I call Bruce’s cell and when I get no answer I text. I tell him about the trip and that I need to talk with the management of the company coming public for the next thirty minutes. I get no response and I imagine him topping off the wineglasses of the other working mothers, riddled with boredom and bristling with anger at me. He must appear to be the perfect husband to these strangers in my living room and maybe he is but right now he’s on my nerves.
The stretch limo pulls to the curb at 58th and Lexington Avenue, where there’s a rounded driveway into Le Cirque and people hanging outside the restaurant crane their necks looking for Reese Witherspoon or Matt Damon or anyone more interesting than some corporate guys from Cleveland and myself. The disappointment on their faces is evident and my disappointment in myself, about to help sell the stock of a company providing easy credit to poor people often unable to pay it back, is something I push far away. How many more companies who do this sort of thing can we take public?
We all shake hands as we agree to meet in the morning. These mostly graying men are trembling, on the brink of being very rich, and I’ll be along for the ride, to hold their hand and make them look good. In just a few days they’ll be celebrating. They’ll never have an inkling of the anxiety I went through during our meetings and our breakneck travel. They’ll never know about the play within a play going on here, the quest for the McElroy family to hold it together.
It’s almost 8 p.m. when I begin walking up Madison Avenue, phoning home once again and going straight to voice mail. Bruce must be putting them to bed and I’ve missed it all. I should hail a taxi but instead let my feet slowly drag me home. I hate facing the drama I’m about to face so I walk, mostly for air, the almost-fresh kind you get in Manhattan. I don’t really want to see a bitter husband with several drinks in him tonight, so I walk.
Soon I’m standing in front of the chic little dress shop and the mermaid dress I saw with Henry. It’s still in the window looking somewhat alive at this hour, not from the early-morning sunlight as before, but from the streetlights.
Even though it’s late, two salesladies are inside all dressed up and sitting erect on counter stools. I don’t stop to consider why I’m doing what I’m doing before buzzing the door. I guess I just want to be transformed by a dress, to try it on and feel something resembling fun at the end of a very long day, or maybe I just don’t want to go home.
“Oui, madame.” A young woman, chic with dark, flat-ironed hair and kohled eyes, answers the door. She needs to fill her twiggy body with baguettes, I think as she, with visible annoyance, stands at the door and considers whether I’m worthy to enter. Stores like this don’t let just anyone in. I ignore her superior position as she places herself between the sidewalk and the store interior. She looks me up and down.
“I’d like to try that on,” I say, pointing at the window and acting like I buy such dresses at the same rate I buy skim milk.
She pulls her face into a scowl when she sees my giant bag containing every document I need for my trip, my sensible walking shoes, and my corporate getup. It somehow insults her gestalt. I’m not her usual customer.
“Zat dress? Ooh-la-la.” She laughs, gazing toward the window. “Eet won’t fit. None. And ees so many dollars.”
“Oh, okay,” I say. “But I’d still like to try, and I have a job,” I add pathetically.
I’m arguing with her, trying to convince her to let me potentially part with thousands of dollars, and I’m doing it from the sidewalk. This is absurd.
“Non, non. Maybe, how you say, maybe in the high school?”
She is cracking herself up. And for lack of something clever to say, I rip, “At least I went to high school.”
She laughs again, not having a clue that I’ve just insulted her. She swings the door wide.
When she manages to wrestle the mermaid off the mannequin she walks me upstairs to a giant dressing room and lays it across a sofa. She is annoyed by all her efforts and stands in the doorway defying me to just try to get into the thing.
“Privacy?” I request.
I can already tell that she was right, that my high school body had a slim chance at wearing this, but my current body? I was delusional to even attempt it. Before leaving me alone to wrestle with the big fish dress she looks carefully at my giant bag, wondering if it’s at all possible that I may be plotting to steal the thing. It takes her a minute to satisfy herself that I am low-risk. She sighs and waves, as if creating wind to blow my patheticness away. She clacks on down the stairs in high and red-soled shoes to converse some more with her friend.