My Favorite Mistake

1

“THIS IS A MISTAKE,” I said, suddenly panicked by the horde of women pushing at me from all sides. In the minutes just prior to Filene’s Basement “running of the brides,” the crowd was getting hostile, all elbows and bared teeth.

Next to me, my friend Cindy turned her head and scowled. “Denise Cooke, you can’t back out now—I’m counting on you!” The normally demure Cindy Hamilton shoved a woman standing next to her to make room to reach into her shoulder bag. “Here, put on this headband so we can spot each other once we get in there.”

I sighed and reached for the neon pink headband. It wasn’t as if I could look more ridiculous—I was already freezing and humiliated standing there in my yoga leotard (the Web-site-recommended uniform for trying on bridal gowns in the aisles). February in New York did not lend itself to leotards—I was numb from my V-neck down. “This is a lot of trouble for a discounted wedding gown when you’re not even engaged,” I grumbled.

“This was your idea, Miss Penny Pincher,” Cindy reminded me.

That was true. I was helping Cindy with her Positive Thinking 101 class, and her assignment was to prepare for an event with the idea being that it would then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since Cindy wanted to be married more than anything else in the world, she’d decided to buy a wedding gown. Cheapskate that I am (an investment broker-slash-financial planner, actually), I had suggested Filene’s biannual bridal event for a good deal.

So here we were at seven-thirty on a cold Saturday morning, poised with oh, about eight or nine hundred other freezing leotard-clad women, waiting for the doors of Filene’s to be hurled open. There were a few identifiable teams with members wearing identical hats or T-shirts. Like me, they were friends who had been commandeered to grab as many dresses as possible from the clearance racks, thereby increasing the odds of the bride-to-be getting a gown she wanted.

“Remember,” Cindy said, her eyes as serious as an NFL coach dispensing plays, “strapless or spaghetti straps, with a princess waistline—white is my first choice, but I’m willing to go as far left as light taupe. I need a size ten, but I can work with a twelve.”

I nodded curtly. “Got it.”

“If you find a gown that might work, put it on so no one can grab it out of your hands.”

I swallowed and nodded again, suddenly apprehensive.

“And who knows,” Cindy added with a grin. “You might find a dress that you’ll want to keep for yourself.”

I frowned. “Barry and I haven’t even talked about getting married.”

“Good grief, you’ve been dating for two years—he’s going to propose someday, and then you’ll already have a dress. It’s practical.”

I started to say it was presumptuous, then remembered why Cindy was there and clamped my mouth shut. Barry was…great, but I couldn’t see myself getting married…again.

Like every time I remembered my last-minute and short-lived Las Vegas marriage to Sergeant Redford DeMoss, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. My first marriage was one of those events in my life that I wanted to expunge from my memory, like a stupid teenage stunt…except I hadn’t been a stupid teenager—I had been a stupid adult. In the three years since my marriage to and subsequent annulment from Redford, I had managed to block the incident from my mind for the most part. But since two of my best friends, Jacki and Kenzie, had recently gotten married and my last single friend, Cindy, seemed hell-bent on doing the same, the memories of my incredible wedding night had been popping into my head at the strangest moments—I couldn’t seem to outrun them.

Someone behind me stepped on my heel, scraping it raw. I winced, not sure how I was going to outrun this dogged bunch, either.

“They’re opening the doors,” Cindy announced excitedly.

A cheer rose from the crowd and everyone lurched forward collectively. The two security guards unlocking the doors looked as frightened as I felt. When the doors were flung open, self-preservation kicked in—I had to match the pace of the crowd or be trampled. I squeezed through the double doors and ran for the escalator, my heart pounding in my chest. The escalator was instantly jammed, and everyone still clambered upward, some screaming as if we were all vying for front row seats at a rock concert. At the top of the escalator, we spilled onto the second floor where several freestanding racks bulged with pouf dresses. I had no idea where Cindy was and I hesitated, not sure where to begin.

Women stampeded by me in a blur and began yanking dresses by the armfuls from the rack. It was a locust swarm. I realized I was going to miss out if I didn’t move quickly. Cindy’s order of “strapless or spaghetti straps” vanished in the wake of the disappearing gowns. I grabbed whatever I could get my hands on, draping the gowns over my shoulders until I could barely see or hear past the mounds of rustling fabric.

Within one minute, the racks had been picked clean. As if on cue, everyone began trying on dresses where they stood, stripping to their underwear and in some cases, even further, heedless of the male salesclerks and security guards milling about. Keeping an eye out for a neon pink headband, I sorted through my spoils like a lion protecting its kill.

I had managed to snare a white satin gown with cap sleeves, size fourteen; an off-white long-sleeved lacy number with a straight skirt, size twenty; a pinkish Gibson-girl design with bishop sleeves, size twelve; a dark beige high-neck gown with an embroidered bodice, size four; and a creamy halter-style gown with a pearl-studded skirt, size ten. My shoulders fell in disappointment—I had struck out for Cindy.

Although…the halter-style gown was actually quite nice. I peered at the designer label and my eyebrows shot up—really nice. Then I peered at the price tag and my eyebrows practically flew off my head—a $2000 gown reduced to $249? Cindy would be crazy not to buy this dress, even if it wasn’t exactly what she was looking for. While juggling the other gowns, I stepped into the halter dress and twisted to zip it up in the back, then smoothed a hand over the skirt, reveling in the nubby texture of the seed pearls. Longing welled in my heart, surprising me, because I was the most no-nonsense person I knew—a dress couldn’t possibly have any power over me.

“That’s perfect on you,” said a salesclerk next to me.

“Oh, I’m helping a friend of mine,” I replied quickly.

“Pity,” the woman said, nodding toward a mirrored column a few feet away.

I glanced around, looking for Cindy in the frenzied mob, then reasoned I might as well walk past the mirror on my way to find her. I moseyed over and stopped dead in my tracks.

Even over the leotard the dress was dazzling, and for a few seconds, I felt dazzling—my makeup-free face and dark blond, disheveled ponytail notwithstanding. For my quickie Vegas wedding, I’d worn a “What Happens Here, Stays Here” T-shirt, which in hindsight, had been a big red flag to my state of mind. I’d told myself a hundred times that it wouldn’t have mattered if Redford and I had been married in a lavish church ceremony with all the trimmings; but now, looking at myself in the mirror wearing this glorious gown, I had to admit that the right wardrobe would have lent a touch of sophistication to the surreal occasion.

If I ever married again, I would wear this dress…or something like it.

“Do you have any size sixteens?” a girl yelled in my face. “I need a size sixteen!”

I shook my head, then realized that all around me, women were bartering unwanted gowns, some hoisting signs heralding their size. I relinquished the size four to a peanut-sized woman, and during the hand-off, the rest of my bounty was ripped from my arms by circling gown-vultures. I was still reeling when Cindy skidded to a stop in front of me.

“There you are!” she shrieked over the melee. “I found my dress!”

Indeed, over her leotard she wore a sweet, strapless white satin gown with a princess waistline. Laughing like a child, she twirled, sending the full skirt billowing around her.

“It’s perfect,” I agreed. The dress was perfect for Cindy’s cherubic beauty, but I felt a pang of sadness as I glanced down at the halter dress I wore…it would have to be sacrificed to the vortex of bargain-hunting brides, which had, if anything, increased in intensity as latecomers descended on the leftovers and another round of frantic stealing and swapping ensued.

Cindy stopped twirling and stared at me. “Wow, that dress looks awesome on you.”

I flushed. “I was just trying it on…for you. It was the closest thing I could find.”

Cindy’s blue eyes bugged. “You should keep it, Denise. If Barry got a look at you in that dress, he’d fall on his knees and beg you to marry him.”

I laughed. “Right.” Barry had never been on his knees in my presence—to propose or do anything else—but I had to admit, I was tempted.

A flushed, middle-aged woman stopped and looked me up and down. “Are you going to keep that dress?” Without waiting for an answer, she proceeded to pick up the fabric of the skirt to scrutinize the pearls.

A proprietary feeling came over and I firmly removed her hand from my—er, the dress. “I haven’t decided.”

The woman glared at my bare left hand. “My daughter Sylvie already has a wedding date.”

I frowned. “So?”

“So,” the woman snapped, “what good will that dress do you hanging in your closet?”

She was testy, but she had a very good point, especially considering the fact that I’d been lamenting only yesterday how small my closet was. Still, what business was it of hers if the dress hung in my cramped closet until it dry-rotted? (A distinct possibility.)

Cindy stepped up and crossed her arms. “My friend is going to get married again someday.” Cindy still harbored lingering guilt over my impromptu marriage—she blamed herself for getting the flu and leaving me to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas by myself. Otherwise, I might not have fallen under Redford’s illicit spell.

“Again? Someday?” The lady snorted and her body language clearly said that women who didn’t get it right the first time around didn’t deserve a production the second time around. Another good point. I had blown it the first time I’d walked down the aisle—well, okay, to be morbidly honest I hadn’t “walked down the aisle.” I was married in a chapel drive-through, which, in my defense, had seemed the most economical route at the time.

My groom, who I barely knew, was a gorgeous officer on leave. And the spontaneous marriage had been prompted by intense physical chemistry (Redford was rather spectacularly endowed), and perhaps a bit of misplaced patriotism that I had mistaken for love. It was one of the oldest clichés in the book—an observation which, I realized ruefully, was also a cliché. The biggest mistake of my life was redundant. Ridiculously, tears pooled in my eyes.

Cindy gaped at me. I never cried…ever.

“There, there,” the older woman said, and actually patted my arm. “You’ll feel better once you take off that dress.”

Cindy drew herself up. “Keep moving, lady—the dress is ours.”