit hallway, and pulled the door closed behind me, all without a sound. I raced down the steps and out onto the street below in minutes. Apprehensively, I glanced around. I had never been out alone this time of night. For a city that never sleeps, this one seemed dead quiet right now. Sure, there were car lights and occasional shouts, but that seemed to just add to the eeriness. Tensely, I walked the three blocks to Nora’s apartment, twisting my key ring in my fingers. I wasn’t sure what was more nerve wracking, the creepy nighttime atmos
phere, or wondering what I would find when I got to Nora’s apartment.

  When I reached Nora’s guarded apartment building, her doorman greeted me suspiciously. When I explained to him that I hadn’t heard from Nora all day, he assured me she had recently arrived home with a friend and that she probably didn’t want to be disturbed at this time of the night.

  Friend? Nora doesn’t have any friends but me, I thought and I tried to tell that to the doorman, a new guy that I was not familiar with. He simply reiterated that Nora was busy. With a “gentleman” friend. I immediately understood and thanked him for the information.

  Now, five days later, Nora still hadn’t returned my call, nor had she picked up for any of the next twenty calls that I had made in vain. Before leaving to meet Mom at the train today, I sent a hasty message, reminding Nora of our appointment. And once again, I received no reply. As I waited anxiously on the platform for my mother, I came to the conclusion that my friendship with Nora had finally expired.

  Imagine my astonishment when I heard the delightful jingling of those tiny bells on the door and turned to see Nora swooping in, shopping bags draped over both wrists. She was clad in denim capris and a hot pink eyelet halter top with a completely open back. Through some miraculous feat of gravity—or tape—her breasts remained perky and in the middle of her chest. On her feet, she wore platform sandals with giant sunflowers on the straps. And on her head she wore the most ostentatiously bizarre hat I had ever seen. Made of thin organza material, it had to be at least two feet wide in diameter. The brim flopped in the front and I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or from the weight of the bright yellow plastic canary that was fastened to the ribbon on the middle of the hat.

  “Hellooooo, darlings!” Nora waggled her fingertips at us as she trounced over. She removed her obnoxious rhinestone sunglasses and leaned in to kiss my startled mother on both cheeks.

  “Hello, Nora, dear,” my mother remarked politely while patting Nora on the back in a patronizing fashion. Her eyes were wide as she mouthed something to me that I could not decipher because Nora was inclining toward me for air kisses. And I do mean inclining. Judging by the slant of her body and the smell permeating from her pores, I had a hunch that Nora was drunk. In fact, not just drunk. As Simon would say, piss drunk.

  “Elizabeth!” Nora called much louder than necessary because her mouth was nearly inside my eardrum. My hand immediately clapped my ear, protecting it from further assault. “Elizabeth!” Nora repeated as she flopped onto the couch next to me. “Isn’t this place beoootiful?” She accentuated the last word, breathing deeply into my face in the process. She reeked of alcohol. Reclining, she threw both her arms over the back of the couch. “What a bitch to find, though!”

  I opened my mouth to demand an explanation of Nora’s behavior, but at that exact second, Sally reemerged with two other sandwich starved waifs and announced that my assistants would assist me now.

  Gee, really? Is that what they’re here for? I stood up, pressing my hands down on my now wrinkled attire. Leaving my poor mother to deal with Nora, I followed the girls to the platform that I was now allowed to step on to. They immediately swept closed the curtain that surrounded the circular platform.

  “This is Deena and Yvonne,” Sally told me as both girls nodded in my direction. “Take off your clothes.”

  With reluctance, I followed her instructions and timidly peeled off my layers. Under my hoodie, I was wearing a gray tank top that was once white, and the elastic was hanging off my underwear. I caught Deena and Yvonne exchanging disgusted glances as I dropped each article of clothing on the floor.

  It isn’t bad enough I have to undress my fat body in front of these skinny snots, they’re judging my clothes, too?

  “Do you have your strapless bra?” Sally asked when I was standing there in just my bra and underwear.

  “I didn’t know…I…” I stuttered.

  Rolling her eyes, Sally quickly retorted, “It should be fine. Just leave the regular one on though. We don’t need sagging in the dresses.”

  Deeply offended, I pulled my arms to my chest. Hey, bitch. My breasts are my best assets! Every man I’ve undressed in front of has told me so!

  Sally snapped her fingers at the assistants. One of them stepped forward, picked up my discarded pile of clothes with loathing, and scurried off.

  Probably to burn them, I considered. The other assistant removed one of the dresses hanging on the rack and approached me with it. Holding the massive mound of crinoline over her head, she stood motionless, expecting some sort of reaction from me.

  “Um, uh…” I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do. How could I step into the dress if she was holding it in the air?

  At this point, the other assistant had rejoined her side and was also gaping at me. Don’t they know how to speak? Or are they not allowed?

  I glanced from one to the other until Sally finally ordered in a haughty voice, “Put your arms up so they can put the dress on you!”

  My hands shoot up in the air. Immediately I was enveloped in scratchy material that was being pulled every which way. I was in the center of this tornado and couldn’t see a damn thing as Deena and Yvonne yanked me and the dress around.

  Finally, after I was beginning to feel completely claustrophobic, my head popped out of the neck hole. I breathed a sigh of relief as the girls continued to bustle around me, buttoning and zippering and God knows what else. Glancing down, I could see the dress was heavily beaded, but from my vantage point, I could see little else. I searched the wall for a mirror, but could find none.

  “Um, excuse me. Where’s the mirror?” I asked the nearest assistant who was pulling on the hem of the bedazzled frock.

  She looked terrified by the prospect of having to speak and quickly turned to Sally, her eyes growing wide.

  Sally explained, “We don’t have mirrors back here. They are in the front.” I must have appeared confused because she continued, “Where your family and friends wait?”

  “But what if I don’t like the dress? I can’t tell until I go out by them?”

  All three women appeared completely horrorstruck and exchanged looks of shock with each other. Sally responded by saying, “That’s impossible. We wouldn’t pick out something you don’t like!”

  How would you know what I like? You don’t know me. You never asked what style I was looking for or anything about me or my wedding. You just sized me up by looking at the way I was dressed, and then you and your snobby salesgirls decided what I should be wearing.

  This was not the way it had been when I had bought my first wedding dress. Nora and my bridesmaids Gina and Holly accompanied me to Mabel’s bridal shop. I was still smarting from my mother’s attitude toward my wedding, so I never invited her, an oversight I would always regret in the months after the wedding. The girls and I piled into Nora’s convertible and then into the shop, giggling and laughing. I was the first one of us to get married, so we were all so excited to actually go dress shopping. Like all little girls, we dreamt of this day since the day we married off our Barbies to our Kens. Or in my case, a GI Joe doll with one arm. He had lost the other in the “war” according to Sonny.

  When Mabel asked me what kind of dress I wanted, I had stammered, “I’m not sure.” I hadn’t done any research at all. I didn’t know an A line from a mermaid gown. I simply thought I would go into a dress shop and find a dress and just know that it was “the one”.

  Mabel, unlike these anorexic twits, was very patient with me. Nora had opened up a bottle of cheap white wine while I tried on dress after dress, getting a yah or nah from the girls. Nora shook her head after every one, even the ones I really liked. Finally, after I was growing really weary of the whole experience, Nora turned to Mabel and asked, “What’s the most unpretentious dress you have?”

  Mabel smiled and disappeared into the back room, emerging less than a minute later, a gown draped over her arm. She unzipped the plastic and held it out for me. I took it with apprehension an
d trudged to the dressing room to try it on. As soon as I stepped into it, I fell in love. Twirling in front of the mirror, I knew it was my dress. It was ankle length and strapless, made of a light chiffon material. It had curves but wasn’t restricting. It was absent of beading and sparkles, but somehow shimmered in the sunlight that was streaming into the shop. I stepped out in front of the crowd eagerly waiting and drew gasps from each of my friends.

  “That is your dress,” Mabel informed me pointedly.

  “Like, oh, my, God, it totally is,” Gina gushed.

  Holly remarked that I looked, “fantabulous!”

  Nora simply smiled and nodded her head. I had an instant love connection with that dress and I was expecting the same exact thing to happen this time as I stepped out in front of Nora and my mother.

  Mom glanced up from the magazine she was reading and gasped. And it was not a “wow, you look fantabulous” kind of gasp. It was more like a “oh my goodness that is the worst dress in the history of dresses” kind of gasp.

  Mom quickly tried to cover up her gaffe by declaring, “Oh that’s beautiful, but I don’t think it does you justice.”

  Nora snorted. “Doesn’t do her justice? Elise, she looks like she raided a chicken coop in that get-up!” I glanced at myself in the mirror and yes, it certainly did look like I had been tarred and feathered. The entire lower portion of the gown was covered in a chintzy, feathery material, and then embellished with heavy beading.

  Nora stood and swaggered to where I was standing. “This,” she pointed accusingly to the bodice of the gown, “is totally unacceptable.”

  Sally stuck her nose in the air as she scoffed, “I assure you, this dress is very flattering to her figure.”

  Nora flapped her hand in front of her face as if she were swatting a fly. “It isn’t flattering to her personality. Elizabeth is simple.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted by Nora’s accusation, or to be grateful to her intervention. She was right, I was simple. But the way she uttered the word simple came out like a slap in the face, not a compliment.