Dress you up

Sitting in my living room with its 18 foot ceiling, every time I glance into my backyard I have a reoccurring thought. Because the window is 12 feet in height, it required a custom made drape. I love window treatments, and to add drama and invoke the colors of the desert, I choose a burnt orange fine Italian silk with flecks of yellow. I am determined to take it with me when I move. I'll make a dress from it, in true Tara style.

That thought gets me in a tailspin about dresses in general. A dress can take a life of it's own, it's as if she is wearing you. The closest I can come to think of as a similarity, is the clock that I hear behind me, in the kitchen. What must it be like to be the face of a clock, all that tick-tick-ticking behind you. To feel it, but not be able to stop it.

In 2002 when the height of fashion dictated plunging necklines and backlines, and shiny fabric, all of which are not my taste, I tried on a red silk dress. There was a bow on the left that needed to be removed, a minor adjustment, but I could take it to Evadney, my wonderful alterations lady, and presto. As I slipped her on, she gave a little shimmy, like someone who was waiting to dance. She was quick, and she was prepared, even in the dressing room. I knew I had the right underclothes, the right heels, both new and the single strand of Jackie O pearls. She was going to be positively certain of the effect she would have.

Whenever we walked into a party I felt her ticking. I felt her flirtations, she knew just how to laugh in a coquettish way. I don't know why she did it, except that she could. She never made a commitment of any kind; she just enjoyed the commotion, the whispers, the glares in the powder room.

Sometimes, if she concentrated just so, she could thwart me. She could be stiff where she ought to flow; she could catch where there was nothing to catch on. She could pull, or wrinkle, or shift. She could make me hesitate just for a second and make things less than perfect.


I wanted us to be one. For her to emphasize the way we move, subtly, hanging around me, like an aura. Sometimes I got distracted by her grace and other times I found myself cooperating with her whims. She knew I approved of her, that's why I bought her! She knows I've never had an unbecoming dress in my life!

When I put her on for the third time, it was a June evening. I put on perfume–Chanel, the pearls, the black suede peep-toes with the spindly heels, although I was surefooted in them, like a cat. I grabbed my small clutch bag and my pashmina, just in case the air got cool.

At the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he was in the elevator. I noticed he was tall. He was vested in a tuxedo, and would be performing. As he shook my hand, I had a very unusual thought but pushed it away, since I wasn't interested in him. I could feel him staring; it felt like being next to a hot radiator.

After the concert, at Kendall's Brasserie she walked right in–the maitre d' gave her a nod as she went straight to a table in the back. She slid into the banquette. In the presence of the other three women, she commanded all the attention. He came in later with two men and removed his bow-tie with a smile.

He sank down beside me. A waiter immediately appeared, and asked to take the order. No one had looked at their menus yet.


"You look perfectly elegant," he said.

“Thank you.”

I didn't want to order a cocktail, but she likes them. She likes the graceful martini glasses, with the smoky olives lurking in their depths, or the tiny onions. "Like eyeballs!" She hinted once, and I agreed.

I gave in that night and rather than drink my usual club soda, I ordered a glass of champagne along with an appetizer of escargot.

She did all the talking. She was going to do this, she was going to do that, he listened quietly drinking his coffee.

A sense of levity dominated the scene, and he made us laugh.

He looked away, absent for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I think I will sing something new," he said. And he began to sing Broadway tunes.

There was a lot of applause.


I clapped, she just looked at him.

Outside the restaurant, there are two cars for seven people, as addresses were shuffled about, we discover that both he and I live in the same city. He offers to drive me home, smiling, and clearly smitten, "Ah, that takes care of that.”

On the ride home both she and I notice he is talkative. I was tired, and she could have gone on and on. But it was late.

Back in the closet she went, hung up nicely, on her padded hanger. She was pleased to have been worn, and to have had such a lovely evening. The other dresses want to hear the news. Then they all started talking. Maybe it was meant as a tease, or maybe it was just envy. They laid it on thick. I think maybe she exaggerated just how much she had done and what I could do for her. The other dresses just hang and wait but there not sure what for.