Happy Endings

I usually run Monday nights, but this particular night, I parked in the parking lot of “Winco Foods” – an employee-owned company – and picked up my Bestie. I always wanted to be in a wedding, and the only time I was actually asked, I came down with the pox (chicken) on the day of the rehearsal. Now, I am in three weddings, upcoming. Bestie is one of the brides, and instead of behaving as normal people do and asking folks to select appropriate dresses from David’s Bridal, she opted to buy dresses from a private shop in a big metropolis city. If you know anything about my homestate and this particular big city, you’ll know that it is the type of town where white girls do not go. I went there with Bestie, who is Hispanic and does not speak a word of Spanish, so I was less of an oddity than was she. We talked on the trip, planned, and laughed, without any hurry.

 

When we got to the small shop, its proprietor and, I suspect, sole employee was watching us, politely. She had a $.49 college ruled notebook with a number of small pictures and scribbled notes, in Spanish, cursive. One of the notes said, “Jan” –(me?) she pointed to it. I nodded, and her expression did not change. She glanced at the photo I’d brought, from Google Images, of a Temple Dress, and blinked slowly, as though she was bored. “Ok,” she said.

“That’s all she needs: to just look at the picture?” I asked Bestie.
Bestie said the, I’ve Seen Her Work and the, I Know She’s Good: Why Do You Suppose She’s Charging Ninety Dollars? I thought there was some confusion, certainly: bridesmaid dresses are not supposed to be as inexpensive as ninety dollars, even in sweat shops; and for someone to design a dress from that scrap of a color photo seemed unrealistic.

“Ok,” I said.

The woman was done measuring me, then, and we went to Bestie’s family’s houses, scattered across the city. They spoke in English and didn’t seem to treat me as a friend or a stranger: I was just there, and we dialogued openly. Bestie did not introduce me. I ate something they called ice-cream cake, which was neither. I politely regarded a cat named Cardboard (?) and a dog that didn’t seem to have a name. Then I got a call from Katie, another of “my” brides, who was talking, through hysterical tears, about her rehearsal dinner. Katie, characteristically expressionless, has been transformed into a pool of emotions upon her engagement, and I patiently listened while Bestie went into a small Chinese restaurant to buy us food.

 

I looked up at the sign; it said, “HO-HO CHINA.” The window had a sign with a “B” rating. The car was dark, so I ate the food, half of it anyhow, and saved the rest for my mom, then drove home in the rain. We’ll see how the dress comes out. When my mother ate my leftovers, in the daylight, she found all sorts of odd pork skins, with the chicken; they were crackly and had little black dots, where the spiny hairs should have been. It was, most certainly, something other than the sign implied, that of Chinese with a happy ending.