Desperate, with mere days left to my second wedding, I persuade my chic younger sister to help me find something discrete and sleek, not frothy and fluffy. Mimi lined-up Beverly Hills and Newport Beach shops, then kissed her finger-tips like a 5-Star Chef, "You'll have the perfect confection tomorrow."
The next day, filled with relief, and outfitted in pristine white pique and Chanel sunglasses I pick-up Mimi up in a shiny white convertible ready to zip this task off my to-do list.
"Slight detour," Mimi hops in wearing a pink shift, with her long blond hair in a ponytail. "The dog died and we have to pick it up at the vet's and bury it in Nana's backyard." Her charm bracelet tinkles as she slams the car door. "It shouldn't take too long." Mimi pushes in a Beach Boys CD and fast-forwards to, California Girls. I turn-on the ignition and look at her dumbfounded.
"What?" She shrugs. "He was a incontinent rescue dog who enjoyed a long, spoiled life." She surfs her hand out. "Go."
At the whitewashed cinderblock building, a teenager with an iPod and greasy hair pushes an aluminum cart to the car. Buddy the dog is on the cart wrapped in visquine and stiff as a silver drinks tray. His tail points out like the directional signal.
The fellow whistles to Jimmie Hendrix and angles the dog onto the small back seat, then gives the car two loud pats and us a half-salute.
We arrive at our grandmother's house and walk-in with the shrink-wrapped dog. "Don't you girls look lovely," Nana says, eyeing our package.
"We're off to Beverly Hills to find Suzanne a wedding dress. And, Buddy died." Mimi flips the stereo to Aunt Simmie's favorite Frank Sinatra record. "Since I don't have a yard, thought I'd bury him in that dirt patch by the alley," she nods out the picture window.
"Don't you dare!" Aunt Simmie rockets-up from the sofa and waves her just lit Menthol Cool. "Animals will dig it up!" she screeches.
"Simmie." I shake my head softly and use the half-pleading, reasonable coo reserved for crazy people and men. "We can't drive around with a dead dog in this heat."
"Oh, let them, Sim," Nana's tone underscored it's such a trifle. But then she'd let us bury Godzilla and Dick Cheney together if our dresses subtly referenced Jackie-O.
"The dog will dissolve into the water table! Is that what you want? Bits of Buddy floating in Father O'Reilly's daiquiri when he visits?" Simmie harrumphs realizing she's outnumbered. "Fine," she takes a drag off her cigarette. "Shovel's in the garage."
An hour later, dusty, disheveled and faintly scented with formaldehyde, Mimi and I stop for pasta in Westwood. She buys a Movie Star Map from a street vendor and studies it at the restaurant table as the waiter brings our wine.
"I've always wanted to do this," she giggles. "Hmmm. Cher, Barbara Streisand, Robert frickin' de Niro!" She turns the map over and knocks red wine across her dress and mine. Across from us Jacqueline Smith from Charlie's Angels offers me a "too bad" grimace.
Back in the car, with bright red splashes of wine across our bodices and resembling escaped extras from a soap-opera scene we weave through Bel Air, as Mimi navigates from the map. "James Stewart's house on the right, hmm. Oh, my god. Oh, my god, turn here, turn here. Blast! Turn around. I have to get a picture in front of Liz Taylor's."
"Liz Taylor? The Gloved One's number one amigo?"
"Oh, yeah, smirk now, but when they roll the obit," she holds up one finger after another. "National Velvet. Father of the Bride. Cleopatra, Cat on a frikin' Hot Tin Roof! I'll have a photo of me at La Liz's place, one of the truly greats."
We park down the street.
Mimi poses in front of the iron gates. "Don't get the wine stain. Oh! Damn-It!" For 20 minutes we trample flowerbeds seeking her contact lens until a dark-blue security cruiser pulls-up, and a mechanical voice advises us to move along.
Back at the car a citation waves in the windshield. "Bel Air Street Sweeping Day," Mimi reads. "Whoa," she whistles. "$227 bucks." I sigh, she clicks her seat-belt, and we take a leafy back-road over to Beverly Hills.
The salesclerks of Rodeo Drive have savant ability to calculate your probable net-worth, concurrent with their own commission potential, faster that you can clear their threshold. If your self-presentation includes formaldehyde, garden dirt and red-wine it'll earn a sniff that says, "I'd frown, except for the Botox."
After zipping, lacing, and fastening myself into thirty-two dresses at six different locales, I offer, "You know, Mimi, this a garden wedding not a Debutant Ball." She rolls her eyes and we're back in the car for the 90 minute drive to Newport Beach. We detour to Jolly Rogers on Balboa Island to refortify ourselves with burgers, fries, daiquiris and hot fudge cakes. Then with our optimism restored by alcohol, chocolate and grease we hit Fashion Island in Newport Beach.
Mimi storms the glistening glass shops like Generalissimo Franco. I follow limply like a Death March survivor thinking if my son weren't in Catholic school I could just live in sin.
I'm in the dressing room in a strapless bra and white bikini panties when she rushes in, a semi-frothy ecru number in her arms. She slips it over my head, smoothes it down, then turns me to the mirror.
A chorus of angels sings Hallelujah. Bluebirds fly in with beribboned bowers of baby white roses. Golden-pink light breaks through the sprayed asbestos ceiling. White butterflies kiss me on the cheeks, and fairies curl up my hair.
"A Miracle!" sighs Mimi.
"You need a bustier," says the sales lady with sensible shoes and dollar-signs in her eyes.
Wedding day arrives. My pre-ceremony relax in the tub went down the drain after a parking valet ran over the cat, my new bustier was MIA, the first guest arrived an hour early and managed to stop-up a toilet and heave-up her breakfast on the guest-bath floor. Then we all had to pitch-in after the florist flaked-out. Still, my parents' backyard was movie-set perfect when the violins, harps and flutes began to play as Dad and I stroll past one hundred guests in white chairs, toward a canopy of flowers.
I look up at my Gregory Peck-like betrothed with hope and anticipation. He smiles at the dress, "Elegant."
Then I realize that in this anxious, tenuous world, festivity and magic and celebrations are always worth the effort. I secretly pledge allegiance to the Froth Brigade as the audience leans forward to share in a dream.
"I do," I say. "I do."
© 2008 -Suzanne de Cornelia. All worldwide rights apply. This article may be reprinted on websites as long as the entire article, including website link and resource box below are included and unchanged. Suzanne de Cornelia is a freelance writer, and author of "French Heart." Contact Suzanne on Facebook, or Twitter @SuzanneDeC. And click-on her site now for a blogroll of free and fascinating resources: http://suzannedecornelia.com
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