The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

Author:Rona Jaffe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-02-13T13:48:04+00:00

Chapter 16

In the early spring of that year, 1953, when the first hardy horse-back riders appeared in Central Park and the first earnest, shivering, undershirted runners began trotting around the reservoir in the foggy mornings, Mary Agnes Russo began preparing for her wedding. Her conversation, which had formerly centered around office gossip, now centered on herself. If Caroline asked, “How are you today?” she would say, “I picked out the menu for my wedding dinner. We’re going to have fruit cup, soup, chicken, peas, potatoes lyonnaise, salad, little rolls, ice cream and wedding cake. And a bottle of liquor on each table.” Major items, like the fact that she had gone for a fitting on her wedding dress, needed no introduction. The only thing she kept a secret from the other girls in the office was her wedding invitations, because her friends were going to receive them, and Mary Agnes wanted them to be a surprise. Caroline couldn’t help wondering what could be so different about a printed wedding invitation, but knowing Mary Agnes she was prepared for anything.

“And she used to make fun of Brenda!” April said.

“At least she doesn’t bring her underwear to the office,” Caroline answered.

For an instant April’s smile disappeared, and then she looked amused again. “I suppose it seems funny to us because we’re not involved,” April said. “I’d probably be as much of a fool about my wedding plans.”

Saks Fifth Avenue had all their front windows full of mannequins in wedding gowns, and Caroline knew that April had gone there on her lunch hour every day that week, to try them on, gaze at herself, feel the material, and regretfully take them off. Dexter had never mentioned marriage again since that evening on the ride to the abortionist in New Jersey, and April, who always took silence for consent, at least had the presence of mind not to purchase a wedding dress, only try them on just in case. Caroline was sure that Dexter would never marry April and she could hardly trust herself to talk pleasantly to him on the few occasions they happened to meet, for fear she would lash out and tell him what she thought of him. She had never disliked anyone so much. His handsome face, which still had some of the aesthetic interest of a work of art for her, filled her with distaste because it reflected his expressions and mirrored his words. Caroline imagined she knew how April felt when she was trying on the wedding dresses; she herself had once done a silly thing like that when she was planning to marry Eddie Harris, but then she at least had a promise. The pleasure of trying on a dress you would wear on an unforgettable occasion for someone you adored was so entirely different than even buying your first formal gown for a dance that she could hardly describe it. The saleswomen looked beautiful, the dressing room was roseate, she herself had never looked better. Every

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