Chapter 11 The Dress
Chapter11 The Dress
The Mother of the Groom
“Look at you! Is that what you’re wearing to the wedding? I’m sure Penny would love that,” Sarah said as she flopped down
on her mother’s chaise in the dressing room of the master bedroom. It was the most luxurious part of the Blakeman house, a
proper dressing room with ample closet space for two, a makeup table, and an obstructed water view. Sarah had spent hours
playing dress-up in here when she was little, watching her mother get ready for a work event or a fundraiser or the theater.
She even had her own box of discarded gowns and dresses to use, so she didn’t ruin her mother’s. Now it was her mother playing
dress-up, squeezing herself into her Priscilla of Boston wedding gown, a white lace number complete with capelet. It still
fit, sort of. Her weight was about the same, but her body had changed over three decades. She pretended that the zipper was
broken, not that her waist had disappeared.
“I wouldn’t even joke about that to Penny. I don’t think brides have much of a sense of humor. Especially about their wedding,”
Abigail answered, posing in the mirror for fun. “I still love this dress. Maybe you’ll wear it one day.”
“As long as you don’t mind if I turn it into a field hockey skort.”
“Oh, Sarah. That’s not funny.”
“Apparently nobody has a sense of humor about their wedding, even if it was years ago.” Sarah put the veil on, then removed
it quickly, noting, “So not me.”
“You’re right about that.” Abigail shook her head and continued, “We didn’t take ourselves too seriously back then. Brides
today, they want everything to be so special, so unique. Not my generation. We did what our mothers told us to do. We were
perfectly happy with the same wedding that everyone else had. The white Tiffany invitations. The Priscilla of Boston dress.
Our sisters or prep school friends as bridesmaids in Laura Ashley. We all did our own hair and makeup. Rehearsal dinners were
for the wedding party, not everyone we ever knew. The basic country club wedding with a decent band, forgettable food, and
lots of booze was fine. And we left for our honeymoon right after the wedding, no Sunday brunch.”
“Did you take a covered wagon?” Sarah mocked gently.
But Abigail didn’t mind. She knew her wedding was perfect, with the service at her home church in Simsbury and the reception
at the country club down the road on a beautiful August day with a pink, green, and white color scheme. She didn’t remember
fighting with her mother once. They organized the whole event in a weekend. Her two bridesmaids—her favorite cousin, Candace,
and her prep school roommate Bernadette, who would later become Aunt B—wore pink floral dresses with pouf sleeves, dyed-to-match
pumps, and green gingham headbands. Headbands! George and the groomsmen were in blue blazers, white pants, and green gingham
ties. They didn’t write their own vows or hire a dance teacher to choreograph a first dance because, of course, they’d gone
to dancing school and could fox-trot fine to the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Her father gave a charming toast using quotes
from Carole King’s Tapestry in an attempt to be relevant even though the album was decades old at the time. They spent their wedding night at a B and B on the way to Vermont for the honeymoon. The inn smelled like it had been soaked in tea rose perfume. George sneezed all night. She wouldn’t change a thing.
“Couples now want a three-day marathon with all the monogramming and signature cocktails. Even the table numbers must make
a statement. I’m not sure all the fuss makes for a better event, never mind a better marriage,” Abigail said. “Imagine being
stuck with a lifetime supply of monogrammed matchbooks when the divorce happens a year later.”
“Somebody had their cup of cynicism this morning. Too much red wine last night?”
Last night, when Abigail and George arrived home, Sarah was up making a late-night omelet and drinking pinot noir. George
was thrilled to leave his wife and daughter together in the kitchen and head to bed. The silent treatment on the train ride
home was enough punishment for the tent faux pas. Abigail filled Sarah in on the details of the evening and over the course
of an hour, they polished off the bottle of wine.
“Not me. Up bright and early doing the flowers for tomorrow. I’m fine,” Abigail lied. She was a tad hungover and planned on
getting into bed by eight to recover her good mood for the engagement party. “I hope this doesn’t spiral out of control. I’ve
spent the last two weeks on every wedding site on the web and I don’t understand why on earth every woman at the wedding needs
a logoed pashmina. Can’t they bring their own wrap?”
“Our generation doesn’t own wraps.”
“Well, then they should wear clothes with more coverage.” Abigail had tut-tutted at the micro-minidresses the Silliman girls
had worn to prom. Why had the Empire waist gone out of fashion? It was universally flattering. “I don’t understand why the
guests’ comfort is the host’s responsibility, at least in this area. I hope they don’t get caught up in all of that.”
“Mom, Chase and Penny have great taste. I have no doubt the wedding will be a classy, if not classic, affair. They have their own style. Well, Penny does anyway. And, come on, Cal leeeeee,” she sang, thrilled by the prospect of a California wedding.
“I do wish they were getting married here and not there even though that’s not the tradition,” Abigail said, wriggling out
of the dress and laying it carefully on her bed. She slipped on a T-shirt dress as Sarah watched. They’d always had an easy
relationship with each other because there was zero competition between the mother and daughter. Working in a private high
school, Abigail had observed so many difficult relationships between the generations of women that usually revolved around
who was the prettiest or sexiest, as if mother and daughter were in competition for the same man. That sort of dynamic turned
Abigail’s stomach. Nobody’s mother needed to be sexy. And nobody’s teen daughter needed to be either.
Abigail figured that the secret to her relationship with Sarah was mutual respect and the fact that neither wanted to be the
other in any way, shape, or form. Honestly, Sarah was a complete mystery to Abigail with her focused athletic life on the
field and her easily pleased life off the field. Sarah welcomed all manner of people in all manner of places. Happy as a clam
with a beer and clam roll, George once said about his daughter, oblivious to the cannibalistic undertones of the statement.
But it was true. Sarah was Sarah in every setting, from debutante ball to backyard barbecue. Chase had described his sister
as “part golden retriever,” and she was in the best possible way.
And Abigail remained a mystery to Sarah, who would never understand her mother’s reverence for tradition, her constant state
of stress about propriety, and her tendency to judge first, enjoy second. But nobody’s mother on the team had ever cheered
louder for their daughter’s efforts. She would always be grateful to her parents for being enthusiastic but not over-the-top.
Sarah suspected it was because they never really understood the rules of field hockey.
“What do you think of Penny?” Abigail asked carefully, not making eye contact by rooting through her closet, even though she knew the item she was looking for was right in front of her.
“She’s great. Think of all those high-maintenance women who Chase dated in college and after. They were such snobs, with their
layered gold necklaces and their houses in the Hamptons. Remember that one, Liesel, who came for Thanksgiving and literally
did not lift a finger the entire weekend. She said she was saving her manicure! Oh, but she did bring cupcakes. Cupcakes.
For Thanksgiving. What is that? I like Penny. She cleared her own champagne glass and I’m sure she would have hand-washed
them all if you had allowed her. She’s a doer. Chase said he loves her because she works hard.”
“Really? That’s what he said?” Sometimes Abigail forgot that her children had their own separate relationship as siblings.
The fact that not all their communication ran through her was a surprise. “Well, that’s an excellent trait. Her mother seems
like a hard worker, too.”
Was I a hard worker back when George proposed? Abigail wondered. She had a job, but she never thought of it as a career. The truth was, by the time she met George, she
was getting nervous about whether she would ever get married and fulfill her destiny as a suburban mother and pillar of society.
She gave notice at work the day after George put a ring on it. And she never thought to question the wisdom of putting her
entire financial future into the hands of George Blakeman, a stockbroker and a gentleman. It was only when Abigail started
doing the household finances as a favor to George in the stressful days after 9/11 that she understood what a risk she had
taken. The importance of maintaining her earning potential and having her own revenue stream dawned on her at age forty-two,
when she discovered the financial foundation beneath them was crumbling. An alarm sounded, calling to the pragmatic side of
Abigail.
She sprang into action, hoping it wasn’t too late for her to revive her career, even though she could barely answer the newfangled phones or understand the advanced software that had emerged in her decade absence from the working world. She took a Make Friends with Your Computer class at the YMCA, dressed it up on her résumé like it was a Harvard MBA. She won that development job at Silliman with unrelenting good manners and false confidence. Abigail came to regret not keeping her hand in the working world, even if it was just a part-time gig during the early years of motherhood. But she vowed to make sure that Sarah didn’t make the same mistake. And now Sarah had Penny as a role model as well.
Abigail reached into the closet and pulled out a simple raspberry-pink linen sheath dress that she had scored at the discount
store near the senior center. The linen was Italian, her favorite. “Here. I picked this up for you. I thought you might need
something new for the engagement party. On sale, and you look so good in sheaths.”
It was true. Sarah’s tall, muscular physique could pull off the style, and the color was beautiful with her skin tone and
sun-streaked brown hair. “Cap sleeves so your field hockey tan doesn’t show!”
Another daughter might have balked at having her mother pick out her clothes, but not Sarah. If she had a tail, it would have
been wagging. Now it was her turn to play dress-up. Sarah loved when her mother shopped for her, otherwise her entire wardrobe
would be T-shirts, gym shorts, and hoodies. She zipped up the dress and spun around for Abigail, who nodded approvingly. “Thank
you. I love this color. I invited Taylor and Kelly to stop by tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind. They always had the biggest
crush on Chase. They want to check out Penny.”
“That’s fine. There’s no food so adding a few more guests won’t be a problem.”
“There’s no food?”
“It’s a drinks party. It’s very British.”
“But we’re not British.”
“We were once. Hundreds of years ago. And don’t you forget it,” Abigail said, handing Sarah some espadrilles that would lengthen the look of her legs. “These are for you, too.”
“I can’t wait to meet the British lord. He’ll appreciate the fact that we’re not serving any food,” Sarah said, kicking off
her slides and slipping on the beige espadrilles. “These are so sexy.”
“I’m hoping your father can take him on a short tour of the neighborhood and show him all the homes built after the redcoats
burned the town to the ground during the Revolutionary War.”
“That will make him feel at home,” Sarah said. “You didn’t really say much about the mother last night.”
“Well, the mother is very...” Abigail hesitated to finish the sentence. Very what? Greek? Intimidating? Surprisingly charismatic?
All of the above. She had wanted to get a handle on this woman who had chosen to become a mother but not a wife. To own a
business, rather than pour her time into her own home. Choices it would never have occurred to Abigail to make. But she sensed
that Alexa wouldn’t be easy to truly know. One dinner wasn’t going to unlock Alexa. “Very intriguing. A global citizen. Want
to help me polish the silver?”
Nobody loved a good “polish sesh” more than Sarah. She found turning the trays from black to bright to be satisfying, like
a great massage. “Why do we need to polish the trays if we’re not having food?”
“Bernadette is coming. We need to impress her. If Chase is going to run for Congress, he needs her support, so we’ll polish
the nut bowls and the small trays for the cocktail napkins.”
“That you monogrammed. Chase hearts Penny. I saw them.”
An Etsy find that she had succumbed to during a late-night scrollfest. They did look charming, the white type on the blue
napkin. The expedited shipping fee was a splurge, but if Bernadette took the bait, the expense would be worth it. “Again,
Aunt B needs to know we’re serious contenders for her column. And the mother needs to know we made an effort.”
Sarah laughed. “Boom! That’s right. Take that, Montecito! Nobody does superfluous monogramming like us Nutmeggers.”
“It’s not that—”
“It’s totally that,” Sarah said, whipping out her phone and scrolling for something. “You know what I tell my girls: Healthy
competition makes everyone better.” She found what she was looking for and held up the phone for Abigail to see. “Pizza? Very
Veggie?”
Abigail thought of the carbs, but she decided to let it go for one night. “Sure. Girls’ night in.” Sarah looked fine in the
dress. Maybe her daughter would find somebody someday. Maybe even at the wedding. Wouldn’t that be nice?