shopping

“What do you two do for a living?” the young woman asks us.

“As little as possible,” my friend says.

She and I laugh too long and too loudly. The young woman who posed the question watches on as we misbehave.

My inner teenager resists maintaining manners when I’m in a stuffy situation, especially when I’m with a friend. I become all whispers and giggles. I want to believe it’s not true – that I can keep my composure. But at 43 years old this terribly childish tendency still cannot be overcome.

The young woman manages to not roll her eyes while we share our dumb joke. She could be my daughter and it would not have been a teenage pregnancy. I feel bad, but I also imagine that in the scope of brides and friends of brides and mothers of brides, we are tame. We’d obeyed when we were scolded for browsing the dresses. They were not to be touched by our greasy fingers.

When I got married I went wedding dress shopping alone. Is that weird? It was just what I wanted to do. Shopping alone in general is my preference. It’s efficient. There’s no guilt if I spend ages in one store, and I don’t ever have to leave the change room. I tried on bridal dresses at two boutique and every white dress I saw at others. I ended up with a $50 lace dress cut above the knee that I bought at The Bay. My friend Brie totally rebuilt it after a fitting in Toronto so it’s not fair to simply say that it was a $50 dress… as though I’m above wanting beautiful things. Brie is a stitcher and cutter who’s built gowns, sewn for Cirque de Soleil, and taught costume design at Concordia University. She has skills. The resulting dress was perfect. It was cute and chill. I wore my mother-in-law’s coyote fur coat over it for the extra glamour when we entered our hunting cabin/banquet hall.

And now here I am drinking a mimosa with Dawn, while Sara is zipped and clamped into a parade of white, bone, ivory and cream.

“This one is from our exclusive collection. You can’t get it anywhere else. It’s called Evelyn.”

“It has a name?”