But it wasn’t as if she’d gone into the process with her defeatist sail at full mast. She’d had high hopes of finding something beautiful, but had made the mistake of confessing her insecurities about the process to Byron. His solution had been to recruit Fiffany to go dress shopping with her.
Hazel couldn’t help but feel woefully inadequate around Fiffany. She was Hazel’s age but had already made herself indispensable to Byron at Gogol. Her body was toned and perfect; she was tall, with glowing skin and stylish highlighted hair, and when she laughed it was a baritone speakeasy laugh that attracted people and made her sound like she was ready to stay up all night drinking scotch and telling clever jokes. Plus Fiffany’s face was not a deal breaker in any way. Its symmetry was astounding.
This filled Hazel with a panic she couldn’t describe, that Byron had chosen his most attractive, traditionally feminine assistant to escort Hazel in selecting a wedding dress. It confused her, too, about how Byron wanted her to be. She’d started exclusively wearing the shapeless, comfortable clothing that made up the standard Gogol worker uniform; that seemed to be his preference. But Fiffany’s outfits didn’t look like they came from the Gogol product line. Was he hoping that Hazel would become more like Fiffany? He’d told Hazel that Fiffany was too made-up and appearance-obsessed for his tastes, but she wondered if he wished Hazel were slightly more made-up. For their wedding, did he want her to find a dress that could downplay her Hazelity and amplify her Fiffyness?
The dress fittings required her to stand in her underwear, which had a significant grape Popsicle stain on the waistband because she hadn’t expected she’d have to disrobe in a group setting. Then she had to hold her hands above her head and close her eyes very tightly. Then she had to be suffocated by fabric for several seconds that felt like minutes (they were trying to lighten the mood, but Hazel did not appreciate the way the sales associates had imitated Viking ship rowers with one yelling “Heave!” and the other yelling “Ho!” as they attempted to squeeze her inside). She managed until she tried on a labyrinthine gown whose peekaboo cutouts had a frightening dead-end effect: every hole that looked like it might be an exit for her arm or head was covered with a screen of translucent lace and her limbs couldn’t find their way out.
It was possible she’d begun freaking out in secret about three dresses earlier, but inside this one, her anxiety really found its foothold. Her arms started thrashing around in the creature-dress’s central lagoon of ruffles, and then apparently she passed out.
Hazel awoke on the floor to find she’d ripped her way through the dress’s midsection. Fiffany had done Hazel the favor of recording the entire incident, and kept replaying it as new sales representatives appeared in the room—they’d heard what had happened but had only now been able to break away from their clients to come see the video for themselves. They laughed deep belly laughs each time Hazel’s top half emerged through the ripped dress’s stomach. “Born again as a bride!” the saleswomen joked. “If a surgeon came in and gave this dress a C-section,” one exclaimed pointedly, arguing her case like a theatrical lawyer in court, “this is the exact spot where he would cut. This means something,” she said, but she didn’t say what it might mean, and Hazel was grateful for that, because it couldn’t mean anything good. “Do you want to see my C-section scar?” the woman asked.
Hazel didn’t. Instead she pretended she had to faint again and sat down.
She charged the ruined dress to Byron’s card, along with an exceptionally simple ivory frock that zipped all the way up, required no over-the-head action, and had a velour skort lining. “That one looks . . . roomy,” Fiffany said. When Hazel nodded, Fiffany sighed. “I’m saying it’s hideous,” she clarified. Fiffany’s voice had the patronizing tone of someone explaining a harsh truth to a stubborn innocent, an exasperated mother finally giving in and telling her child the more unsavory nuts-and-bolts details of why the sleepy man camped underneath the bridge couldn’t come stay in their guest room. “We don’t want extra space. We’re not buying an RV.” Hazel had felt herself begin to blush, but then she saw Fiffany look over her shoulder—Fiffany was appealing to a sales associate behind them for help, and the woman had obviously just heard the entire exchange.
Hazel turned. When the associate looked at the dress, her face became sad. Once, at the zoo, Hazel and several others had watched a shunned chimpanzee in the corner of the primate enclosure sample its own excrement. Afterward everyone, including Hazel, had worn the expression that the sales associate was making now. “I’ve never sold this style to a bride,” she finally remarked. “It’s usually the mother of the bride. Or, more commonly, the grandmother.”
Fiffany nodded. “Fixed income and waning eyesight,” she said. “That’s what this dress appeals to.” But just looking at the other dresses gave Hazel a prickling-heat sensation; she felt her hands swelling up. Her ring finger especially was aching with an increasing tightness.
“Oh!” Fiffany had suddenly called out. “I’m going to call a medic. Something is happening with your body!” It was true; Hazel was breaking out in a collector’s variety of welts. Luckily Hazel’s engagement ring had already called the paramedics. Fiffany bumped into an arriving EMT on her way out of the room.
Hazel completed the purchase of the dresses from a stretcher, the sales associate going over all the details and making a big display of speaking loudly and clearly, like Hazel was hard of hearing instead of bearing an anxious rash; the way the woman held each paper up close to Hazel’s reclined head was very deathbed-style. They seemed to be confirming the details of Hazel’s final will, which she should have, perhaps, in retrospect, understood to be an omen. Hazel whispered a question to the associate, not wanting Fiffany to hear, and the woman bent over a microscopic amount out of decorum, but it was clear this was as close as she was willing to get to Hazel’s hive-swollen face, and it was not close enough.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman apologized. “I still can’t hear you. Can you speak up a little more?”
“Will you give the dress pockets?” Hazel finally hissed at normal volume. It would be good, she’d realized, to have a place to stash some sedatives on the wedding day.