Jane Austen in Boca (17 page)

“I think the idea of matching bridesmaid’s dresses at our age is obscene,” said Flo. She had hardly recovered from the shock of Lila’s idea; now here she was helping to implement it.

That they were doing so at Loehmann’s was hardly surprising. There is a great deal of shopping in Boca Raton—a plethora of department stores and boutiques, outdoor and indoor malls, and flea markets and bazaars specializing in all manner of clothing and accessories. Yet despite the array of shopping opportunity, it is Loehmann’s where women invariably find themselves when they want to buy something “for an occasion” or, for that matter, for everyday. Here are racks and racks of remaindered Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren jackets, of Sonia Rykiel dresses and Oleg Cassini tops. Zones of the store are designated for handbags, shoes, jewelry, belts, and scarves, and in the Back Room, a cordoned area of spacious proportions, are the more exotic designer pieces. Everything is drastically reduced.

Loehmann’s draws the cream of West Boca. Jags and Mercedes line up for weekly, often daily, pilgrimages, their owners running in for a quick survey of the merchandise in the hard-to-fill time
before doctors’ appointments (the “truck,” the cognoscenti know, arrives daily with new stock). Indeed, a visit to Loehmann’s is said to lower blood pressure and boost performance on a stress test (this owing perhaps to the vigorous arm exercise necessary to move garments speedily across the rack in advance of the woman behind you).

Loehmann’s merchandise runs the gamut. It can supply a drop-dead outfit for a swanky affair just as it can provide the proper selection of stretch pants and chic embroidered T-shirts for the daily trek from pool to clubhouse to Early Bird Special to movies. Although the store is aggressively wholesale, no one in Boca sees herself as above Loehmann’s. It is an enduring landmark, a city shrine, known and frequented by all. A nice piece at Loehmann’s is, after all, as nice as you could get elsewhere, so why go elsewhere? Common poolside banter is the proclamation “See this? Twenty dollars at Loehmann’s.” When an outfit is complimented, even at the most elegant affair, the owner will think nothing of responding with pride, “A hundred and twenty reduced from four-fifty at Loehmann’s.”

Once a Loehmann’s shopper has amassed a suitably unwieldy pile of promising merchandise, she will recess to the dressing room, a large communal changing area, lined with mirrors, located at the back of the store. Individual changing rooms were installed in Loehmann’s years ago in a concession to the possible modesty of customers, but no one uses them. Part of the Loehmann’s mystique lies in the brazen openness of the changing area. It seems to insist that its customers bare their bodies in order to earn the right to purchase at such a discount.

There is something of the group therapy session about the Loehmann’s communal changing room—with women in nothing but bras and panties loudly bemoaning to other women, perfect strangers, their problems with saddlebag thighs. The atmosphere can also be compared to the creative writing workshop favored in small liberal arts colleges, in which a participant’s
poem or story is passed around and critiqued by selected members of a peer group. At Loehmann’s, the work in progress is the draped body, and the peer group a collection of like-minded shoppers. Thus, it is not uncommon for a number of women to engage in a close reading of the fit of a skirt on a less-than-svelte line from waist to hip.

“I think you can get away with it,” one ample matron observes.

“It’s cute, but I wouldn’t risk it,” another volunteers, her opinion no doubt informed by her own skeletal slimness.

“I disagree,” the ample one proposes more vehemently, sensing a personal affront in the other woman’s critique and directing her response to her. “She likes it,
kayn-aynhoreh
, She should wear it. Who is she, Cindy Crawford?”

“I’m only saying she might feel self-conscious with the bulges showing,” the anorexic replies testily.

Meanwhile, the object of scrutiny will be turning this way and that and, depending upon which of her advisers she feels the more kinship with, will buy the skirt or leave it on the center rack—though if she leaves it, a thinner or more confident woman across the room, who has been watching like a hawk for this to happen, is sure to dart over to grab it.

There is always a certain bravado that reigns in the Loehmann’s dressing room. No garment is too outlandish, too tight, or too short, at least to try on. Everywhere, half-naked women stand appraising themselves in the harsh fluorescent light, a piece of cut-rate designer apparel stretched across hips or bosom. Flo liked to say that the varicose veins and cellulite on display in the Loehmann’s dressing room could keep an army of cosmetic surgeons busy for a decade. Of course, in Boca, many Loehmann’s shoppers have already visited those surgeons, some more than once, a fact that can be gleaned by the shiny, overstretched look of the septuagenarians wearing G-strings. The fluorescent lights spare no one. Indeed, it is another rule of thumb: Nothing ever
looks good under the lights of the Loehmann’s changing room. One has to read the label and the price and take it on faith that the thing will look much better at home.

Lila had hyped the dresses as lovely and capable of being worn again.

“Wear this again?” said Flo, looking at herself with amazed repugnance. “When, to my bat mitzvah?”

“They’ll look good in the ceremony,” said May. “Lila is wearing the same color.”

“What are we, fairy godmothers in a Disney movie?”

“Flo, they’re not so bad,” said May “They’re … festive.”

“At our age, festive is the last thing a wedding should be. It should be discreet, if done at all. All participants should wear gray and look morose, like the rehearsal dinner for a funeral.”

“Lila is happy.”

“How could she be happy with that nincompoop?”

“Perhaps it’s a matter of what she’s had to compare him with. He’s not a bad man. She needs the security.”

“But I can’t comprehend how a woman could turn herself over to a—a moron.”

“I think,” said May, losing her temper, “that it’s time that you stopped the name-calling.” The words and the commanding tone as they issued from her mouth surprised even May herself. She could not remember speaking with such authority since her Alan was a little boy. “It’s her choice,” she added more tentatively. “She’s not asking you to marry him.”

“May, I’ve never seen you so … forceful.”

“Well …” May stammered. “I’m only asking you to be nice.” She couldn’t believe that she had had the courage to criticize Flo Kliman. But Flo was not offended.

“Of course you’re right,” Flo responded in a softer tone. “I’ll try to restrain myself. But you must let me ventilate once in a while. Unless I get the bad vapors out, I might poison myself. You’re lucky that I can’t say a bad word about Norman. He has
the good fortune of a sense of humor—he even laughs at himself sometimes. I can’t laugh at someone who laughs at himself I’m deprived of the advantage of getting there first.”

“Flo, you’re terrible!”

“You always say I’m terrible, but you don’t really think it. You know that I have a heart of gold.” Flo smirked at this idea of herself. “Okay—let’s say I’m not as bad as I seem. Men, of course, don’t realize this. They take me literally and leave it at that. My husband used to say that if he weren’t married to me, he would probably loathe me. I sometimes thought he was trying to tell me something. But then, I told him frankly that I loathed him sixty percent of the time.”

“I’m sorry,” said May

“Don’t be. Forty percent nonloathing is an excellent percentage for me. When I realized that the odds of breaking forty percent with any man were slim at best, I decided to marry him. It was not a bad marriage, all things considered.”

“I think I would say the same about mine,” May mused.

“Perhaps next time we’ll break forty percent,” said Flo, and began tugging at the zipper of her dress. “I hate to say this, but I think I need a girdle with this thing. If I have to wear a girdle, Lila Katz is going to owe me big-time.”

May laughed. “We should buy them.”

“You think we have to?”

“Yes,” said May.

“Okay,” said Flo, “and we’ll pick up the wands and tinsel on the way home.”

“I
UNPLUGGED THE PHONE AND SLEPT LIKE A LOG FOR FIFTEEN
hours,” explained Mel when he saw Flo at the clubhouse two days after the dance. “It was short and rough, which is more or less the way I like to take being sick, though not, I should add, other things in life.”

“I’m glad you’re recovered,” said Flo. “You missed a true Boca extravaganza.”

“I’m sure I did. And I’m even more sorry I had to leave you at the mercy of Stan Jacobs. Forgive me. That must have been an ordeal.”

“It was,” admitted Flo, “but also interesting, in its way.”

Mel raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Then, taking a jocular tone: “Well, I was thinking that maybe tonight we could do something quiet. I wouldn’t want to court a relapse. I say we rent a movie and hunker down, if you’re agreeable. I know you’re a movie buff like me.”

“An old movie buff, I am—and I’m referring to the age of the movies and not my age, though obviously they go together. My tolerance decreases, I’m afraid, as we pass 1960. I favor black and white.”

“My feelings entirely. The world was better in black and white.”

“It’s a going topic around here that the old black-and-white films get no respect. The grandchildren won’t watch them. As soon as they see the credits in black and white, they start to bawl.”

“It’s the decline of Western civilization,” agreed Mel.

“But there’s hope. My great-niece, who’s studying film at NYU, says there’s a whole new breed that want to work in it. They watch the old movies in their film appreciation courses and think: ‘That’s pretty good, I’ll try that.’ “

“It’s the contrary nature of youth. They’ll go against the grain, if they can. Make color the norm, they rediscover black and white.”

“My hope is that by watching the oldies, something will rub off about how to write good characters and good dialogue. Black and white just happened to be the form available; it’s hardly the point.”

“You put your finger on it. It’s form over content that they’re after nowadays.”

“I’m not sure if that’s it,” mused Flo. “I tend to think that every era keeps to the same basic proportion of form and content. It just depends on getting the balance right at a given moment. But maybe I’m clinging to the illusion that there’s still hope for getting it right.”

“I like your optimism,” said Mel appreciatively. “It’s attractive. So—you’re on for a film classic? I’ll pick something up from the video store and throw in a pizza while I’m at it.”

Flo considered. “I rented
Shadow of a Doubt
yesterday and was planning on watching it tonight: Hitchcock, 1943, black and white—you can’t do better. Joseph Cotten as Uncle Charlie to Teresa Wright’s young Charlie. She adores him, but discovers that he’s really a serial killer who preys on rich widows. Come to think of it, I’m surprised they haven’t massacred that one in a remake. Or maybe they have, and I thankfully missed it.”

“I wouldn’t know, but I’ve seen the original a million times,” said Mel dismissively “What we need is a light romantic comedy. Let me do the choosing; something with Kate Hepburn—who, by the way, looks a little like you.”

“I’m flattered,” said Flo. “The other day, it was Rosalind
Russell; today, Katharine Hepburn. At this rate, I’ll be able to populate an entire senior residence for the stars. Too bad the resemblances weren’t so marked fifty years ago.”

“I suspect you were a real man-killer in your day.” Mel gave her another admiring look. “And after all, you certainly landed a big one.”

“A big one?”

“Your husband. So I’ll pick up the pizza and the movie and be over around six?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to get two pizzas. I’ve promised Lila and May a movie tonight, and I’m too old to ditch my girlfriends for a man.”

“I understand entirely,” said Mel, his voice losing some of its cheerfulness. “I won’t say I’m not disappointed, but I admire your loyalty. It’s a rare attribute nowadays. But do you think your friends will mind me butting in on the girls’ pajama party?”

“No,” said Flo, considering, “they like you.”

“And I like them. But I like you best. I was hoping for some private time with you. Maybe a repeat of the casbah—or better. Maybe later in the week?”

“I’d say that’s a definite possibility. So long as I don’t have to cook.”

“Never. A woman like you doesn’t need to cook.”

“Elucidate, please.”

“Let’s say your attractions lie elsewhere.”

“N
ICE PIZZA PARTY.
” M
EL APPEARED IN THE LOUNGE THE NEXT
morning, earlier than usual. He generally came by at noon to join them for lunch, but it was now only ten-thirty. Flo had been reading the paper and sipping a cup of coffee. The four of them had been up late. Mel had brought
The Philadelphia Story
(Lila and May agreed gamely that Flo bore a definite resemblance to Katharine Hepburn), as well as two pizzas and two bottles of red wine. They’d eaten the pizza and drunk one bottle of wine, and when the movie was over, Mel was still hungry, so May whipped up an omelet, which, though no one else really had an appetite, they ate anyway and drank the second bottle of wine. There was a good deal of laughter, and Mel, Flo admitted to herself, was marvelous company. He made them all feel beautiful and interesting, and Lila said that she hadn’t had so much fun since her junior prom.

And now here he was again, obviously looking for her, perhaps intending to plan that private evening together that he had mentioned the other day. It had become increasingly clear that he was serious, and Flo, though not sure how serious she was, knew at least that she was flattered by the attention.

He had deposited himself on the sofa beside her, putting the large book he was holding under his arm on the coffee table in front of them. “Finding you here at this hour is more than I hoped,” he said, taking her hand. “I decided to come by early to wait, in the manner of the chivalric knight of old.” He bent forward and lightly kissed her hand. Then he laughed and
stretched back on the sofa with obvious satisfaction, gesturing to the book on the table in front of him as he continued, “I’m looking forward to doing some serious reading once I settle down. It’s hard when your life is up in the air. I’ve been carrying around this doorstop by Tom Wolfe,
A Man in Full,
hoping to get to it, especially since the last time I saw Tom, I promised him I’d read it.”