“Bernie …I …”
He sealed her lips with a kiss and then walked to the door of the dressing room with a last look over his shoulder. “Go look at some shoes to go with it, sweetheart. And come up to the office when you're all through. We'll go to lunch afterwards.” He smiled at her and then disappeared as the saleslady reappeared with an armload of other dresses she thought Liz might like, but Liz absolutely refused to try them. She consented only to try on a pair of shoes to go with the dress and found a beautiful brandy-colored pair of satin evening shoes encrusted with stones that were almost identical. They were the perfect match and Liz looked victorious when she picked Bernie up upstairs, and as they left the store she was chatting happily, telling him about the shoes, how much she loved the dress, and how overwhelmed she was by how much he spoiled her. They walked to Trader Vic's arm in arm, and had a long lazy lunch, teasing and laughing and enjoying the afternoon, and it was with regret that he left her at almost three o'clock. She had to pick up Jane at a friend's. They were both enjoying their liberty before they started school again. They only had a few days left before they went back to school the following Monday.
But the opera was foremost on Liz' mind, and on Friday afternoon she had her hair done and a manicure, and at six o'clock she slipped into the magical dress that he had bought her. She zipped it up carefully, and stood staring at herself for a moment in amazement. Her hair was swept up and caught in a thickly woven gold net she had found during another foray at Wolffs and the shoes peeked out from beneath the heavy velvet folds of her dress, and she heard the doorbell faintly in the distance, and then suddenly Bernie was standing in the doorway of her bedroom looking like a vision himself in white tie and tails and the starched bibfront of an impeccably made English shirt and the diamond studs that had been his grandfather's.
“My God, Liz …” He couldn't say more as he looked at her, and he kissed her carefully so as not to disturb her makeup. “You look so lovely,” he whispered, as Jane watched them from the doorway, forgotten for the moment. “Ready?”
She nodded and then spotted her daughter. Jane looked less than pleased as she watched them. In a way, it pleased her to see her mother looking so pretty, and in another, it troubled her to see them so close. It had been worrying her since Lake Tahoe, and Liz knew they had to say something to her soon about their plans, but in a way she was frightened to tell her. What if she objected to their getting married? Liz knew she liked Bernie, but liking him wasn't enough. And in some ways, Jane considered Bernie her friend, more than her mother's.
“Good night, sweetheart.” Liz stooped to kiss her, and Jane turned away, with angry eyes, and this time she said nothing to Bernie. And as they left the house, for a moment Liz looked worried, but she said nothing to Bernie. She didn't want anything to spoil their magical evening.
They went to the dinner at the Museum of Modern Art first, in the Rolls Bernie had rented for the occasion, and they were rapidly swept into the throng of women in dazzling gowns and ornate jewels, and photographers fighting to take their picture. But Liz felt perfectly at home in their midst and proud on Bernie's arm as she clung tightly to him and the flashbulbs went off all around them. She knew they had taken their photograph too, and Bernie was already becoming known around town as the manager of the city's most elegant store, and many of the expensively dressed women seemed to know him. The museum had been decorated by the local socialites, and was filled with silver and gold balloons and trees that had been sprayed gold. There were beautifully wrapped gifts at each seat, cologne for the men, and a handsome bottle of perfume for the ladies, from Wolffs, of course, and it was easy to recognize their distinctive wrapping on every table.
The crowd pressed them close as they walked into the huge hall where the tables were, and Liz looked up at Bernie with a smile as he squeezed her arm and another photographer took their picture.
“Having fun?” She nodded but it was difficult to call it that. It was a crush of bodies in exquisite evening gowns, and enough jewelry to fill several wheelbarrows had anyone wanted to try. But there was an aura of excitement too. Everyone knew that they were part of an important evening.
Bernie and Liz took their seats at the same table with a couple from Texas, the curator of the museum and his wife, an important customer of Wolffs and her fifth husband, and the mayor and her husband. It was an interesting table, and conversation was rapid and light as the dinner was served and the wines poured, and everyone chatted about their summer, their children, their most recent trips, and the last time they had seen Placido Domingo. He was flying to San Francisco especially to sing?ta??a?a this evening with Renata Scotto, and it would be a treat for the real opera lovers in the crowd, although there were few of those. Opera in San Francisco had more to do with social standing and fashion than it did with any real passion for music. Bernie had heard it said for months, but he didn't care. He was having a good time, and it was fun being out with Liz for such an elegant evening. And Domingo and Scotto were only additional treats as far as he was concerned. He knew very little about opera.
But as they walked across the horseshoe driveway a little later on, to the War Memorial Opera House, even Bernie felt the intensity of the moment. The photographers appeared en masse this time, to photograph everyone going into the opera house, and there was a crowd held back by cordons and police. They had come just to ogle the elegantly dressed crowd on opening night, and Bernie suddenly felt as though he were attending the Academy Awards, only the crowd was staring at him and not at Gregory Peck or Kirk Douglas. It was a heady feeling as he shielded Liz from the eddying movements of the crowd and ushered her into the building and up the stairs to where he knew their box was. They found their seats easily, and he recognized familiar faces all around him, the women anyway. They were all clients of Wolffs. In fact, he was pleased at how many of their gowns he had seen since the evening began. But Liz was by far the most beautiful in her magnificent Renaissance gown, with her hair caught up in the woven threads of gold. He found himself aching to kiss her as others looked at them admiringly, and he pressed her hand gently as the light dimmed, and they held hands through the whole first act. And Domingo and Scotto were extraordinary together. It was a breathtaking evening in every way, and they followed the others to the bar, where the champagne poured like water and the photographers were hard at work again. He knew they had taken Liz' photograph at least fifteen times since the evening began, but she didn't seem to mind it. She looked shy and demure and she felt safe at his side. Everything about her made him want to protect her.
He handed her a glass of champagne, and they stood sipping it and watching the crowd, and suddenly Liz giggled as she looked up at him. “It's funny, isn't it?”
He grinned. It was funny. It was so overwhelmingly elegant, and they all took themselves so seriously that it was difficult to believe that they hadn't been cast backwards into another time when moments like this were infinitely more important. “It's kind of a nice change from one's daily routine though, isn't it, Liz?”
She smiled again and nodded. The next morning she would be at Safeway buying groceries for herself and Jane for the week, and on Monday she would be writing simple additions on a chalkboard. “It makes everything else seem unreal.”
“That should be part of the magic of opera, I think.” He liked the importance of the event in San Francisco, and he liked being part of it. And most of all, he liked sharing it with her. It was a first time for both of them and he wanted to share a lifetime of firsts with her. The lights dimmed then before he could say anything, and then rose again, as a discreet bell sounded in the distance. “We have to go back.” He put down his glass, as did Liz, but he noticed rapidly that no one else did, and when they finally left the bar at the insistence of the bell, most of the crowd from the boxes remained at the bar, talking and laughing and drinking. That was part of the San Francisco tradition too. The bar and its intrigues being, in most instances, far more important than the music.