My Life as a Doormat (in Three Acts) (3 page)

“So that low-plunging number won't do.” Elisabeth was being facetious. By low-plunging, she was referring to a scoop-neck dress I wore to one of her parties. For me, it was risky, because I didn't like my neck exposed.

She followed me into my bedroom where I opened my small closet. She let out a laugh. I did too. Again, a regrettable fly-swatting moment, and I could sense Jodie Bellarusa's disapproval.

“How do you get by?” Elisabeth lamented. “And why is everything black?”

“It's an artist thing.” It wasn't. It was actually an insecurity-about- color-and-the-attention-it-drew thing, but I kept mum.

“None of these will do,” she finally said after scooting every hanger contemptuously down the line. “We have to get you a new dress.”

“New? In case you haven't heard, playwriting isn't the lucrative business it used to be for me.”

“Come on. I know where to find all the bargains.”

How ridiculous. I didn't need a new dress. Any of these would suffice. “Okay.”

Glavier had a deceivingly fancy name. Inside it looked more like a warehouse that had potential for conversion but hadn't been converted. The dressing room, I noticed immediately, was a sheet strung from one empty clothes rack to another.

“Don't worry,” Elisabeth said. “I know it looks a little scary, but I'm telling you, one of these days you'll hear about Glavier in all the best fashion magazines. Kitty has a real vision for what's in style.”

“Kitty?”

“She owns the place.”

In place of a meow, the petite, middle-aged woman came around the corner and greeted us with an exquisite politeness. Elisabeth got busy explaining my desperate need for a new dress. But Kitty seemed more interested in me.

“Is this outdoor or indoor?”

“Outdoor,” I said.

“How nice. Evenings in the spring are usually very cool, but it's been unusually warm this year, and it's going to be warm tonight.” She took me by the hand and guided me toward a collection of dresses. I didn't see anything black. I was seeing a lot of pastels. She pulled me along, and with her free hand gathered four dresses and then took me to the suspended sheet.

She pulled it to one side and hung the dresses on what looked like a meat hook attached to the wall. “Here you are.”

“They, um, they have spaghetti straps.”

“Yes.”

“Unfortunately I'm on a low-carb diet.” Kitty didn't get my joke. She was staring at my waistline.

I looked at the dresses. Not one resembled anything I would ever dream of wearing. But as she pulled the sheet again in an attempt to create a place for some modesty, I realized that I was lying to myself. These
were
the kinds of dresses I'd dreamed of wearing. Many times. I fingered my way through each one, feeling the fabric, trying to imagine myself by Edward's side. Trying to imagine the looks on the other professors' faces.

I pushed the sheet aside and stepped out, only to be greeted by two eager faces.

“I'm sorry, these aren't going to work.”

“Leah, you didn't even try them on!” Elisabeth said.

“How do you know?”

“We can see through the sheet.”

I knew my instincts were right. It was time to leave. But each woman grabbed one of my arms and swung me back in front of the dressing sheet.

“Just try them on,” Kitty said. “There's no pressure. Just see how you feel about them.”

“I can already tell you how I feel about them. They're not really me.”

“How do you know,” asked Elisabeth, “without trying them on?”

“If you didn't notice, I don't have anything mint or pink in my closet.”

Both of their faces indicated they might die of sorrow if I didn't give this a shot, so with a sigh I went back in, yanked the translucent sheet behind me, and tried on mint #1.

“Kitty went to get you some shoes.”

“Oh. Good.” Mint #1 had some cleavage issues. Actually, I had some cleavage issues, but nevertheless, mint #1 went back on the hanger.

“I've been thinking about your plays,” Elisabeth said, filling the silence.

This was startling. It actually sent a chill down my spine. My friend who hadn't been to the theater before she met me had been pondering my plays. Not that I was desperate for approval and attention, even from nonpeers, but I was curious.

Oh, who are you kidding? You're desperate.

I believed Jodie had retreated, but since she hadn't, I forcibly tucked her away and, in the most casual voice I could manage, considering the topic and the current outfit, mint #2, asked, “What do you mean?”

“I haven't been sleeping well lately,” Elisabeth began, which should've prompted a
why not?
but artists can be gracious and loving people until there's an opportunity to talk about their work, and then they become the equivalent of a pushy first-time mother showing off a baby. That my baby, according to critics, happened to have acne and red splotches, was irrelevant. “And I was thinking of all of your three plays.”

The Twilight T-Zone,
my masterpiece that gave me the title “Most Promising Young Playwright” by Dora the Exploder herself, was about the cosmetics industry, and gave a nice message about our perception of beauty. It was an instant hit, and how I met Jillian Rose Thompson, otherwise known as J. R., the famed agent.

My next effort, a political satire called
Spint,
wasn't as well received. In fact, I believe it was called an “attempt.” I never thought “attempt” was very well defined. Attempt at satire? Attempt at plot? Attempt at character? Maybe they were being nice about it because they really meant all of the above.

Whatever the case, my third play put the satire to shame. It was called
A Day in the Lie,
and despite its corny title, I truly thought it would be a sensational drama. It was about the wife of a famous basketball player. Turned out nobody wanted to know what it's like to be married to a famous athlete. Who knew?

Elisabeth wasn't offering up further information, so I asked, “What about them?”

“Maybe it's a coincidence, I don't know, but it seems like something out of all three of your plays has come true.”

I pondered this while nearly throwing out my back trying to reach the zipper of mint #2.

“Like a prophet. Think about it. In
The Twilight T-
Zone,
you have a cosmetics company go bankrupt. Just last year Lyla went out of business. Then in
Spint
, doesn't the vice president have an affair with his secretary?”

Yes, and it was dogged for being too unrealistic. Everyone shut up after the Clinton scandal.

“Okay,” I said. I could see where she was going.

“The third one, two words: Kobe Bryant.”

I flung uncooperative mint #2 to the ground, then returned it to the hanger. Pink #1 was next, and I could already tell the Lycra was going to be a problem.

“See what I mean?” Elisabeth said. “It's like you're a prophet.”

Or a victim of pop culture, but she did have a point. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I had certainly never thought of myself as a prophet, though I was beginning to predict Edward with an accuracy that only a scientist could appreciate.

Elisabeth went on, presumably to distract me from the fact that this dress was fitting tighter than my skin.

“Doesn't it freak you out that everything you write comes true?”

“What's freaking me out is that I feel like I need to be in an aerobics class to wear all this Lycra.” And flab.

“You have one more, don't you?”

I pulled pink #2 on. It was just above knee length and, all straps considered, fairly modest. The neckline was square and high, and the back didn't even reveal a shoulder blade, to my surprising disappointment.

I stepped out. Elisabeth gasped. Kitty, a pair of heels in hand, smiled with pleasure. But so far I hadn't seen a mirror. Kitty rectified that situation by turning me to the right. I gasped too.

Elisabeth pulled my hair up and out of my face, and Kitty slipped me into a pair of strappy silver heels. I began to understand that Kitty was quite talented, because so far I hadn't revealed a single one of my sizes.

“Leah! You look amazing! I never knew you could wear pink.”

“Me either,” I said, looking myself up and down.

“It looks like it was made for you,” Kitty said.

The dress put a particular innocence on me and took about ten years off my age. I found myself grinning and spinning and imagining Edward gushing at the sight. It wasn't exactly pastel, but it stopped short of being hot pink.

After a few moments, Elisabeth asked, “How much is it?”

“Three hundred and forty dollars,” Kitty said.

“Whoa,” Elisabeth said. “Oh well. Listen, Leah, surely we can find something similar that will fit your budget. Kitty has a lot of different dresses and styles and—”

“I'll take it.”

“You will?” they both asked.

“And the shoes too.”

Elisabeth's mouth was hanging open.

I turned to Kitty. “I'm going to need a handbag.”

Chapter 3

[Walking beside her, he doesn't notice.]

E
ach of my hands cupped the opposite shoulder, my arms creating a large X across my body. I sat in the passenger's seat of Edward's Volvo station wagon, waiting for him to walk around the back end to get into the driver's side. He always went around the front. Today he went around the back.

I'd spent two hours getting ready. I actually curled my hair and wore it up. The last time I tried that was at prom. I carefully applied makeup and chose a dark pink lipstick that coordinated perfectly with the dress. I wore earrings that dangled past my jaw and a pink-jeweled bracelet I'd borrowed from Elisabeth.

The last fifteen minutes before Edward arrived I spent pacing my apartment, walking in front of mirrors and anything else that would supply a reflection. I turned on some music to see if there was a chance I could dance in heels.

Edward was right on time, and my body trembled when he knocked. I opened the door as wide as the grin on my face. I was prepared for the shocked look. I knew Edward would've been expecting my black blouse with the black and gray skirt. I'd worn it to several events, only changing the brooch. And Edward always wore the same suit, only changing the tie.

His steady smile, the one he could generate even during a gallstone, held its own against the display in front of him. I stood still, with my hands clasped at my lower back, and let him look. His smile couldn't hide the fear that flashed in his eyes, though. And soon enough that dependable smile faded.

“What's going on?” he asked.

I'd imagined,
Leah, you look amazing.
But then I realized that was asking too much of him, so then I'd imagined,
Leah, I've never seen you wear something like this before.
But I like it.
Again, that was probably giving him a lot of credit in the spontaneity category, so my mind had settled for
Leah, I'm . . . speechless.

But he wasn't speechless. And
What's going on?
hadn't crossed my mind as a possibility, so I didn't have a ready response.

“I did say this was the department party, didn't I?” He was staring at my shoes. And frowning.

“Yes.” I couldn't help but notice how my bright, flashy pink didn't go very well with the dull gray ensemble he called a suit. Even his tie was gray.

I felt the splotching begin. The dress had a fairly high neckline, but that would do no good once the splotches crawled up my neck. They always started at my chest and defied gravity in a most impressive way. Soon enough my ears would be matching my dress.

“It said semiformal.” I did my best to gather my composure as I waited for him to get into the Volvo. This
was
a semiformal dress. This was perfectly acceptable. It wasn't like I was wearing a snowsuit.

Edward opened the driver's side door and got in. He didn't look at me. He just started the car, looked in his rearview mirror before pulling out, and off we went.

Five minutes of complete silence were interrupted by Edward's asking, “Did you print out those directions?”

I pulled the paper out of my new silver clutch, which matched my shoes perfectly, but who was going to notice?

He tried to drive and read at the same time. Then he said, “Why didn't you use MapPoint?”

“I like MapQuest.”

“I told you Microsoft MapPoint is better.” He studied the map at a stoplight. “Why is it taking us through all the construction? MapPoint is more accurate.”

“The construction went up this week, Edward.”

Edward's eyes cut to me, then to my dress, then back to the paper. He slowed down as a construction worker pointed in the direction of a detour. Edward's sigh could've defogged a window.

“What's the hurry? It's a party. It's not like you're late for a lecture.”

His eyebrows popped up. Edward was surprised. A minor miracle.

“You know I always use MapPoint.”

“Why not change things up a bit every now and then?”

Edward looked at me, then looked back at the road, swerving in order not to hit the curb. I grabbed the door handle, but that's not why my heart was beating fast. Edward and I were having an argument. A real, live argument. It was our first. In our two and a half years of dating, it was our first.

“That's sort of the theme of the night, isn't it?” he asked,
his attention back on my dress. “What kind of statement are
you trying to make with that dress?”

“I'm not wearing it to make a statement. I'm wearing it
for you.”

“Me?” He laughed. “That's funny.”

“I thought you'd like it.”

“Why would you think that?”