I think it’s a bit bland, Olivia.” My mother grimaced, her green eyes glazing over in a look that resembled sheer boredom.
“I happen to think that it’s lovely,” Amalia shot back at her. I pushed out a heavy breath. Leave it to Amalia to always speak her mind, no matter who was on the receiving end of it. I grinned widely and raised my eyes brows in triumph. Turning back to the mirror I stood up a little straighter, remembering Amalia’s words in the dressing room. This dress was the one, just like Alex was the one. It was settled. This was the gown I was getting.
“Alright, then,” I called over my shoulder to Jenna. “I’ll have this one”
A few moments later, three other sales associates came darting over with small bells and began ringing them. A few of the other patrons in the store began to clap and I couldn’t stop my face from turning at least three different shades of red. Amalia and I were instantly handed flutes of champagne, which we promptly clinked together. I took a small sip, careful not to spill any on the dress.
“To my friend, Olivia,” Amalia cheered loudly. I laughed nervously and she grabbed my hand and pulled it up as I received the applause. To be fair, the associates were probably happier that I was spending two thousand dollars in their store than the fact that I had found the dress of my dreams.
I looked over to my mother one last time. Her attention was currently being held by her cell phone. I felt a pang of sadness. Even with all of the support around me, not having my mother’s approval was painful. I shook my head and took another sip of my champagne, trying to ignore her callousness. She looked up at me one last time, a strange look in her eye.
For a moment there, it felt like pity.
Amalia turned to me and gave me a tight-lipped look that conveyed she had to leave.
“Go!” I laughed. “Have fun on your date with Michael and I’ll see you on Monday.”
Amalia rolled her eyes. “Right, for work-study with Dr. Pain In the Ass.” She scratched her head.
“We have summer in a week,” I offered. “It’s already the last week of May.”
“Don’t you know?” she scrunched her face. “I’m working for him all summer,” she grunted, while synchronously rolling her blue eyes. She always did have a flare for dramatics. “I don’t have much of a choice. I really need the money. Oh well.”
I offered her a small sympathetic smile and she made a beeline for the door. Even through the annoyance of having to work with Dr. Greenfield, her spirits were still high because of Michael. I wanted to be happy for her, but if it was up to me, I would have preferred her to continue seeing Hayden.
I turned and gave my dress a final once-over. It really was gorgeous, just like my fiancé. I couldn’t ask for more. Screw everyone else! I was marrying the love of my life. Now I just needed to set a date.
As I pulled my jacket tighter around my chest on this particularly chilly May evening, I had a thought. Dating in New York City is not like dating in the rest of America. Or at least, how I imagine it is from the movies and television shows I’ve watched. If you live in, say, Virginia, and you are going on a date with a guy, he will most likely drive to your house, ring your door bell, and then walk you to his car, where he will open the passenger door for you and tell you how pretty you look. You’ll smile as he closes the door, careful not to accidentally hit you with it, and you use the two seconds that it takes him to walk from one side of the car to the other to subtly run your fingers over your hair, because, man, that walk down the driveway really could have messed it up. Then the two of you will drive off to your destination, most likely The Cheesecake Factory, chatting the whole way there about what kind of music you like to listen to while you drive, and whether or not you still use your GPS to get to the mall.
When you live in Manhattan it’s a little different. For one, no one is picking you up. Unless you live right near each other, which almost never happens, in which case you’ll do one of the following together, you are responsible for your own transportation to and from the location that he most likely chose. So what are your choices? There are really only three options. Unless you have a lot of money to spend on a private car (such as an Uber cab), you are either walking, taking a cab, or taking the subway. All of these choices almost guarantee that you will look nothing like how you did when you left your apartment for this date. If you went down into the grody abyss that is the subway, your make-up has most likely melted off and been replaced with soot. There is no avoiding this. Even if you are only taking the train for one stop, you will be dirty when you exit the station. Another choice is walking. This can be nice if your date falls on one of the five days out of the whole year when the weather is bearable and you have on very comfortable shoes. But, you’re going on a date, so why would you be wearing comfortable shoes? So the safest choice is probably to take a cab. Just make sure to account for the copious amounts of traffic in the city. For me, my date was at seven o’clock. Coming from Murray Hill I decided to give myself forty-five minutes to get to the Upper East Side to meet Michael for our dinner at Café Grazie.
I sat in the cab for exactly thirty minutes and made it to my destination with fifteen to spare. Now here’s my trick. After being a gross cab for half an hour, I got on my phone and tried to find the closest Sephora to refresh myself before meeting with my date. You figure it’s been over an hour since I last so much as looked in a mirror, so I need to use these fifteen minutes wisely.
As I follow the map on my phone to the store, a text from Michael comes in. I feel a rush of excitement as I click on the message icon.
On my way ;-)
That was all he wrote, but it was enough for my heart to skip a beat. Olivia was right. This was a big deal. Anything Michael and I had ever done before was in secret. Now we were going out to dinner on a bona fide date. I felt a fresh batch of nerves hit me as I entered the store and caught sight of myself in a mirror.
Damn it, New York, why are you so dirty?
I spent exactly ten minutes in there, applying some vanilla-scented cream to my hands, which were dryer than a mouth of sand from ever-present New York wind. Sad to say it, but it still felt like winter to me in April. I then made my way over to the make-up section, where I unashamedly swept a generous amount of forty-dollar blush on my cheekbones. While utilizing the mirror, I ran my fingers through my curls, trying to get them to resemble something less Bride of Frankenstein and more Carrie Bradshaw. I scanned the store, deliberately avoiding eye contact with anyone who worked there, and found the perfume wall. Now for the final touch. I picked up a Marc Jacobs perfume that I had been mulling over buying for some time now, and spritzed a small amount on my wrists.
I breathed a sigh of relief and turned on my heel to leave the store. That’s when I saw her.
Cassandra.
The two of us hadn’t spoken since Olivia’s engagement party nearly six months ago. I watched as she gingerly made her way around the lip-gloss section, picking up two very similar shades of pink and studying them in the light. I wanted to go over to her and say something. I hated that we weren’t speaking. I wanted to tell her I was going on a date with Michael. That I was a mental case who ran away from Hayden. I wanted to tell her about what a bitch Olivia’s mom was being, and how overwhelmed I was with school. And I wanted to know all about what was going on with her too. Who was she dating? How was work going for her? Did she miss me?
I took a step forward and then I stopped myself. I had a tiny fantasy play out in my mind. One where I walk over to her, and she greets me with the same cold indifference she had for the better part of last year. I felt a pang of humiliation just thinking about it, and I had waited too long for a real shot with Michael to let anything put me in a sour mood tonight.
So I did what I had to do. I glided sideways out of the store and walked back the two blocks to the restaurant, where Michael was already waiting