Last Saturday night, with Jesse out of town, was girls’ night. I e-mailed the small group gals and begged for company, bribing them with promises of popcorn and girl talk and toe nail painting. First, though, I had a pair of new black heels (on sale!) I wanted to debut, so we met up at a tapas restaurant downtown, looking spiffy, if I do say so myself.
I had had a dress disaster, though, and didn’t look quite as spiffy as I’d planned. I had two dresses I was intending on choosing between, a breezy silky number with black and red flowers that look like Chinese watercolors, and a shorter black and gray dress with a rocking skinny patent leather belt that runs just beneath the bust line. Couldn’t go wrong with either, I figured, and they both looked good with my shoes.
First, I tried the silky one and discovered to my great dismay that it was too low-cut. Not just too low-cut for my comfort, but logistically too low-cut. I tried to remedy this with a safety pin but failed miserably and gave up, thinking black-and-gray it is. I pulled the dress over my head and mentally crossed my fingers that it would still fit. It did, ah ha! I tugged the zipper upward, congratulating myself on how great I was about to look, and then the zipper stopped. About four inches short of where it should. A seam in the dress was stopping it, and no matter how hard I pulled and how much I sucked in, nothing worked. I tore off the dress and zipped it up past the trouble spot, then weaseled my way back into the dress, nearly choking myself in the process. I flicked the zipper up all the way and celebrating my brilliance and how great I was sure I looked.
My hair, on the other hand, was a mess, so I went into the bathroom to try and address it. Glancing in the mirror, I gasped No! when I saw it: a gaping hole right under my arm, where the zipper had broken. Oh sure, the top of the zipper was all the way up. The teeth of the zipper had just decided not to go along with the whole thing.
I snarled and literally stomped my feet. Which made me feel better about the situation. Off went the dress and I stormed into my closet, pulling out just about every other dress I owned. Realized a lot of them were from the late-90s and looked it. Drat. Finally, I landed on a cute little red dress with a bit of white and black accents, one that flattered my figure but didn’t quite look right with the shoes.
Oh well. I wore them anyway. I was determined to wear my new shoes, come hell or high water. Or wardrobe dilemmas.
I fussed with my hair and made it as presentable as I could by the time Amie and Sharon showed up. The three of us jumped into my car and headed to the restaurant, where we met up with Julie and later Kara. We ordered tiny plates of prosciutto, duck pastrami, Thai beef skewers, boursin cheese, tuna tartare, and wild mushroom bruschetta. Dessert was an unusually large dish of crème brûlée and Grand Marnier crêpes. I began to see the benefit in my wearing the red dress, which was considerably stretchier than the gray and black.
Back at my place, we all changed into PJs and lounged around the living room, talking about careers, babies, men, college, ambition, marriage, and bikini waxing. You know, the important stuff. Sharon and I painted our nails. One by one, as it got later and later, they all left (some had to be at the 9:00 service the next morning). Kara stayed the night, and the two of us stayed up talking until 2:00 and then pretty much passed out.
We all agreed we’d definitely have to do this again. And Sharon, who is Wonder Woman, thinks she can fix my zipper situation, so next time I might even get to wear that gray and black dress…
