Buying The Dress

This week my niece came from Washington for one night to visit my sister and me. We were so happy to see her! My late brother’s oldest daughter is professionally known as A. B. Stoddard. She is a political columnist for the top political website and newspaper called The Hill. She is seen often on television talk shows; Alexandra is smart, politically astute and very pretty.

She arrived from La Guardia in a small, bright blue, rented car, grinning and waving madly out of the window as she made the turn into Southport Woods and spotted me.

Plans for the afternoon were two fold: one, we would tour the area, stopping to look at every house her family: grandparents and great grandparents and great aunts and uncles, lived in in this small town. All Alexandra’s paternal roots are here. Her mother was born here as well.

Then we would go to Westport to shop. I needed a dress—something I rarely wear. “Terrific,” Alexandra says. So, after drifting down memory lane for a while, we headed for Talbots in Westport.

Looking at dresses makes my mind go numb. They are too short, or the neck is too low or they are too young, or too splashy for me to feel comfortable. Alexandra chooses a few things for herself and then captures me in a dress I am about to discard due to all of the above-named defects and she declares, “That’s it!  But you definitely need a size two.”

“I don’t wear a two!”

“At Talbots, you wear a two.” This is not up for discussion as she hands me the dress in a two and I put it on.  It fits—well mostly. I kind of feel like I can’t move and certainly I cannot sit down.

It’s perfect,” Alexandra says. “It’s fresh, great looking, really fits you and a little sweater or a scarf . . . you are set.” She proceeds to dazzle me with a vision of myself that she projects toward me with her earnest and natural intensity.

The next thing I know I am catching the vision, laughing and buying the dress.

The short, dark haired, sixty something woman wearing pink framed glasses who is taking my credit card, looks at Alexandra and asks, “are you A.B. Stoddard?” Alexandra smiles, blushes slightly and acknowledges that she is.

“I love listening to you on TV,” the woman says. “You are always so well informed and polite, not pushy like so many of them.” The woman catches my eye and gives me a nod. Alexandra thanks her.

We turn to leave.

“Great!” Alexandra says. “Now all you need is a pair of Spanx”

“What are Spanx?” My sister and I ask, practically simultaneously.

“Remember girdles?”

Anne and I laugh. Who could forget? We were so tightly bound by panty girdles during our late adolescence that we could never take a deep breath. The creation of panty hose we regarded as a benign act of God.

“You don’t know about Spanx?” Everyone wears Spanx,” Alexandra tells us. “In fact, the woman who created Spanx is the first woman billionaire in America. Very comfortable, tightens you up and smoothes you right out.”

I mutter something about being beyond smoothing, but Alexandra will have none of it. Besides, Anne and I are curious, so off we go in search of Spanx.

Later that evening as Alexandra and I are chatting before bed, I say, a bit wistfully, “I’ve never bought a dress in which I was not completely comfortable.”

Alexandra laughs and says, “You will look fabulous. I declare it illegal for you to return that dress. Don’t you dare!”

I nod my head and hug her.

And so, on the evening when I attend this function, wearing that bright, flower-printed cotton dress, however I feel, however I look won’t really matter. As Alexandra’s vision of me, I will walk into the room and, like a kite tossed into the sky, we’ll just see how it flies!

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 My thanks to those of you who read my blog this week in: Bangladesh, United Kingdom, India, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Ireland and, of course, the USA. I am so very grateful for your interest.

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