Getting married is complicated enough. She needs her wedding dress to be simple. So, Carlotta marched into the bridal boutique and quickly informed the saleslady of all of her semi-neurotic stylistic limitations. Nothing too sparkly, lacy, shiny or puffy. She was not a collegiate debutant, Greek opera singer, French can-can dancer, Medieval star-crossed lover or runaway nun. And she didn’t want a dress that looked like it.
>You’ve basically eliminated every gown ever sewn’, the saleslady mused, without cracking a smile. But I may have a bed-sheet downstairs that you can wear to the ceremony’.
Carlotta grinned and the two women apparently decided that they liked each other enough to pursue their relationship. One followed the other down a set of narrow stairs that led to a wide showroom of delicious-looking dresses.
>Choose what you like, but choose something’, the saleslady said. Then she waved in my direction, Have your sister help you’.
My cousin did not correct the wo- man’s mistake and led me to the racks of gowns that quickly confirmed my biggest fear: bust-less ballerina types are not meant to wed in this country. My cousin, however, has a generous Mediterranean figure, the kind women were supposed to have, before skeletons started wearing Versace on catwalks all over the world.
Though all the gowns we chose looked virtually perfect, I sat and collected the ruffled beauties the women tossed away, letting the cloud-like dresses fall rainless into my lap. The sigh of those silk gowns as they fell convinced me that they knew that they were being discarded. I patted each abandoned ruffle, for they all needed reassurance. And, frankly, so did I. It’s like my dad says, Put three healthy women together in a tiny stall with mirrors and what you get is a waiting room for Dr. Trouble’.
We were surrounded by enough billowy white for it to be heaven-but there was so much prodding and poking that it seemed closer to hell. The women’s voices ranged from scalding to freezing, and either way, their conversation left no breath in me. I sat in a velvet chair and stayed out of it. I have lived in Italy for 15 years and I remain an absolute novice when it comes to understanding female relationships here.
Flavia, the saleslady, helped Carlotta in, zipped her up and took a step back to consider each dress. One in particular sparked especially vehement protest: Oh, madre mia, you look like a frau! Take that off. It emphasizes all your critical points and see how this neckline draws attention to your big arms? You need a dress that guides the eye and fools the viewer, one where you can’t distinguish where your hips end and the dress begins’.
With a reaction like that, a blushing American bride-to-be would have stained the gown with tears full of mascara and run from the cubicle straight to the courthouse. The four meters of wedding veil streaming behind her would certainly serve as a more than adequate banner to mental cruelty. My cousin stayed where she was and held her own.
Carlotta was wearing low shoes so she’d be shorter than the groom and apparently all five centimeters of her heels had sunk into their spot.
She didn’t even blink. You’re right, but, Signora, remember, I don’t want to dress like a meringue. This isn’t carnevale’.
>Well, brat that you are, you need a dress with pizzazz’.
Brat? Pizzazz? What she needed was a dress with a punch in the nose sewn straight into the sleeve. She’d also need a bed-sheet to cover her aching pride. And I needed a double root-beer float, but there is no root-beer to be had in the entire country.
Is there anything beautiful in the utter meanness of immediate rivalry and the ruthless sting of undisguised honesty? Maybe not. Yet, although I hate to admit it, there was something very real in the frankness of their exchanges. They were so utterly devoid of the rootless complimentary gush you’d find in a similar scenario in the English-speaking world. So, I cannot help but share this story. Some articles demand to be written; they own your page before they’ve even finished telling you what they plan to say. Essentially, our boutique meeting has begged to be a fatto bello and I’m going to let it.
Besides, even on an ordinary day, Carlotta is an absolutely irresistible character. In a wedding dress, few writers would be able to keep her out of their column. And she really was bellissima. We have different parents, look nothing alike and were born on different continents. But we are sisters. And this fact, though absolutely unproven, is additional evidence that female relationships, here or in any other country, are pretty much inexplicable.
In the end, I am sure of one thing. That changing room scene with the bride and her salesgirl was nowhere near heaven, but their parting smiles were much more sincere than you’d ever see in the likes of hell. So, let’s call it purgatory and part of the test-of how well you can ride the waves before actually taking the plunge.
