Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

12

Strapless in Sin City

“Oh my favorite Cinderella slippers,” Temple’s aunt Kit Carlson Fontana said over the phone when she heard Temple’s shocking proposal. “We need to go to a very cool cocktail lounge, my dear. My nerves are not what they were.”

“I would think that being married to Aldo Fontana would do a lot for your nerves, Auntie,” Temple said.

“Him I can handle. Your impetuous lives and times I cannot.”

Smoke and mirrors. Las Vegas was the home of the absurdly glittering cocktail lounge and Temple loved every overblown one of them, although none was a smoke-free zone. For the short time she visited, she chose to think of the airborne eddies as produced by dry ice from a misty horror movie.

In the reflections all around them, providing film-splice glimpses of their images, Temple saw she and her aunt could be taken for mother and daughter, perhaps more than her own mother. Kit was a sophisticate who’d lived most of her life single in Manhattan. Her sister Karen had reared four strapping sons and one petite girl in suburban Minneapolis.

Once each had been served with the elaborate cocktail of her choice in a stemmed glass, Kit lifted her glass for a toast. “I congratulate you on not waiting as long as I did to tie the knot. A bride at sixty-something.” Kit rolled her eyes. Her hair was a softer, faded peachy red than Temple’s vivid red-gold, but they were both five-foot-zero.

“You were a gorgeous bride,” Temple assured Kit. “And irresistible. Think about it. Aldo stayed single for almost fifty years.”

“Well, I assume we can count from when he attained the age of majority at twenty-one, so he only had to deny himself matrimony for twenty-five years. Your mother in Minnesota would strangle me if she knew I was the first to hear details of your wedding.”

Temple lifted and sipped in time with her aunt. “That’s just it,” she said after savoring. “Everything must be hush-hush. Just between us. I need the preliminaries in place.”

“When is the big date?”

“Ah, not sure yet.”

“So, niece. I am to stage-manage a formal wedding with out-of-town guests in four-four time. Sometime. Soon?”

“Not alone. Danny Dove will help.”

Kit fanned her face with the table’s specialty cocktails menu. “Oh, my further shattering nerves. I am to assist the foremost and fussiest producer-director in Las Vegas.”

“Quite the contrary. He has promised to assist you,” Temple said. Then she frowned. “Although the Ladies Altar and Flower Society at Our Lady of Guadalupe might be a challenge. I gather they’re rather proprietary.”

“You’re not planning on a Crystal Phoenix wedding, like Aldo and I had? The Phoenix would roll out the red carpet for you. You’re living in ‘Vegas, Baby’ and getting married in a parish church?”

“Las Vegas has long been noted for its variety and abundances of churches, Aunt,” Temple said demurely. Cocktails tended to make her demure, which was why she didn’t drink too many of them.

“Las Vegas is also noted for its variety and abundance of amazing, fantastic, sumptuous, luxurious wedding chapels too,” Kit said. “Not to mention your landlady’s uniquely charming Lover’s Knot chapel where Matt’s mother remarried for a first shot at real happiness.”

“Oh, I know there are so many people who’d like a say in the ceremony, so many people to please.”

Kit’s warm hand clenched Temple’s cold one. “When it involves your wedding, the only person to please is the bride. Truly. Otherwise you’ll be honeymooning in a nuthouse.”

“Thank you, Kit. That’s the kind of advice I asked you here to provide.”

“I’ll do anything I can, whenever it happens, but why so vague?”

“Matt’s agent’s negotiations with the network producers on that talk show job are ongoing. We don’t want to tip anything off. You know media people, Kit. You were an actress and then a novelist in New York City. These negotiations are delicate.”

And, Temple didn’t add, although she was dying to tell Kit all the fabulous news from Tony, we can’t marry until Max and I find the hidden IRA hoard of money and guns, and I find out what Matt’s secretly involved in with Molina, who, if she’s nice to me, can sing at my Our Lady of Guadalupe wedding with her daughter. If she is messing with Matt’s head, she won’t be allowed to sweep out the confessionals.

“I do understand media nosiness,” Kit said. “My lips are sealed with long-lasting ‘Scarlet O’Hara Woman’ ravishing red gloss. What do you need from me now?”

“Say yes to the dress.”

“Shopping? For your bridal gown? First, curtains are out, despite my lip color. Oh, what fun!! You’re so young. You can do anything. Princess Diana with clouds of skirts and shoulder ruffles. Not Kate Middleton, that was lovely, but a bit too demure, Kim Kardashian…”

“Nothing Kim Kardashian. I only require a train exactly my height, but I do require a train. One of La Kardashian’s gowns had a train long enough to wrap the groom several times around, like a mummy.”

“I’m sure her husbands felt like flies in a spider’s cocoon. She seems to regard weddings as investment growth operations.”

Temple was thinking. “I’ve wanted to wear a dress with a train since I realized I was never going to grow any taller than I was in junior high.”

“Poor traumatized child.” Kit patted her hand. “You do realize that sad lack of stature automatically enrolls us in the EHHCC.

“EHHCC?”

“The Endless High Heel Collection Club.”

“And that’s another thing. The front hem must be high enough to show the Midnight Louie shoes.”

“This is beginning to sound like a custom tailoring job.”

“No time for that. Off the rack is fine with me. Oh, and nothing strapless.”

“Oh, my Great Granny’s Garters! Not strapless. That makes it an impossible quest. Every bride today goes for a strapless wedding dress.”

“You and Matt’s mother didn’t.”

“We were mature brides,” Kit said with pursed lips.

“I think following the crowd is immature.” Temple finished her cocktail. “Come on, take up your tote bag and walk to the parking garage and my car. I’ve found a bridal shop on Rainbow Boulevard that sounds promising.”

“Probably why it’s located there. Good marketing.”

“Since marketing’s my game, I figure they might have good taste too.”

And tons and tons of lace, satin, and beaded chiffon white strapless wedding gowns.

“Oh,” Temple said when she and Kit walked in the door and then stopped.

Two towering mannequins wearing strapless gowns greeted them, along with a bridesmaid and flower girl. And so did a tall brunette Temple’s age who might bring to mind Lieutenant C.R. Molina if she’d ever wear leggings and kitten heels and a smart cold-shoulder top. Dream on.

Temple’s heart sank. She and Kit suddenly seemed like Munchkins overwhelmed by a wedding party of six-foot-tall mannequins.

“Mother and daughter?” their greeter chirped, the chickadee voice odd coming from such a rangy woman.

They nodded mutely. It was better than explaining their relationship at length, which was the one thing they could both do, explain at length. Best not to start.

“Please sit.” The woman gestured to a pair of expensive tufted leather boudoir chairs. “I’m Courtney.”

“Temple Barr.”

“I’m Kit. Kit Carlson Fontana.”

A ghost of recognition materialized between Courtney’s beautifully plucked eyebrows and floated away. Kit Carson had been an Old West pony express rider and Fontana was an old but ambiguously law-abiding Vegas name. Or maybe long, tall Courtney had dated one of the boys.

The clients’ difference in surnames wasn’t an issue. So many women kept maiden names or remarried like a Kardashian these days, all to the good of bridal shops’ bottom line,

Behind the wedding consultant stretched rows and rows of bridal gowns shrouded in plastic like captive clouds. Or ghosts, all about seven feet tall. Temple glanced at Kit, intimidated for the first time in a long while.

Courtney’s eye glanced, and then stayed glued on Temple’s ruby-and-diamond vintage engagement ring from Matt…and The Bellagio Hotel’s fabulous vintage jeweler shop, Fred Leighton, which accessorized Red Carpet women. It was not only gorgeous and Temple knew she’d faint if she knew what it cost, but she could endlessly daydream about the tragic life of some nineteen-thirties woman forced to give up the ring decades ago because of the Depression and her husband had jumped off a building. Or perhaps it had been a heroic gesture during the second World War to help family members escape Hitler…

Reality intruded.

“Something from Vera would suit a petite bride well,” Courtney suggested, upping her estimation of Temple’s means.

Something from the phenomenal designer suited Temple very well when it was Simply Vera from Kohl’s department store. In the bridal department, they were talking thousands of dollars. Of course, there was that TV ad work for Louie and her coming up. Nothing signed yet, alas. She was sure Louie would kick in his advance share for a wonderful wedding dress, especially if he could have the wedding veil afterward as a very large tulle toy.

Courtney took a new tack. “Why don’t we see what we can rule out.”

She turned and led them between the intimidating rows. Given the voluminous skirts and trailing trains, the hangers hung on a six-foot-high rod. No wonder it took a giraffe like Courtney to sweep these heavy protective bags out of the row so she and Kit could stare through the plastic at a dazzling blizzard of billowing satin and lace and tulle Temple would look like a pygmy wearing. Besides, Temple was sure she’d soon go snow-blind.

“Is that a mermaid skirt” she asked about one candidate.

“Don’t you like mermaid skirts?”

“I adore mermaid skirts, but wearing a tight sheath to mid-thigh and then having a ballerina tutu billowing out to the floor is death to a short woman. Not to mention impossible to sit in.”

“The bride doesn’t sit much at a wedding reception,” Courtney pointed out.

“No, I don’t suppose so.” Temple hadn’t thought beyond the church ceremony. “Anyway, strong horizontals must be avoided or I’ll look like an albino mushroom.”

“Don’t tell me that rules out a strapless gown?” Courtney looked ready to burst into sobs.

“Well, yeah.”

“Everyone wants a strapless gown, except—” Courtney caught herself before she said something uncomplimentary.

Temple had even seen a Catholic bride in a strapless gown illustrating the Pre-Cana website Matt had directed her to view after she decided on Our Lady of Guadalupe for the wedding site. Temple found she had some differences with dogma, but if the Catholics—stern advocates of the two-inch-wide “spaghetti” strap, according to hearsay—were finally okay with strapless, why wasn’t she?

She told Courtney, never having deceived herself about her literal shortcomings.

“Flat-chested women. Short women. We need a strong central vertical, not to be chopped up with horizontal lines at the bust and thighs.”

“We have some gowns with sleeves, but sleeves are so…”

“Matronly,” Kit said brightly, with a brittle smile that no one in her right mind would challenge.

Courtney had a comeback. “Many brides do work out for several months before the wedding to correct that universal flabby little upper arm problem we women have…”

“That’s like cutting the corpse to fit the coffin,” Temple objected.

There was a pause.

“Off the shoulder,” Courtney suggested. “Very sexy. You have good shoulders and no upper arm issue.”

“Are you kidding?” Temple was indignant. “Another strong horizontal, right above where I am not so sufficient and do not want to try to hold up a strapless gown.”

“A boat neckline.”

“Ditto. And that’s matronly.”

“Vee.”

“Better with cleavage, as are all those ill-fitting strapless gowns I see in the newspaper announcements. With so many of these horizontal slashes in the wedding gown styles, I might as well use a serial killer as a seamstress.”

“I assure you, Miss Barr. Temple.” Courtney was pleading. “We can find a gown to enhance all your lacks and conceal your awkwardness. We simply have to try some on.”

She eyed Temple’s footwear, a sprightly multi-color Ferragamo seventies sandal.

“What pretty feet and shoes. I see you’re wearing only three-inch heels. We’ll need to find some four-and-a-half-heel-inch sample shoes near your size. That will assist the verticality problem.”

She gazed horrified at Temple’s size five sandal in her hand. “We only carry that size shoe for flower girls.”

During this dialogue and the shoe-doffing incident, Kit had vanished, Temple realized.

“But,” said the adaptable and oh-so-amenable Courtney, who was likely four or five years younger than Temple’s thirty-one and who sported a wedding-engagement ring combo on her left hand, “buying a wedding gown is not an off-the-rack proposition.”

In the most understanding, gracious way, Temple was instructed that bridal gowns were special-ordered and could take weeks at the least and maybe months to arrive and then had to be fitted.

Or, if the bride needed to marry in haste, they could be rented at the (sniff) wedding chapels.

Temple shook her head, avoiding that unfortunate literary human movement known as “bridling”.

“I’m afraid I need something sooner. A returned gown, perhaps, that could be refitted.”

Temple had by now realized that Matt’s mother and Kit had been married in off-the-rack dresses that didn’t require fitting. She envisioned herself in an off-the-shoulder gown with a sash across the waist and another above the mermaid skirt, which was bordered with a wide satin hem. She would look like Queen Victoria or Mary Todd Lincoln at their most mushroomy.

Kit appeared from nowhere.

“Courtney, my dear,” she said. “I just visited the fitting room.”

“Ah, you’re not supposed to go there. All those gowns are sold.”

“Courtney, my dear.” Kit took her arm even though it looked like a child reaching up to a mother. “I noticed a gown on a dressmaker’s dummy that looks rather interesting.”

Temple opened her mouth. A dressmaker’s dummy could be wearing a suitable candidate for her wedding dress, which she was now thinking of looking for online under “white nightgowns”?

“I found the neckline rather intriguing.” Kit raised her eyebrows.

No one could resist her Aunt Kit’s raised eyebrows, especially Aldo Fontana, the second of his ten brothers, except for the youngest and most impressionable, to leave the bachelor life to marry.

“Well, if you saw something that might prove to be an inspiration.” Courtney followed along after Kit like a stage hypnotist’s victim plucked from the audience.

Temple did likewise.

She came face-to-face with a headless dressmaker’s dummy, a black jersey-clad torso on a wheeled base wearing a white gown.

Temple moved around it, her eyes on the same level as the missing head. She circled left, then right in a silent flamenco dance.

“About the right length, I think,” Kit said, definitely not “thinking” at all, but selling.

“And the neckline is…unique,” Kit added.

“Genius,” Temple agreed. “The only thing long about me is my neck.”

“A swan’s neck,” Courtney added.

“And the bodice is bare in one way, yet not. I love it,” Temple said.

“With opera-length gloves,” Courtney suggested meekly, hopefully.

“Yes.” Temple nodded. “So very My Fair Lady.”

“Ah—” Courtney wisely remained silent after that.

“Hair half up,” Kit said, “Princess Di’s knock-off lover’s knot coronet…”

“Electra will recognize that design and love it!” Temple said.

“…fingertip veil and lace-edged overskirt train, five feet long but flowing out.”

Temple nodded.

Kit turned to Courtney, all business, all icy command. “Whose is this and how can we get it?” She could have been a mobster ordering a hit.

“It’s…abandoned.” Courtney again appeared on the verge of tears. “It’s rather legendary. It was ordered by a magician’s assistant on the Strip, several years ago. We use it as an example for flower girls, very feminine but…petite.”

“A magician’s assistant?” Temple asked.

Courtney was on firm ground here. She turned to Temple and looked down on her without appearing to tower. “Magician’s assistants must often be tiny and agile. You know, to be credibly sawn into two pieces in a box. I’m told this one said she was leaving the business to marry. And as for the magicians, they come and go in Vegas, even the iconic institution of Siegfried and Roy, tragically not performing anymore. I believe this magician had retired, and his assistant therefore also. We tried our best, having such a petite woman as a client and designed this especially for her. But. It’s Vegas. She disappeared.”

“So we can buy it?” Kit asked.

Courtney laid a large hand on the dummy’s small shoulder. “Can you buy a mystery? It’s strange. I’m a veteran employee, but I never thought of this gown for you, Miss Barr. It’s been a fixture. The staff had really liked the client, and then it was like someone in the family vanished. Not stood up at the altar, but never came in for the final fittings. We do weddings. This is a happy business, despite occasional silly spats over the details. I’ll talk to the owner, but if someone loves our Lost Lady’s gown, I’m sure she’ll be happy to give it a new home.”

“May I try it on?” Temple suggested, already realizing the very front of the hem would be ankle-length on her, when wearing the Midnight Louie Austrian-crystal pavé Stuart Weitzman pumps.

“Certainly. You and your mother can have a seat in our dressing room while I unpin it from the model.”

Then they were alone, seated on slipper chairs in front of a narrow platform with three steps up, three steps down and a nine-foot train-flaunting “aisle” between them.

Kit took Temple’s hand, leaned across the space between their chairs, and whispered, “Karen would have a fit if she knew I was playing Mama for a Day. I’m loving it. I’m way past my own children, and you’re my favorite niece.”

“I’m your only niece.”

Kit shrugged. Her hand tightened on Temple’s. “One thing. You don’t think the vanished magician’s assistant was from Max’s act when he folded up his show in Vegas and hared off? That might be a little too weird in the ‘something old’ department.”

Temple laughed “Kit. Max worked alone. He was the whole show. I might have fantasized being one briefly, but he never had a female assistant, except for a flock of doves, fifty percent of whom might be female.”

“Max worked alone.” Kit shook her head at herself. “I should have known.”

“I’m really excited,” Temple said. “That neckline is so different. The gathers and lines are graceful and there’s the train, a slim yet sweeping train. Not a nuisance, not a pregnant peacock’s tail with a bow on the butt.”

Courtney knocked, swept in when invited, a long limpid column of white silk lifted high and trailing fabric. Now Temple understood that Courtney’s height was a job requirement.

She dangled the confection from another hang-’em-high hook. Temple thought of Western movies.

“You’ll need the correct undergarment, of course. But for now, I think au natural will work.”

Temple turned her back to the mirrors, unhooked her 32-A bra and let it drop to the floor as Courtney wafted the gown over her bare shoulders.

Courtney plucked and twisted and hooked. Apparently these things must be done, as according to the Wicked Witch of the West, del-i-cate-ly. Temple looked over her bared shoulders at Kit.

Courtney turned to her too. “Mrs. Barr, I think you’ve called the size to an A-plus.” She turned Temple to face her.

It was so strange to Temple, the tug of all that fabric on her twisting torso. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.

“Voila.” Courtney stepped back. “Wedding portrait pose already.”

Kit had her smart phone stretched out and clicking away.

“The fabric is so light and airy,” Temple said, taking a tentative step toward the runway.

Courtney and Kit were conferring on the slipper chairs in quick, low tones about “drape, accessories, head piece and veil”.

The gown followed Temple as naturally as a breath. She finally peeked at herself in the huge three-way mirror. Definitely not your Photoshopped bridal site sight. She put a tentative high heel on a step. A bridal shoe bearing the black Austrian-crystal image of Midnight Louie should not be tentative.

She marched to the middle, turned around and swept offstage to face herself flushed and happy again in the intimidating three-way mirror. She knew she could never step wrong with Midnight Louie by her side and on her feet.