In Five Years

Chapter Thirty-One

“It’s really a question of eggshell or white,” the woman says.

I am standing in the middle of Mark Ingram, a bridal salon on the Upper East Side, an untouched flute of champagne on a glass coffee table, alone.

My mother was supposed to come in, but the University called a last-minute staff meeting to discuss a confidential matter, re: donations for next year, and she’s stuck in Philadelphia. I’m supposed to send her pictures.

It’s now mid-November and Bella hasn’t spoken to me in two weeks. She’s finishing her second round of chemo on Saturday, and David tells me not to bother her until it’s over. I’ve heeded his advice, impossibly. It’s excruciating, not being there. Not knowing.

The wedding invitations have gone out, we’re receiving RSVPs. The menu is set. The flowers are ordered. All that is left is getting a dress, so here I am, standing in it.

“Like I said, with this time frame it’s really off-the-rack, so it’s pretty much only the dresses hanging here.” The saleslady gestures to the three dresses to our right — one eggshell, two white. She crosses her arms, checks her watch. She seems to think I’m wasting her time. But doesn’t she know? This is a sure sale. I have to leave with a dress today.

“This one seems fine,” I say. It’s the first one I’ve tried on.

I was never one of those girls who dreamed about her wedding. That was always Bella. I remember her standing in front of my mirror with a pillowcase over her head, reciting vows to the glass. She knew exactly what the dress would look like— silk organza with spools of unfolding tulle. A long lace veil. She dreamed of the flowers: white calla lilies, puffy peonies, and tiny tea candles. There would be a harpist. Everyone would ooh and ahh when she stepped out of the shadows and into the aisle. They’d stand. She’d float down to the faceless, nameless man. The one who made her feel like the entire universe was conspiring for her love, and hers alone.

I knew I’d get married in the way you know you’ll get older, and that Saturday comes after Friday. I didn’t think that much about it. And then I met David and everything fit and I knew it was what I had been looking for, that we were meant to unfold these chapters together, side by side. But I never thought about the wedding. I never thought about the dress. I never pictured myself in this moment, standing here now. And if I had, I never would have seen this.

The dress I wear is silk and lace. It has a string of buttons down the back. The bodice fits poorly. I don’t fill it out properly. I shake my arms, and the saleswoman races into frame. She pinches the back of the dress with a giant clothespin.

“We can fix that,” she says. She looks at me in the mirror. Her face betrays sympathy. Who comes here alone and buys the first dress they try on? “We’ll have to rush it, but we can do that.”

“Thank you,” I say.

I feel like I might cry, and I do not want these tears being misinterpreted as nuptial joy. I do not want to hear her delighted squeals, or see her knowing glance: so in love. I turn swiftly to the side. “I’ll take it.”

Her face registers confusion, and then brightens. She’s just made a sale. Three thousand dollars in thirteen minutes. Must be some kind of record. Maybe I’m pregnant. She probably thinks I’m pregnant.

“Wonderful,” she says. “I love this neckline on you, it’s so flattering. Let’s just take some measurements.”

She pins me. The curve of my waist and the length of the hem. The lay of the shoulders.

When she leaves, I look at myself in the mirror. The neckline is high. She is wrong, of course. It does not flatter me at all. It does nothing to show off my collarbones, the slope of my neck. For a brief, wondrous moment I think about calling David. Telling him we need to postpone the wedding. We’ll get married next year, at The Plaza, or upstate at The Wheatleigh. I’ll get a ridiculous dress you have to custom order, the Oscar de la Renta one with the brocade flowers. We’ll have the top florist, the best band. We’ll dance to “The Way You Look Tonight” under the most delicate strands of white-and-gold twinkle lights. The entire ceiling will be made of roses. We’ll plan a honeymoon in Tahiti or Bora Bora. We’ll leave our cell phones in the bungalow and swim out to the edge of the earth. We’ll drink champagne under the stars, and I’ll wear white, only white, for ten days straight.

We’ll make all the right decisions.

But then I hear the clock on the wall. The tick tick ticking of the second hand, bringing us closer and closer to December 15.

I take the dress off. I pay for it.

On my walk home, Aaron calls me. “We got the test results back from the last round,” he says. “It’s not good.”

I should feel surprised, shouldn’t I? I should feel like I’m stopped dead in my tracks. The world now, in light of this news, should slow down, stop spinning. The taxis should sputter still, the music on the street should stretch until silent.

But I’m not. I’ve been waiting.

“Ask her if she wants me there,” I tell him.

He pauses. I hear a lapse in breathing, the white noise sounds of apartment motion, somewhere a few rooms over. I wait. After about two minutes — an eternity — he comes back to the phone.

“She says yes.”

I run.