With my two best friends set and ready to go, I still had my own dream to conquer. I searched everywhere, all the department stores in my neighborhood, except of course John Wanamaker‘s, which I hated and was positive they wouldn’t have had anything cool in there anyway. I checked all the boutiques in downtown Philadelphia. Zilch. I went to visit my brother Michael at college in Washington, D.C. Zip. My cousin Michele and I took a day trip to New York City. Not even close.
Was I asking for such an impossible notion? All I wanted was a simple black strapless dress with a knee-length crinoline bottom ! They had gold mermaid dresses out there, but God forbid a simple black strapless with a knee-length crinoline bottom!
“Look, I know you’ve got your heart set on one thing,” my mother announced one day as I got home from school, “but I found a backup just in case.”
“Oh, Dean,” Laner said, “you are going to love it!”
Like a curtain unveiling a priceless work of art, Arlene slowly hiked the Saks Fifth Avenue chocolate-brown plastic covering over the hanger of the dress to reveal a Victor Costa blue-and-white polka-dot strapless tea-length dress with a blue-and-white ribbon tied around the bodice. My mom and I were big Victor Costa fans; he was a designer for the masses who knocked off some of the hottest dresses around. When Ivana Trump, a personal icon of Arlene‘s, announced that she in fact wore Victor Costa dresses on occasion, Arlene knew she had concrete evidence that he was one of the most important designers (or redesigners, as it were) of the time.
“I couldn’t resist,” she said, taking it off the hanger and placing it against my body. “If you don’t like it, Gladys at Saks (Arlene’s favorite saleslady of the time) said we could return it.”
I put the dress on and modeled in front of the mirror.
“It’s stunning,” my mom gasped.
“Princess Diana, look out!” Laner cried out
I liked It; I kind of really, really liked it.
“You don’t like it,” my mother sighed.
“She hates it,” Laner sighed.
“No, I like it,” I sighed.
“But you have a dream,” my mom said, frowning at Laner, who in turn threw her arms in the air in exasperation at me.
The dress went back into the chocolate-brown plastic wrap curtain and stayed m my mothers closet for a week until she finally took it back to Gladys at Saks, much to the chagrin of Gladys, who was sure the next time she saw it, I would have been wearing it in my prom picture.
“She has a dream,” my mother said, handing the dress to the dejected Gladys who, in turn, handed my mother a return slip.
After two months, with the exception of—blech—John Wanamaker‘s, I had exhausted my search through the entire East Coast of the United States of America. I was done.
I gathered my mother, Laner, Amy Chaikin, and Julie Pelagatti, those closest to me who had tried their best in helping me see the dream come alive.
“Ladies,” I said taking a deep breath, “1 regret to announce that I will not be attending Harriton High School’s 1987 senior class prom due to the fact that I have nothing to wear.”
Some were not strong enough to take the news.
“OH, FOR CHRISSAKES! SHE’S GONE OFF HER ROCKER!” my mother shouted, storming out of the room.
I looked at those who had the strength to stay, sighed, and picked up the phone to call my date and tell him.
“What if you
made
the dress?” Laner wondered aloud.
I put the phone down, smacked my head and yelled, “Eureka!” I was going to make the dress! How hard could it be?
“Mom!” I screamed, “I’m going to make the dress!”
“I’m calling Gladys to save the Victor Costa just in case,” she shouted from the other room.
“FORGET IT!” I screamed back at her. “I AM NOT WEARING THAT STUPID BLUE POLKA-DOT THING!”
“YOU’LL BE SORRY!” she screamed back.
“I HAVE A DREAM!” I shouted in teenage defiance.
“FINE! GO LIVE YOUR DREAM!” she shouted back, and then into the phone, “HEY, GLADYS? FORGET I CALLED! MY DAUGHTER IS A LUNATIC!” Then she hung up.
I didn’t speak to my mother for the rest of the day.
For the next week, Amy, Julie, and I combed the stores, trying to find the right parts for my dress. Again, there was trouble. We found the crinoline, but the crinoline was see-through, so we bought two and figured we’d put one over the other. When Laner saw that it was still see-through, she went out and bought me a black slip to go underneath. I had the bottom taken care of.
It was becoming a bit more difficult to find the top, though, and the search was wearing on my army.
“I have finals to study for,” Amy said when I asked her to come with me to Delaware for the day.
“I’m looking for some gold hoop earrings to go with my dress,” Julie said.
“Wax buildup,” Laner said, pointing at the pristine floor.
I knew I had reached madness, but I was determined that if I never saw my classmates again, the last time they’d ever see me, they’d see the prettiest, most fashionable, and original-looking girl at the prom. I was
this
close, and even though all of my supporters had fallen by the wayside, I was still marching on.
I decided to head to South Street, a place I had already checked, but figured it was worth one more go.
South Street in Philadelphia was, in the late eighties, the shopping zenith for up-to-date funky duds. If they didn’t have what I needed, then I was done. There was one place I hadn’t tried on South Street—a thrift store whose name I forget. The store isn’t there anymore, but I’m sure you could figure out where it was. The joint smelled so bad, demolition couldn’t have fumigated it.
South Street might have been funky, but this thrift store
smelled
too funky. The stench of mothballs, combined with a particular armpit fume meant I had only a short amount of time before I’d start to gag, so I sucked in my breath and searched quickly. As luck would have it, the third dress I saw had the exact top I had envisioned—a velvet bodice that curved around the boob area, which could give my flat chest area a nice line. It was a little damaged and worn-looking, but I was at my wits’ end. I didn’t even bother to try it on and quickly paid the three dollars for the dress, declining a bag and leaving with the dress in hand. Driving home, I had to stop at the dry cleaner’s and leave it there to be deodorized. When I arrived at my house, I passed my mom on the way up the stairs.
“Found the top portion,” I bragged.
“And the dream deepens into reality,” she said with a wince.
Two days later I got the dress back, clean and de-fumed. With one day left before the prom, I had no time to think of anything else.
With scissors in hand I went thread by thread as I detached the bodice portion in order to fasten it to my crinolines. An hour later, I was ready. It was then that it occurred to me: The bodice had a grooved edge and the crinolines had an elastic waist. I had no idea how to sew it, and we didn’t own a sewing machine, but I was committed to seeing this through. Visions of Molly Ringwald putting together her prom dress in
Pretty in Pink,
a film I’d seen the year before, danced through my head. I worked through the night, meticulously sewing each strand as delicately as I could. By 4:00 a.m., my eyes started to give out, so I drank a six-pack of Coke to see me through. By 5:30 a.m., prom day, I was finished.
As hard as I’d tried, my sewing was not perfect. In fact, it was dreadful. When I put the finished dress on a hanger to get a better look at the whole creation, my heart dropped. The dress was awful. It looked like a third-grader sewed the thing together, as jagged lines of thread zigzagged through the middle of the dress. The bodice was too old and shabby-looking, and the crinolines weren’t as poufy as I wished they would have been, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could never tell anyone how I really felt. I had no one to blame but myself, so I’d have to lie and act like I thought it was the prettiest dress I’d ever seen, even prettier than that Victor Costa blue-and-white polka-dot number. I tried to convince myself that maybe I could construe it as being punk-looking, but it was a stretch, even for the punk look. I had been so dramatic about the whole thing, had made such a big deal over it. I felt like I had failed. I had no choice but to put on a brave face and go with it.
Laner, my mother, Amy, Julie, and I convened in my bedroom as I unveiled my creation.
Silence filled the room. I caught my mother glancing at the jagged threads. Laner had this frozen blank smile on her face. Her mouth was agape.
“You know what?” my mother said, “it’s actually adorable. I’m very proud.”
“It’s just beautiful, Dean, good for you,” Laner said, kissing me on the cheek.
“It’s really pretty,” Amy said.
“It’s something you’ll never forget,” Julie said, and smiled.
Were they lying? Sure they were, but even to this day they ould never tell me otherwise.
As we entered the room, the ethereal white, gold mermaid, and black pouf promgoers surveyed the other dresses. One dress caught my eye. I took a closer look.... Melanie Kaplan was wearing exactly what I wanted! Where did she find it? China?
I walked up to her and smiled as our crinoline poufs brushed up against each other.
“Love your dress,” I said, smiling.
“Your dress is really cool,” she replied with a polite grimace.
“Yeah, I made it,” I tried to say proudly.
“I got mine at John Wanamaker‘s,” she said as my world collapsed.
As we grooved through the night, I tried not to think about my dress and began to truly enjoy myself, dancing with my friends and celebrating this last hurrah. By the end of the evening, some of the stitching had come undone, leaving a gaping hole on the side of the dress. By that time, I was done with the whole thing anyway.
A year later, during winter break from my freshman year of college, I went with my parents to see
Broadcast News.
When the movie got to the scene where Holly Hunter gets dressed to go to the Correspondents’ Dinner with William Hurt, my mother and I started screaming so loud; we could not believe our eyes. Some of those in the theater told us to shut up, and if we could have stopped the movie for a second and explained our outburst, we would have. Holly Hunter was wearing the blue-and-white polka-dot Victor Costa dress.
For those who have asked me through the years what I wore to my prom, after reading this story, you’re probably a little perplexed. Yes, I lied, and I apologize. I did not wear the Victor Costa blue-and-white polka-dot dress like I told you, the same one that Holly Hunter wore in
Broadcast News.
Now you know what I really wore.
The Beautiful Boy in the 8-Ball Jacket
first laid eyes on Adam in September of my freshman year of college, 1987. I was late in meeting a new friend for dinner and as I approached her dorm, I rushed up the stairs and into the lobby. As I followed a fellow student through the locked doors that led to the dorms, a voice from behind stopped me.
“Excuse me,” I heard as I froze, letting the door lock in front of me, “do you have ID to get into this building?”
“What?” I said, turning around and nervously fluffing my teased and Stiff Stuff-sprayed coif, “I’m here to see ...” (whatever her name was; I can’t remember).
“Good for you,” he answered sarcastically, “but I’ll need to see some ID if you think you’re going anywhere.”
I knew that I had forgotten my ID, but I looked through my canvas army surplus that doubled as a purse with REM and U2 pins on it as if maybe my ID wasn’t still on my dresser where I remembered leaving it. I had taken the wrong subway and crossed twelve blocks to get to my new friend’s dorm, and this guy was going to make me go back and get it?
“I forgot it at my dorm,” I told him, hoping for sympathy.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Adena Halpern.”
“Where do you live?”
“Hayden.”
“What floor?”
“Third.”
“Well, I’m just going to have to pay you a visit sometime to make sure you really live there.” He smiled shyly as he winked.
My jaw went slack as he came into focus.
He was, in a word, gorgeous. Tall though, taller than I had ever been attracted to before, and he had this flawless olive complexion with these amazingly thick, dark, curly locks hanging in front of his brown eyes.
“So you don’t really work the desk?”
“Nope,” he said. “I’m just an innocent bystander, trying to make sure this dorm is safe.” He smiled as he unlocked the door to let me in. I smiled back as I walked through the door, and watched him as it separated us.
“See you around, Miss Halpern,” the beautiful, taller-than-I‘d-ever-dated boy said as he continued to smile and walk away. As he turned to walk out of the building, my heart swooned. On the back of his red-white-and-black-patched leather jacket, a huge circled 8, like a pool-table 8-ball, was emblazoned. It was meant to be. Eight was my lucky number.
I ran up the stairs to my friend’s dorm room.
“OK,” I screamed, out of breath, “I totally just met my new boyfriend!”
“Who was it?” she asked.
“Tall guy. Dark. He had a big eight on the back of his jacket.”
Her face soured.
“Adam?”
“Is that his name?”
“No way. You do not want to go out with him. He’s bad news.”
“Why?” I said as my heart began to hurt.
“He’s just ... he’s such a
poser!
He walks around with that 8-ball jacket like he owns New York. He thinks he’s so cool!”
That was the end of my friendship with her.
Adam got my number from student services and called me the very next day. We set a date for coffee the following afternoon.
As was the case so many times in my many short years of life, I had nothing to wear. If Adam was cool enough to wear that 8-ball jacket, there were cooler things to come. I looked into my closet. No to the Levi’s with the hole in the butt; no to the stirrup leggings; and definitely no to the Girbaud white parachute pants when I tried them on. My roommate said I looked like the Pills-bury Doughboy in them.