Change of A Dress, Partially Completed

Gaillard Auditorium’s main exhibit hall was a bright riot of sound and fabric. I browsed the eclectic and “gently used” offerings of the Charleston Junior League’s annual Whale of a Sale and moved cautiously around stern-faced, sensibly dressed women who looked like they meant business. One picked up a blue and yellow bedspread, wrinkled her already-upturned nose in distaste, and sauntered on down the pile toward slipcovers and placemats.

Rounding a nearby pile of furniture and dishes, sharp edges akimbo, I was confronted with a sea of white and cream-colored satin with flounced skirts and sparkling appliqué: the wedding dress section. Smack dab in my ground zero of dread, I swallowed the waves of nausea slithering through my gut and bravely but coldly surveyed yards of duchesse silk and scalloped seed pearl beading. Maintaining my game face, I imagined the happily married and beaming wives who charitably decided to part with their treasured gowns for “just a touch more room” in their blissfully shared conjugal closets.

My own wedding dress hung limp and crumpled in a tiny, unshared closet, with my short, miserable marriage slumped on the floor beneath it. The ice-white swath of silk with elegantly ruched waist and delicate vine beading laced with silver crystals was stunning, and yet I couldn’t look at it without the desire to retch bubbling up in my throat. The nine months of my nuptials had been spectacular only in their unhappiness. The night of my reception, just before driving away, my new husband honking the car horn as if he couldn't wait to escape from my family, the flowers, the briefly golden glow of candlelight. The honeymoon, sunning on the deck of the cruise ship alone. The bedroom door, our bedroom door, locked hard against my grasp as I slumped against the frame, my breath knocked out.

Five months down, seven to go: I was now almost halfway through the required one year of separation preceding divorce. Barely midway through my jail term, the last thing in the universe I could stomach was another wedding dress. I squared my jaw and continued the march toward shoes and handbags. Shoes and handbags, after all, were safe, practical, size-constant, marriage neutral, and a real bargain at a buck a pop.

A flurry of movement caught my eye as I turned to leave the bridal section in my dust. A perky cashmere-clad Junior Leaguer was posting a sign like a white surrender flag atop the foremost rack. The big black letters screamed out: ALL GOWNS $10.00. I buckled under the blow and sucked in my breath, drawn back by the tractor beam of fabric before reason kicked in: how could I even possibly consider a second dress when I was barely out of the first?

It hung in front of me. DESCRIPTION OF DRESS TO BE ADDED

Suddenly, it was less about The Dress. It was more about me. Hope and resignation fighting on a scale. A flicker of defiance against the smothering ash of guilt. My choice stretched out like an elaborately stitched alabaster train: bitterness, anger, crushing depression? Or faith, forgiveness, and courage? This gown was not to sweep me away in waves of ivory-towered illusion, but to lift my warrior soul back into the turret, fierce and fearless. To show that such a thing was still possible.

The bubbly brunette with the rock on her left hand bagged the gown. I didn’t even try it on. I didn’t need to: so much of this second gown fit already.