the hips where the material is gathered in ruffled layers. It is sleeveless and has one halter type strap to hold it up. The color is a safe shade of beige and the flare of the skirt camouflages my thighs and hips—the same hips that David once told me were “obviously made for childbearing,” a comment that led to a weeklong case of no-nookie disease.
The dress looks fabulous on the hanger and I am excited as I carry it into the dressing room and slip it on. A quick glance in the mirror doesn’t make me gag, so I step out, my expression hopeful. I do a twirl as Olga casts her critical gaze upon me. Two seconds later she gives me a thumbs-down.
“What?” I whine. “What’s wrong with it?
“Fine, wear it if you want,” Olga says, her German accent turning every
I take off the beige dress and try on two pink ones, a hideous salmon-colored thing, and a teal-colored sheath that makes my skin itch. I’m getting cranky when Olga tosses yet another specimen over the dressing room door, this one in a shade of pale, silvery blue. I hold it up to my face and see that the color is very striking against my skin and hair, magnifying the blue of my eyes. I start to pull the dress on over my head when I notice the back of it.
“Olga, have you lost your mind?” I yell over the dressing room door.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like the dress?”
“It has a bow on the ass, Olga. A really big bow. I’m not wearing any dress that has a bow on the ass.”
“Come out here and let me see,” Olga says.
I pull the dress on, my jaw set in determination as I take a quick glance in the mirror at my profile. The bow makes my butt look bigger than Minnesota and it’s a shame because, from the front the dress looks great—shapely, but not snug. The style is a good one that hides most of my natural flaws. Disappointed, I step out of the dressing room and stand sideways in front of Olga with a What’d-I-tell-ya? look on my face.
Olga turns me around, fiddles with my butt for a second, and says, “You are right. No butt bow.”
I sigh and glance at my watch. I’ve already used up nearly two hours of my time and I’m about to ask Olga what else she has when she snaps her fingers. “Gone, like that,” she says. “I take the bow off.”
“I’m pretty pushed for time, Olga. This thing starts at six.”
“Give me five minutes. I just need to open the seam, take the bow off, and close it back up. You can’t spare five minutes?”
I glance at my watch again, and then take another look in the mirror. Other than the bow, the dress is perfect. I glance at the price tag. High, but within range. “Okay,” I say. “But hurry.”
“You know, I have a nice shawl that would go great with that dress,” Olga says. “Do you have a wrap of any sort?”
I don’t and ten minutes later Olga has a big smile on her face, I am $278 poorer, and there are only forty minutes left before I am supposed to meet Izzy. When I realize I don’t have any shoes to wear with the dress, Olga takes pity on me and loans me a pair of hers, which are half a size too small but look great. I hurry home, dress, and do a quick fix to my hair, all of it under the watchful eyes of Rubbish, who circles in and out between my feet, nuzzling my legs and mewing.
Izzy, who hates being late, shows up as I’m starting my makeup. “You about ready?” he asks.
“Not quite. I need a couple more minutes.”
He sighs and stands in the bathroom doorway watching me, trying to be patient, but tapping his foot and glancing at his watch every few seconds. Rubbish, who is sitting at my feet, suddenly gets up and opens the bathroom cabinet with one paw. He climbs inside, letting the door shut behind him. At the sound of the
“Mastered what?” Izzy asks.
“I was talking to the cat. He likes to play in this cabinet. See?” I reach down, swing open the door, and apparently scare the hell out of Rubbish, who runs out of the cabinet and leaps for my arms. Unfortunately, he doesn’t make it past my knees, where he sinks his claws in and starts to climb. By the time I pry him loose I have two flaming red scratches and several trickles of blood on my leg, as well as a pair of panty hose that resemble a railroad switching yard.
“Well, that’s just great,” Izzy says. “Hurry up and change, please.”
I reach up under my dress and yank the panty hose down to my knees. “I don’t have any other hose here, Izzy. We’ll have to stop somewhere.” I kick off my shoes and peel the hose the rest of the way off. Then I toss them to Rubbish, who immediately attacks and kills them.
“Can’t you just go barelegged?” Izzy whines. “We’re already ten minutes late. And none of the clothing stores are going to be open at this hour.”
“I can’t go to this thing barelegged. It’s October. Not only would I freeze to death, it’s an absolute fashion faux pas.” The freezing part is a minor exaggeration. While it is true that my legs might feel a little cold, panty hose aren’t likely to make a big difference. Besides, my tolerance for cold has always been pretty high. Having a layer of blubber does provide for a few advantages.
“A fashion faux pas?” Izzy echoes, his tone reeking with irony as he steers me out the door and to his car. “My, my. Aren’t you a regular Martha Stewart.”
“As if Martha Stewart knows anything about fashion,” I sneer. “She has an entire closet filled with denim shirts.”
“You’re just jealous. I think she’s an amazing woman,” Izzy taunts.
“She’s not a woman. She’s an alien life form.”
“Hey, just because you’re not woman enough.”
“Oh, puh-lease,” I shoot back. “Just because I don’t spend all day spray-painting pine cones or making hors d’oeuvres out of phyllo dough and cocktail weenies doesn’t mean I’m not a woman. Hell, even Martha doesn’t do that stuff. She has an entire corporation of employees who do it for her. I’m telling you, the woman’s a total fraud. I’d suggest she hang herself, but I don’t think I have the patience to wait for her to grow some hemp so she can make her own rope.”
I realize we are already halfway to the hospital. “Hey, pull in to the Quik-E-Mart up here, would you?” I say. “I saw a rack of panty hose when I was in there the other day.”
Izzy hits the brakes so hard that the vehicle behind us, a gray-and-burgundy van, has to swerve onto the shoulder to keep from rear-ending us.
All the Quik-E-Mart has for panty hose is a generic brand with the world’s biggest lie stamped on the front of the package: ONE SIZE FITS ALL. I pay for them and dash back out to the car.
Izzy peels out as I kick off my shoes and go through an array of gymnastic contortions trying to get the panty hose on. By the time I’m done, I have an indentation in the middle of my forehead from the button on the glove box, a cramp in my thigh that makes me want to cut my leg off, and a panty hose waistband that is currently riding somewhere in the region of my pubic bone. I give Izzy a dirty look as he tries, unsuccessfully, to suppress his laughter.
“You’re a misogynistic creep,” I tell him.
“Au contraire,” he protests. “I adore women. They are the most entertaining creatures I’ve ever encountered. Just because I don’t want to sleep with them doesn’t mean I don’t like them.”
When we arrive at the hospital, I manage to squeeze myself out of the car and do a quick tug-pull-wiggle maneuver to get my hose in the best possible position. I stretch the material as far as it will go but as we walk toward the entrance, I can feel them slipping downward as the material contracts back to its normal size. I try minimizing my leg movement as I walk, hoping that might slow their descent.
Inside the hospital auditorium, a crowd of a hundred or more has already gathered. I hang my shawl on a nearby coat rack and then scan the room, marking my potential targets for the evening.
Sidney Carrigan and Arthur Henley—the other general surgeons in Sorenson besides David—are huddled in a corner with Joe Weegan, an internist. Cary Snyder, a plastics man who has sucked the thighs and bellies of at least half the women in the snooty neighborhood along Lakeside Drive, is chatting by the punch bowl with Mick Dunn, whose specialty is orthopedics. David is here, too, apparently none the worse from his overnight stay in a jail cell. He looks frighteningly handsome in his dark suit as he laughs at something he’s just heard from Garrett Solange, a neurosurgeon and one of David’s closest friends.
I recognize other faces, too, doctors whose specialties only occasionally involve surgery, like the OB/GYN and pediatric docs—a couple of whom are women—and the urology guys. I mentally add them to my list of targets, but
