Esther arrives shortly after Breine, hands spilling with silver-colored tubes and compacts. Makeup—she must have gone around the camp and borrowed everything she could.
“I don’t need all that!” Breine protests. “Chaim wouldn’t even recognize me. He might not even recognize me as is, without dirt under my fingernails.”
“Breine,” Esther protests.
“Esther.”
While they debate the rouge and lipstick, I unwrap the dress from the bath towel and lay it on Breine’s bed, holding my breath. There hasn’t been time for Breine to see my work, much less time for her to try the dress on. Now, she breaks off in the middle of a sentence. She looks over to me, and her mouth drops.
“Oh, Zofia.”
“Do you like it?”
“Do I—I can hardly believe it’s the same dress. I can’t believe it. It’s marvelous. It’s completely, completely—” She turns back to Esther. “Maybe a little lipstick.”
“That’s right,” Esther says.
“But only a little, and only so my face isn’t completely outshone by my dress.”
Esther points toward the desk chair until Breine obediently sits, and then she holds up a series of lipsticks to Breine’s face, looking for the most flattering color. “This one, I think,” she decides, choosing a creamy pink. “Open your mouth a little. No—more natural, like this.”
After Esther applies the borrowed lipstick to Breine’s mouth, she dabs a little on her own fingertip to use as rouge for Breine’s cheeks. “I’ll just do a tiny amount,” she promises in response to Breine’s grimace. “You’ll still look exactly like yourself; it will just be a bit of color in case you get nervous and pale standing up there in front of us all and knowing we’re watching you.”
“Well, you’ve made me nervous now.” Breine laughs.
Watching the whole exchange, I’m overcome by a memory. “Use three dots,” I suggest to Esther.
She hovers her fingertip just over Breine’s cheek. “Three dots?”
“My aunt Maja always told me: one dot of rouge lined up below the pupil, one about two centimeters lower, in line with the tip of the nose, and a third high on the cheekbone. You make a triangle with three dots, and then blend in between for the most flattering appearance.” I laugh. “I can’t believe I suddenly remembered that.”
“We’ll do three!”
Esther finishes Breine’s makeup and moves to her hair, beginning with a braid, as Breine always wears it, but then pinning it up at the base of Breine’s neck. When she’s finished, she holds up a hand mirror, and we all examine the work.
Breine raises her fingers, lightly touching her face and elegant hair.
“It’s not too much, is it?” Esther says. “I told you it wouldn’t be. Breine? Tell me you don’t hate it.”
“It’s not too much,” Breine says quietly. “This is how I used to look all the time. My mother said a woman should never leave the house without wearing lipstick, and she always made sure I’d tidied my hair.” Now she smiles ruefully, and her eyes grow a little distant. “She would have wanted such a different wedding for me. She would have wanted such a different life.”
Esther and I look at each other. Breine is usually so optimistic; I’m not sure how to respond. Esther puts a hand on her shoulder. “I hope she would be happy for you anyway. Chaim is a wonderful man.”
Breine sucks in a deep breath and then reaches up to return Esther’s touch with a brisk pat on the hand. “Let’s get me dressed,” she says.
We give her a towel to hold over her face to keep her makeup from smudging. And then Esther keeps Breine’s hair in place while I slide the dress over her head and button the back.
When I’m finished doing up the back, Breine splays her palms upward, eyes quizzical. “Well?”
Esther brings her hands to her heart. “Oh, Breine, you’re perfect.”
Breine’s face lights up, and she motions for Esther to bring her the chair so she can get a full-length glimpse of herself in the wall mirror.
I don’t say anything yet, instead busily walking around her in a full circle, straightening hems, critically eyeing my own handiwork.
The new sash at the waistline gives Breine more of an hourglass shape, and a new sweetheart neckline draws attention to her pretty neck and collarbone. All those dozens of tiny beads, those infernal tiny beads, I reattached around the scalloped edges. Clustered together this way, instead of scattered over the whole dress, they catch the light and sparkle as if Breine is carrying around her own sun.
I’ve done a fine job. Maybe not completely up to Chomicki & Lederman standards, but a very fine job, especially given my limited resources and time frame. I wouldn’t be ashamed for my father or Baba Rose to see this dress.
And earlier this afternoon, just before I took the dress to iron, I made one last adjustment because the garment didn’t feel complete. Along the neckline, at the lowest part just near Breine’s heart, I ripped out a few stitches of the seam, and before I repaired it, I tucked in a small square of silk:
Choose to love, I wrote. It’s what Breine said to me when she first told me about Chaim: She was choosing to love the person in front of her.
Choose to love.
WE GIVE BREINE A HANDKERCHIEF TO TUCK UP HER SLEEVE, and when she’s as ready as we can make her, Esther and I throw on our own donation-box dresses—hers, pink and frilled, and mine, the color of a ripe plum, a bit short in the hemline but otherwise a perfect fit. Both of them smell faintly of mothballs until Breine douses us all in perfume.
No sooner have we finished than Breine’s uncle knocks at the door in a borrowed suit, hair impeccably combed, and Esther and I leave to give the small family private time before the ceremony.
Abek is waiting for me just outside the cottage, hair still damp and looking freshly scrubbed. He’s found a new shirt, buttoned with a little gap between the collar and his neck. “This is all right?” he asks.
“I suppose I should ask if you washed behind your ears?” I tease, pretending to inspect him. “It’s all right. I’m so glad you’re here.”
On the way to the courtyard, I spot Josef in front of us. He is also in a new donation-box shirt. His is a soft hazelnut color, a shade lighter than his eyes. I’ve only ever seen him in the gray shirt he was wearing when we first met. This one fits better. This one skims more closely along his chest and stomach. This one is a bit too short at the sleeves, but short in a way that shows off his wrists. He has nice wrists.
“Hi,” I say softly.
“Hi,” he says back, and I’m glad I went with the dress that brings out the warmth in my skin.
“I didn’t get to introduce you to my brother,” I say, and watch proudly as Abek extends his hand to Josef in a grown-up handshake. “My brother, Abek. And this is Josef Mueller.”
Josef returns the greeting, but his eyes stay on me. A lot passes behind them. An apology? Regret? Something sharp and rough, making my chest pang. I’m still trying to parse the expression when we’re separated by laughing wedding guests, come to celebrate, carrying us along with the crowd.