6 PROXY
ELLA HEADED TOWARD THE BANK OF ELEVATORS at Bayard’s, bypassing the glass cases of exquisite jewelry as well as the premier fragrance counters of New York. She was oblivious to the sparkle and scent of the shop, still thinking about the funny face David Greene had made when she’d explained that she had to leave the annual fund meeting fifteen minutes early because of the dress. He rarely looked displeased with her. Yet whenever her wedding was brought up, David tended to change the topic or remember that he had to finish up something. His navy blue eyes, so full of mirth and curiosity, would darken soberly when she’d talk about Ted.
Naturally, Ted teased her about him, saying that her dorky white boss had a fetish for Asian girls. But David wasn’t like that, she’d argued as best she could. He respected everyone, wouldn’t reduce a person to a stereotype. Yet the more she’d defend David, the worse Ted got. So she certainly didn’t tell her fiancé that each morning she walked to work eagerly, looking forward to listening to David’s thoughts about the alumni or the parent body, the progress of the class fund. On Fridays, they ate sandwiches together in the park if it was mild outside or in the office if the weather wasn’t agreeable. He’d tell her stories about the inmates from the men’s prison where he taught writing on the weekends as a volunteer. Sometimes he’d bring along his students’ misspelled rap lyrics and read them aloud to her with as much gravity and delight as if he were reading from his favorite poet, Philip Larkin. Two weeks ago, with shyness and pride, he’d shown her two poems he’d had published in The Kenyon Review. One was about a boy who sits patiently in his father’s waiting room, and for days after, she couldn’t stop thinking about his description of the heavy stack of National Geographics the boy in the poem ends up reading as his father sees one client after another—the curling yellow page corners, photographs of sharp-nosed ladies wearing orange scarves on their heads, the white-capped mountain of Japan.
Casey was there, waiting for her as promised—by the four elevators located in the back of the store. Once inside the car, Casey pushed six for bridal. There was no one else besides them.
“So, tell me. What does the dress look like again?”
Ella couldn’t answer the question. She frowned.
“Ella?” Casey said firmly. “The dress?”
“It’s long.” With her hands, Ella made an awkward sweeping gesture from her shoulders to her hips. “Off white?” She could hardly distinguish all the whites she’d seen that day. “You know, a regular wedding dress, like, what you’d expect. You know.”
“Is that how they teach you to talk at Wellesley? ‘Like’ and ‘you know’？” Casey feigned a look of disapproval.
Her teasing pleased Ella. At home, especially when Ted came around, Casey increasingly made herself disappear behind a kind of decorum, her formal manners creating an inviolable barrier. But at Bayard’s, she seemed to revert to the plucky girl Ella had known at church—intimate and amused by whatever she saw or heard. Even the way she strolled with a kind of flair and bounce had come back.
Casey now raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer, a little peeved with Ella for the absence of details. She wanted to know what Ella wanted. It was her wedding dress, after all.
The problem was that Ella could barely remember her choice. There had been so many: lace, ornaments, sleeves, straps, belts, flowers—with or without. It had been her father’s office manager, Sharlene, who’d made the appointment for her and her father at Bayard’s. But when Ella went to her father’s office to pick him up, it turned out that one of his postoperative patients had gotten a viral infection and Dr. Shim had to return to the hospital. He’d left a scribbled note for her on the pink telephone message pad: “Go for broke.” Sharlene, who felt sorry for the girl, had added, “Your dad really did say that you can get whatever you want.” Ella had smiled bravely at the kind lady who’d told her only what Ella already knew, so she’d trudged off to face the snowy blur of dresses by herself. It was after purchasing the costliest dress there that she’d come down the escalator to spot Casey standing before a pile of clothes she’d intended to put on hold.
The elevator stopped at three. A pair of attractive women stepped in, chatting glumly about the troubles their husbands were having at work.
Casey ignored them and, staring intently at Ella, asked about the sleeves. Ella used hand gestures again to illustrate the style.