23. Deirdre #2
My quietness doesn’t seem to bother the onlookers. Valentina and Giulia have more than enough opinions to make up for my tight-lipped numbness.
“Too boring,” Valentina says to a silk sheath dress. Giulia, now on her fourth glass of champagne, blows a raspberry and gives a dramatic thumbs-down.
“It’s simple. Refined,” protests Lucia. “Don’t listen to them, Deirdre.”
I stare at myself without emotion. This dress is just as good as any of the others I tried on, I suppose. It’s jaw-droppingly beautiful and crafted to perfection, there’s no question about that. But I don’t have any real feelings towards it, either positive or negative.
“What kind of dress do you want?” That question comes from Donata, who’s watching my face with a pensive look. “What did you always picture yourself wearing when you were a little girl?”
I laugh, but I think it might only be to stop myself from crying. Because once my mom died, I stopped fantasizing about the big life events that would come afterwards. I never imagined going wedding dress shopping because I knew she wouldn’t be there with me.
No one speaks, and it’s clear I’m expected to answer.
“I don’t know,” I say woodenly. I like dresses, and I do wear them, but a cute sundress isn’t the same as picking out a wedding gown.
Donata taps her finger against her chin then turns to the rack. Valentina puts down her drink and jumps up off the couch, coming to Donata’s side. They mutter quietly to each other, sliding dresses along the rack, the hangers making a metallic scraping sound.
“Ooh,” Valentina chirps suddenly. “What about this one?”
Donata pulls a gown off the rack and carries it over. In her arms, it’s hard to get a sense of the design. All I can see is cream lace over top of a slightly darker silk, along with the glitter of beading.
In a changeroom beside the couch and mirror area, Donata and her assistant Polly help me take off the sheath dress and step into this new one. There is no mirror in this room, and even if there were, I doubt I’d care to look much anyways.
I hear chatter and laughter as I step out of the changeroom, but it immediately ceases when I move out into view.
Giulia, Lucia, and Valentina stare at me, and even though there is only one set of twins, and they’re not triplets, they’re all wearing identical expressions of stunned shock.
During the fitting, Polly brought out a tray of appetizers, and Giulia drops the one she had in her hand onto her lap without even seeming to notice.
Curse is the only one who looks completely impassive, standing off to the side with his arms crossed the way he has been this entire time.
My heartrate picks up at the eerie silence and gobsmacked faces of the usually very talkative women in the room.
Suddenly nervous, I grab a champagne flute and take a few big swigs of the fizzy liquid before putting it back down and stepping up onto the pedestal.
I stare down at the floor as Donata and Polly fuss with the dress, flaring out the train behind me on the floor and clipping excess fabric at my lower back.
Donata pulls the hair tie out of my braid, arranging the waves around my shoulders in a loose style.
I don’t see what it looks like because I’m still staring at a very interesting whorl in the wood on the floorboard just below and ahead of the pedestal.
“Deirdre.” At some point, Valentina must have gotten off the couch, because she’s speaking from beside me now. “Jesus. Just look at you.”
I don’t know why I’m avoiding the mirror. I’ve looked at myself in every other dress, blinking blankly at my own reflection, and it hasn’t really affected me. This should be no different.
I take a breath and look up.
And immediately, I know I’ve made a mistake.
Because the dress is perfect. So perfect that it hurts.
I’m so bowled over by the overall effect of what I see that tears instantly rise to my eyes. It takes a minute of blinking and deep breathing before I can even see clearly again.
When I can see my reflection once more, I try to analyze the dress in bits and pieces so that I don’t get so overwhelmed again.
It’s the first one I’ve tried on with long sleeves.
They’re three-quarter-length, the swirling flowers and petals of cream-coloured lace fitting tightly until midway to my wrist. The sleeves lead up to mostly bare shoulders, where they connect to a deep sweet-heart neckline.
The bodice of the dress is tightly fitted until it flares out at the hips into a lusciously-shaped skirt, not too narrow and not too full.
The beading glitters like dew in shades of pearl and pewter, more densely arranged and sparkly at the bodice then thinning out, like sprays of stars, along the skirt and long train.
My strategy of trying to look at only one bit of the dress at a time completely fails me, though, when Donata comes up behind me and reaches up to secure a veil to the back of my head.
The gossamer fabric settles around my shoulders, light as mist, and I can no longer just look at the dress in severed, detached parts. Because that’s me in the dress.
And I look like a bride.
My eyes are huge, shining with unshed tears.
My thick hair is loose and long, curved into waves from my braid and turned a brilliant golden-red by the soft, warm lights in here.
The veil ripples around me with the ephemeral thinness of a butterfly’s wings, coming to a silken stop well below my waist.
A tear escapes one of my eyes, quickly followed by another, rolling in hot stripes down my cheeks.
“God,” I mutter, sniffing hard. “I don’t even know why I’m crying!”
Valentina shakes her head rapidly, pressing her lips together and vigorously fanning her face with both hands before shakily stammering, “I’m crying too. Gah! It’s because you’re so fucking beautiful!”
“You look like something from a fairy tale,” Lucia breathes.
“Like a medieval Irish princess,” Giulia agrees from beside her on the couch.
But soon they, like Valentina, are standing at my side, as if they’ve been drawn inexorably forward. They circle around me, gasping and sighing as they take in all angles of the dress and the veil. And me.
“This is it,” Valentina says. “They always say when a dress makes you cry, you know that it’s the one.”
“Do they say that?” I ask, swiping at my wet cheeks.
“Well, if they don’t, they should,” Valentina replies with a teary laugh. “This is the one.”
I look at myself in the mirror again, and this time I’m not looking at me with my own eyes but Elio’s. This is how he will see me walking down the aisle.
And I’m terrified, because I want him to see me like this.
That sends me back-pedalling internally, fighting panic. Now I want to rip this dress off of my body and go back to one of the other ones. One of the safer dresses that didn’t make me look like a bride and didn’t make me cry.
I feel like if I agree to this dress, the dress I actually love, then I’m agreeing to everything.
“I don’t know,” I stutter, my voice quavering as I run my fingers over the beaded bodice.
“I think you do know,” Valentina replies with such conviction that it takes my breath away. “I think you know exactly what you want, and you’re just afraid to say yes to it.”
I haven’t eaten dinner or any of the appetizers brought out. And maybe it’s the champagne I drank on an empty stomach hitting my system all at once, but I’m suddenly too exhausted to keep fighting. To keep saying no.
Feeling like I’m probably making a terrible mistake and just not finding it in myself to care, I give one stiff, tight nod to Valentina. Her eyes light up. Giulia gives a cheer and Lucia claps her hands together beneath her chin, beaming.
“Congratulations, Deirdre,” Donata says. “While you’re still in the dress we’ll take some measurements and begin alterations immediately. Of course, a deposit will be required tonight. Fifty percent of the cost of the gown is due now, which works out to twenty-five thousand dollars.”
I just about fall off the damn pedestal, but Valentina doesn’t even bat a long-lashed eye as she hands over Elio’s shiny black card.
“Charge it to this,” Valentina says breezily, as if we’re simply buying coffees instead of something the price of a nice car. “And do as many alterations as you need to. Elio wants everything to be perfect .”