The Forever Marriage (26 page)

“We need a dress that’s formal but not heavy to wear. It could be ninety degrees. We don’t want the bride fainting from heat.” Olive laughed. “I was hoping you could help us find something pretty—and appropriate—but cool.”

Carmen sat on a huge, pale pink toadstool holding a glass of white wine. She sipped and made a face. This place might be fancier than any dress shop she’d ever seen, but their wine was cheap. A year’s worth of meals at the Garretts had taught her what to look for. This one had no structure at all.

“I think I know
exactly
what you’re looking for,” said the woman in a breathy, lackluster Marilyn Monroe voice. She turned to Carmen, who was busy trying to set her wine glass down. But the carpet was too deep, everything in this place was pillowy. There wasn’t a firm surface in sight. “Would you stand up for me, hon?”

Carmen rose grudgingly. She felt trapped and this stranger had become her enemy, one of her captors.
Hon?
What a simp! She probably spent her time guzzling Coors at sports bars when she wasn’t hawking trillion-dollar gowns.

“You’re what, maybe a four?”

“More like a six.” Carmen sighed. There was no way the sales clerk had made a mistake; she could probably guess a woman’s weight to within an ounce. Carmen hated being falsely flattered and condescended to this way.

“Excellent. That’s our standard size!” She looked as pleased as if she’d spun all the dresses herself out of hay. “You wait here and I’ll be back with some things for you to try on.”

She left and Carmen was relieved. There were a few minutes of silence. She sat again, leaning back, and drank more wine. But when she straightened and looked at Olive, Carmen felt a quiver of fear. The older woman’s face was dark, her eyes gleaming—this was precisely the look Carmen had been expecting when she was caught, last summer, coming out of Jobe’s room.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I’m … surprised,” Olive said. She hesitated then went on. “It
is important, in my view, to treat service people with respect. Having money doesn’t give us the right to be rude. Nor, frankly”—she paused again, considering, eventually deciding to go on—“nor do I understand why anyone would
want
to.”

Carmen’s face burned. She recalled her own mother, pale with a smooth scarf-covered head, insisting that she was well enough to shop for prom dresses. How she had nearly expired after only two stores and Carmen had had to abandon the search in order to call her dad. She wished now that Olive had been there that day, too—not only to take charge, but to put Carmen in her place and demand that she be kind.

Just then, the clerk came bustling in with an armful of dresses so bulky, it was a mystery how she carried them. One by one, she hung them on the rack that lined one wall. “I think you’ll find something you love here,” she said over her shoulder as she clinked the hangers onto the rod. “But if you don’t, no worries. We’ll just keep going until you fall head over heels.”

“These are just lovely. Thank you, dear.” Olive smiled at the woman and gestured at one of the dressing room’s three cushioned chairs. “Do you have time to sit with us and help us decide? It would be so nice to have your professional opinion.”

“I’m yours for the duration, ladies,” the woman said and sank gratefully into a chair. She and Olive both turned to Carmen, like audience members.

“Should I, just …” Carmen turned her hands so her fingers pointed loosely toward her body. “Change right here?”

“Do you mind?” Olive asked. “We could step out if you’d prefer, but then it will take an awfully long time.”

“No, no. That’s okay.” Again, Carmen looked for a place to put her glass but the room hadn’t changed. She drained the last of the wine and propped the empty glass on the floor, tipped against the wall. She slid her skirt off and placed it on the toadstool. Then she began unbuttoning her shirt.

It made no sense that she felt reluctant. As a freshman at Michigan,
Carmen had been that girl who walked around shirtless in her dorm room, not even caring when the door swung open and girls from her hall streamed in and out. She liked the feeling of air on her breasts, and while she wasn’t exactly attracted to women—at least not in the hot, powerful way she was to men—it was a turn-on to show off her bare, rounded shape, especially when it was obvious they were watching and assessing, comparing themselves to her, often falling short.

But undressing in front of this woman and Jobe’s mother was strange. It could be, Carmen decided, because this was the first time Olive would see what her son panted for and groped and stabbed with his hard penis at night. It could also be that for once, Carmen was faced with a woman—thirty years older—whose body was probably better than hers.

Working at it with studied diligence, she managed to talk herself through. Off came the shirt and silky camisole she wore underneath. Now Carmen stood in her bikinis and lacy bra and the sales woman jumped up, as if they were about to dance. The woman took the first gown from its hanger and expertly opened it. Like a small child, Carmen ducked, held up her arms, and dove upward into a frothy dress that the clerk then tugged and fastened around her.

“Oops, we’re never going to get this one buttoned up,” she said from behind Carmen’s back. “You’re a deceptive one, aren’t you? I’d have thought you’d just slide into a six but you’re quite a bit bigger in the chest than you look. What cup size do you wear, hon?”

“C,” Carmen said sheepishly and looked at Olive, who was impassive. She seemed not to find this at all strange.

“Well, most of our ladies in your size are about a B, so we’re going to have to alter whatever you buy.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Olive said. “As long as you can have it done fast. Remember, the wedding is in just a few weeks.”

Carmen could have sworn the woman glanced at her midsection, looking for signs that this rush to marry had a baby behind it. But this was the one place the dress fit perfectly.

“But that’s not the one,” Olive continued. “It’s adorable, but not quite right for Carmen. Too much tulle.”

They went through two thirds of the gowns on the rack and though she was getting used to the process, Carmen was bewildered by the fact that it felt like so much
work
. “I’m sorry. I’m starting to sweat a little,” she confided at one point. As if the woman to whom she’d been lifting her arms was unaware.

“Happens,” the clerk said. “Don’t worry about it, hon. These are just our testers and you’re all sweet and clean. You’d be amazed what other girls get on them: lipstick, wine, God knows. I’ve found stains I can’t figure out and don’t even want to touch.” She wrinkled her nose like a rabbit and Carmen laughed. In the background, Olive did, too. Suddenly, the room righted. Everything was better. The next dress, a sheath, slipped over Carmen’s jackknifed body like Cinderella’s shoe.

“Mmm,” Olive said. And Carmen knew, even before she turned to look in the mirror, that they had found it. “Isn’t that just beautiful?”

Carmen revolved and saw that it was. Also that she looked like someone she had never met. The pink streaks in her hair were gone, and where she used to shave her head, soft, long curls had grown out. She’d begun seeing Olive’s stylist, who cut the longer pieces at a slant so they came to a point at her chin. In this dress, with its wide neckline, tight-fitting bodice, three-quarter-length skirt and soft scatter of pearls on satin, Carmen appeared in the mirror like a woman who’d stepped forward from the 1920s. A passenger on an ocean liner, a mistress to Hemingway or Picasso. She twisted her body from side to side and watched the material shimmer in the dressing room’s soft light.

“We have the same problem here.” The woman continued to fuss at Carmen’s back, straining to pull the dress closed. “I could zip it up all the way if I really had to, but you probably wouldn’t be able to breathe. So I’m just going to hold it so you can get a better idea of …”

“Oh, no need,” Olive said. “This is the one. That is.” She stepped forward and reached out to touch the fabric over Carmen’s
heart, her voice dreamy. “If you like it, dear. What do you think? Would you like to try on a few more?”

“No,” Carmen said. “This is perfect.”

All she wanted was to be the woman in the mirror. Beautiful, sophisticated, mysterious. The only problem was she couldn’t imagine someone like that spending a lifetime with Jobe.

At home, there was remarkably little to do. A pile of invitations sat stacked in a box on the dining room table and Carmen had brought out her calligraphy set from senior seminar. She sat on Saturday addressing envelopes for a couple of hours, but then her back and neck grew stiff and the quiet started to feel heavy around her. She wandered through the rooms. There was something Poelike about the weird stillness: dust motes floating above the staircase, furniture lurking in unexpected corners, portraits on the walls hanging straighter than she remembered.

Nate had left for a summer program in California and would be back just days before the wedding. George was either working or out on the golf course. Olive had her coterie of women friends. And Jobe, Carmen’s soon-to-be husband? Ever since the night of their formal engagement—when he’d given her the sapphire-and-diamond ring that once belonged to his grandmother—he’d been fading like a dream, only the idea of which remained. She rarely saw him. And in only a month he’d gone from geeky to professorial. His beard was thickening and he was absentminded in a way that Carmen suspected might be partly put on.

The previous night, for instance, he’d acted completely blind-sided when she came out of her room dressed in a frilly summer dress that Olive had insisted on picking up for her while they were wedding gown shopping. “Going somewhere?” he’d asked. And though she felt like running back into her room and stripping the stupid thing off, she’d answered, “The Science Center benefit. Remember? Your mother gave us the tickets last week?”

“Oh,” he said, looking perplexed, though Carmen distinctly recalled a long conversation with Olive about how Jobe should start showing up at events like this one, his role as a professor important to the local scientific and academic community. Carmen was to be the ingratiating beauty on Jobe’s arm, she understood. Now she waited—carefully coiffed and made up—while he rooted through his closet to find a jacket that didn’t need ironing.

Once there, they’d been the youngest people in the room by about twenty years. Carmen talked to only three people all night, ate the sauce-smothered chicken, and sat next to Jobe without touching or speaking. At one point she’d felt his hand brush her inner thigh under the tablecloth and she’d actually fantasized for a moment that he would stroke her, sliding his fingers under her dress and into the space between her legs, as Rory had. She’d promised herself to Jobe and was doggedly trying to spark some excitement between the two of them. It could be done; Olive had said as much.
If both of you tried, it would be possible to grow love
. But he’d apologized and withdrawn, acting as if he’d touched her only by accident. Were there reasons for his hand to be lurking under the table, in the vicinity of her clitoris,
other
than to get her off during dessert?

She had no desire to repeat the uncomfortable quality of that night, but she was bored. All her friends had left town already, or they were working in post-college jobs and internships. They had new lives that did not include command appearances at benefits or stiff fiancés. And Carmen could have that, too. She could walk out of this house right now—at least she assumed she could; it was possible it would suck her back in or crumble upon her—but then what would she do? A year ago, she’d been able to book a trip to Europe and simply take off. But this felt like a lost skill; it had been replaced by something else. She had sold her youth for the opportunity to live here in comfort and now she was permanently, eerily stuck.

Her hand was on the wooden banister, which was smooth and cool and curved. She stood contemplating then made a decision. Marching up the stairs, she tried to adopt her old Detroit ways.
“Jobe,” she called. “Where are you? Jobe? I’m coming to get you and we’re going out.”

He wasn’t anywhere. She checked his room and the kitchen. Where he went every day was a mystery: He had an office at the university but there was nothing going on there at this time of year. She looked at the clock: 5:43. She would wait until seven, Carmen decided, and if Jobe didn’t call her or come home, she would pack her things and leave. No note, no explanation. She’d just walk out the door and let him figure it out. Just thinking about this made her feel better. Flipping through the
TV Guide
, she found a channel with a program she could tolerate that ran from six to seven. Perfect. She would watch and when it was over, she would be done as well.

It was rerun time, when the local station ran shows from the previous year, but she’d never seen this episode of
Cagney & Lacey
before. By the quarter-hour commercial, she was hooked. Here were role models who could help her, especially the smart-mouthed blonde one. She was pretty, too. Living in New York, working as a police detective. This wasn’t a good possibility for Carmen but it demonstrated that there
were
possibilities. A smart, attractive, free-thinking woman could strike out and live somewhere on her own.

At the precise moment Jobe opened the front door, the episode’s cliffhanger was about to be resolved. This presented a dilemma. Should Carmen stand up and leave the television, go find her future husband, and tell him they needed to talk? Or should she take a chance he’d stick around for the next ten minutes and watch the rest of the show?

She heard him go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. Option two, then. If Jobe was going to eat, he’d be around long enough for her to finish and find out who’d murdered the prostitute. The ending was not as satisfying as she’d hoped—the killer was exactly the person she thought it would be. She switched off the TV and rose, going into the kitchen. Jobe sat at the table with a plate of unrelated foods in front of him: crackers, carrots, a leftover cookie, a slice of deli turkey spread with mustard. She looked away.