Meeting for the first time

I should preface this by saying, I love getting pedicures and manicures.  I purr in the chair when it’s time for lotion.  It never last long enough. However, I rarely get them professionally because they make me nervous since they are often breeding grounds for germs. Anyone who has ever seen a manicurist reuse her tools or claim they’ve already been sterilized when they look used will understand my anxiety. But last week after weed pulling and gardening, my nails looked like I had clawed my way out of a well and with a public function coming up I thought I should look presentable.  First came the pedicure and as I took my seat at the nail salon, looking out the window, I saw a woman struck by a car.   

It's a very busy parking lot. I jumped to my feet, splashed water everywhere but before I could do anything, she was surrounded by people and I thought the most helpful thing I could do was to call the police. Which I did. They said they would be right there, and they were, in probably less than five minutes. 


This caused the manicurist to get very upset because her son was hit by a car and no one showed up for an hour. She’s Taiwanese and lives in Summerlin.  So I felt sad at what she was saying and listened to her, and it was a discouraging story, and twenty minutes went by and then the salon door opened and a woman walked through.


She wore the same colorful tee as the woman who had been hit by a car.  All the commotion outside had died down.  She looked okay,  and calmly said, “I’ve just been hit by a car. Can I get a manicure?”


With one service complete and one to go, I got out of there as fast as I could, convinced if I stayed longer a flying saucer would land. 
I wanted to come right home and tell my dear friend, but she was at work, and couldn’t be reached. Later when I told my husband, he said, “You’re sensitive, it’s why you should have stayed out of it.” I know some people can do just that, however I can’t, I’ll stick my neck out and take the consequences. 

So I thought, I’ll write a blog about it, even if my readers think it’s one of my fictionalized stories.

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.