Courtney’s eye glanced, and then stayed glued on Temple’s ruby-and-diamond vintage engagement ring from Matt…and The Bellagio Hotel’s fabulous vintage jeweler shop, Fred Leighton, which accessorized Red Carpet women. It was not only gorgeous and Temple knew she’d faint if she knew what it cost, but she could endlessly daydream about the tragic life of some nineteen-thirties woman forced to give up the ring decades ago because of the Depression and her husband had jumped off a building. Or perhaps it had been a heroic gesture during the second World War to help family members escape Hitler…
Reality intruded.
“Something from Vera would suit a petite bride well,” Courtney suggested, upping her estimation of Temple’s means.
Something from the phenomenal designer suited Temple very well when it was Simply Vera from Kohl’s department store. In the bridal department, they were talking thousands of dollars. Of course, there was that TV ad work for Louie and her coming up. Nothing signed yet, alas. She was sure Louie would kick in his advance share for a wonderful wedding dress, especially if he could have the wedding veil afterward as a very large tulle toy.
Courtney took a new tack. “Why don’t we see what we can rule out.”
She turned and led them between the intimidating rows. Given the voluminous skirts and trailing trains, the hangers hung on a six-foot-high rod. No wonder it took a giraffe like Courtney to sweep these heavy protective bags out of the row so she and Kit could stare through the plastic at a dazzling blizzard of billowing satin and lace and tulle Temple would look like a pygmy wearing. Besides, Temple was sure she’d soon go snow-blind.
“Is that a mermaid skirt” she asked about one candidate.
“Don’t you like mermaid skirts?”
“I adore mermaid skirts, but wearing a tight sheath to mid-thigh and then having a ballerina tutu billowing out to the floor is death to a short woman. Not to mention impossible to sit in.”
“The bride doesn’t sit much at a wedding reception,” Courtney pointed out.
“No, I don’t suppose so.” Temple hadn’t thought beyond the church ceremony. “Anyway, strong horizontals must be avoided or I’ll look like an albino mushroom.”
“Don’t tell me that rules out a strapless gown?” Courtney looked ready to burst into sobs.
“Well, yeah.”
“Everyone wants a strapless gown, except—” Courtney caught herself before she said something uncomplimentary.
Temple had even seen a Catholic bride in a strapless gown illustrating the Pre-Cana website Matt had directed her to view after she decided on Our Lady of Guadalupe for the wedding site. Temple found she had some differences with dogma, but if the Catholics—stern advocates of the two-inch-wide “spaghetti” strap, according to hearsay—were finally okay with strapless, why wasn’t she?
She told Courtney, never having deceived herself about her literal shortcomings.
“Flat-chested women. Short women. We need a strong central vertical, not to be chopped up with horizontal lines at the bust and thighs.”
“We have some gowns with sleeves, but sleeves are so…”
“Matronly,” Kit said brightly, with a brittle smile that no one in her right mind would challenge.
Courtney had a comeback. “Many brides do work out for several months before the wedding to correct that universal flabby little upper arm problem we women have…”
“That’s like cutting the corpse to fit the coffin,” Temple objected.
There was a pause.
“Off the shoulder,” Courtney suggested. “Very sexy. You have good shoulders and no upper arm issue.”
“Are you kidding?” Temple was indignant. “Another strong horizontal, right above where I am not so sufficient and do not want to try to hold up a strapless gown.”
“A boat neckline.”
“Ditto. And that’s matronly.”
“Vee.”
“Better with cleavage, as are all those ill-fitting strapless gowns I see in the newspaper announcements. With so many of these horizontal slashes in the wedding gown styles, I might as well use a serial killer as a seamstress.”
“I assure you, Miss Barr. Temple.” Courtney was pleading. “We can find a gown to enhance all your lacks and conceal your awkwardness. We simply have to try some on.”
She eyed Temple’s footwear, a sprightly multi-color Ferragamo seventies sandal.
“What pretty feet and shoes. I see you’re wearing only three-inch heels. We’ll need to find some four-and-a-half-heel-inch sample shoes near your size. That will assist the verticality problem.”
She gazed horrified at Temple’s size five sandal in her hand. “We only carry that size shoe for flower girls.”
During this dialogue and the shoe-doffing incident, Kit had vanished, Temple realized.
“But,” said the adaptable and oh-so-amenable Courtney, who was likely four or five years younger than Temple’s thirty-one and who sported a wedding-engagement ring combo on her left hand, “buying a wedding gown is not an off-the-rack proposition.”
In the most understanding, gracious way, Temple was instructed that bridal gowns were special-ordered and could take weeks at the least and maybe months to arrive and then had to be fitted.
Or, if the bride needed to marry in haste, they could be rented at the (sniff) wedding chapels.
Temple shook her head, avoiding that unfortunate literary human movement known as “bridling”.
“I’m afraid I need something sooner. A returned gown, perhaps, that could be refitted.”
Temple had by now realized that Matt’s mother and Kit had been married in off-the-rack dresses that didn’t require fitting. She envisioned herself in an off-the-shoulder gown with a sash across the waist and another above the mermaid skirt, which was bordered with a wide satin hem. She would look like Queen Victoria or Mary Todd Lincoln at their most mushroomy.
Kit appeared from nowhere.
“Courtney, my dear,” she said. “I just visited the fitting room.”
“Ah, you’re not supposed to go there. All those gowns are sold.”
“Courtney, my dear.” Kit took her arm even though it looked like a child reaching up to a mother. “I noticed a gown on a dressmaker’s dummy that looks rather interesting.”
Temple opened her mouth. A dressmaker’s dummy could be wearing a suitable candidate for her wedding dress, which she was now thinking of looking for online under “white nightgowns”?
“I found the neckline rather intriguing.” Kit raised her eyebrows.
No one could resist her Aunt Kit’s raised eyebrows, especially Aldo Fontana, the second of his ten brothers, except for the youngest and most impressionable, to leave the bachelor life to marry.
“Well, if you saw something that might prove to be an inspiration.” Courtney followed along after Kit like a stage hypnotist’s victim plucked from the audience.
Temple did likewise.
She came face-to-face with a headless dressmaker’s dummy, a black jersey-clad torso on a wheeled base wearing a white gown.
Temple moved around it, her eyes on the same level as the missing head. She circled left, then right in a silent flamenco dance.
“About the right length, I think,” Kit said, definitely not “thinking” at all, but selling.
“And the neckline is…unique,” Kit added.
“Genius,” Temple agreed. “The only thing long about me is my neck.”
“A swan’s neck,” Courtney added.
“And the bodice is bare in one way, yet not. I love it,” Temple said.
“With opera-length gloves,” Courtney suggested meekly, hopefully.
“Yes.” Temple nodded. “So very My Fair Lady.”
“Ah—” Courtney wisely remained silent after that.
“Hair half up,” Kit said, “Princess Di’s knock-off lover’s knot coronet…”
“Electra will recognize that design and love it!” Temple said.