I stop trying to patch up my eyeliner and turn to the mountain of ‘options’.
‘There’s dozens.’
‘Well let’s narrow it down. What colour?’
‘Black.’
‘Revolutionary.’
‘Well, I don’t exactly want to look like a complete stranger, this is already more effort than I normally put in.’
‘Praise the lord.’ She holds her hands together and gestures to the heavens. ‘Now come over here and try this on.’ She holds up a long black silk gown that I fear has an actual train.
‘Anything but that.’
‘Oh, live a little.’
‘What about this?’ I hold up a simple black dress with a collar that hadn’t made it out of the wardrobe.
‘I wore that to Jack’s funeral.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Oh no you don’t. What about this?’ She thrusts a mini dress in my direction.
‘Why do you even have this?’
‘It was on sale, you never know when it might have come in handy.’
‘No chance.’
‘Well, there’s always…’ Her voice trails off. ‘Grab the box from under my bed won’t you.’ She gestures to the king-sized bed and its ornate linen headboard.
I do as she says and my hands fix on a white cardboard box tied in a dusky pink ribbon with the words ‘Dior’ printed along its length in cursive lettering.
‘Shut up.’ My mouth falls open. I may not know much about fashion, or go to the same lengths that she does to present myself to the world, but I know this: I know that in this box there is the promise of something more beautiful than I had ever dreamed of wearing.
‘I bought it on my honeymoon.’ She smiles as I open the lid and stroke away the crepe paper, thankfully revealing black fabric. I pause, look at her, fearful that she is just being nice, looking to see whether she actually wants to let me and my uneducated, unfashionable self touch it, but she just smiles warmly.
‘Well, go on, the taxi’s here in twenty minutes.’
I unfold the fabric, heavy and expensive, and hold it out at arm’s length, taking in the simplicity, how utterly breath-taking it is and similarly so unlike anything The American has ever worn in my presence.
‘It’s got sleeves, three-quarter lengths, square neck, all very sensible.’ She lists off its features.
‘Are you sure…’
‘Just try it on.’ I do as she says and slip off my jeans and shirt and then stand into the dress, pulling it up over my body. I try to manipulate my hands into the arms and then when I shimmy it over my shoulders, I reach for the zip but find only buttons.
‘Here.’ She moves to my back, and I feel her trembling hands slowly but surely fix the dress to me, button by button. I expect us to get to a point where it struggles to do up, where my unimpressive chest might still pucker its fabric, it is entirely nonsensical to me that something like this could fit me, but The American pats my shoulder and smooths out the fabric so that it sits flush over my shoulders.
‘There, perfect fit, let me take a look.’ I step back to allow her to take me in. ‘You look beautiful.’ I wonder if it’s a trick of the light but there are tears in her eyes. ‘Here, go take a look.’ She gestures to the full-length mirror and when I do, I almost can’t believe what I’m seeing. The woman looking back at me is a stranger – refined, elegant, a grown up – and she does look beautiful.
‘I have never worn anything so lovely in my entire life.’
‘Not even on your wedding day?’ she asks, her eyebrows drawn up into a look of concern. I smirk, think of the dress I had bought the night before in Mango, cream because my mum had threatened to disown me if I didn’t. She was already put out by the fact that it was going to be a registry affair and that our reception consisted of a meal at Antonio’s down the road with twenty friends in attendance. She had asked me no less than six times if I was pregnant that weekend.
‘Not exactly, I wore…’
