Casey was mum because she was trying to figure out how to dispose of Joan, who clapped at Ella as if she were a poodle doing tricks. There was nothing wrong with the dress per se; Ella merely looked as though she were wearing someone else’s clothing. The style of it aged her, stripping the bloom from her face. The dress was generic and traditionally elegant—a pricey costume for a girl with Grace Kelly dreams. Ah, Casey thought, the dress would have suited an older blonde better. She tilted her head. She’d never thought about it much before, but a woman should be hopeful and soaked with good wishes on her wedding day. And the bride should embody a purity—if not sexually （Ted made audible sex noises from Ella’s bedroom on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays）， then at least romantically. Ella had a face like a white rose. She deserved to be distinct from every other woman that day and yet the same as every bride on her wedding: The bride should be the ideal for her intended, and the dress played a part in that ritual. Wasn’t that right? Casey said none of this, however. She closed her eyes and waited for a picture to pop up in her mind of Ella’s dress; sometimes this worked with her customers at Sabine’s. One came very quickly, but it looked nothing like the one Ella was wearing.
Ella waited for Casey’s verdict.
Casey shook her head no.
Ella turned to Joan. “Is it too late?”
The sales associate nodded. She pulled back her shoulders, smiled stiffly. “It’s too late to cancel the order.” Joan refused to look at Casey.
Joan had made a mistake. Casey noted this. Among the cardinal rules of retail marketing was never to disregard the opinions and feelings of spouses and friends who were there to advise the customer of her purchases. Joan was being arrogant to think that the deal was closed.
“It was ordered a month ago.” Joan smiled with an implacable authority.
Ella was defenseless against her.
Casey almost admired Joan’s dominant style. It looked so effective. Casey sighed then, amused and pleased by it all. She loved a good fight. She pronounced tartly: “But it won’t do. It doesn’t suit her.”
“Ella looks stunning in it,” Joan replied, taken aback by Casey’s unflappable tone. “That’s quite obvious.” Her own tone of voice was far nastier than she’d intended, and she quickly regretted it. But the truth was that there was no way in hell this bride could return the order without Joan having to call in every favor in the book, and she saw no need in this case to piss off the manufacturer for a bride’s friend’s whim—no doubt motivated by jealousy.
“Ella would look stunning in any of these dresses.” Casey waved her hand across the parade of mannequins in silk taffeta, shantung, and brocade. She kept smiling. So, you want to play tough, little girl, Casey thought. Her eyes never strayed from Joan’s eyes.
Joan adjusted her pearls. The rhinestone ball clasp had shifted toward her collarbone.
“Joan.” Casey extended the vowels, relishing the sound of her name in two syllables.
The sales associate rolled her eyes, then remembered herself. She wasn’t used to having her opinions confronted in this way by someone like this. Perhaps it had been a mistake to sell Ella the most expensive dress she’d tried on. But the bride’s buyer’s remorse didn’t seem to stem from the price.
“It’s not her dress,” Casey said.
“What do you mean?” Joan snapped.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Casey said, her tone of voice growing more syrupy as Joan’s grew more sour. “Look at how unhappy she looks in it.”
The bride slumped in the armchair next to the dressing room, feeling certain that both women were angry with her stupidity. It was all her fault. Then, right away, as if Ella could cover her shame with her posture, she sat up and folded her hands in her tidy way. She wished she were sitting in her office at St. Christopher’s.
Joan recognized that there was no winning this argument. She shut up and smiled, her lips covering her even white teeth. She studied Casey, giving her the once-over. The bride’s friend wore the upcoming season’s pieces from three. That gray skirt alone, by the Dutch designer whose name escaped her, must have been seven hundred dollars. Sometimes Joan hated rich people. They got everything and never stopped complaining. Joan believed in hell. As a hardworking middle-class person, she found the idea of justice comforted her.
That morning, Casey had dressed anticipating this appraisal. The image of this conflict had surfaced as soon as Ella had asked Casey to come look at the dress. Retail salespeople on the whole were the greatest snobs in the world. Virginia used to tease her about how much Casey fussed about her clothes. But after a while Casey retorted, hand cocked on her hip: “Well, gee, honey, but you never get confused for a Japanese tourist, nanny, mail-order bride, or nail salon girl when you walk into a store, do you? What the hell do you know about it?” Virginia, with her biracial looks that gave her the appearance of a beautiful dark Swede, never raised the issue again.