Kate laughs heartily and I know she wishes me no bad will.
“So now what?” she asks.
“‘Now what’ what? About our friendship?”
“No. About how we’re going to get that bitch Paige back for firing you and making you unhirable. She’s ruining my life too, and nothing cements a friendship like a common enemy.”
AFTER YESTERDAY’S DRAMA, I’ve earned some reality television binge-watching time. This Sunday afternoon, TBS is doing a Say Yes to the Dress marathon, and I settle in. While it would seem that I’d want to avoid all shows wedding-related, I actually find Say Yes to the Dress to be rather cathartic. The way some people shout at their television screens during a football game, as if the players can hear the viewer’s instruction to “run, run, run” with the ball, so I’ll shout at my television, “You look beautiful! Don’t listen to them! Why in the world does your mother want you to wear a ball gown to your beach wedding? Just get the chiffon sheath you love!”
In the current episode, there’s one bride who recently lost over a hundred pounds and bears a strong resemblance to a young Grace Kelly. Her family and friends are pushing bedazzled mermaid-fit gowns at her, wanting her to show off her new figure. But the dress she falls in love with is a strapless, unadorned satin dress with a sweetheart bodice and a beautiful A-line skirt. To get the family on her side, Randy gussies her up with an elegant finger-tip lace veil and pearl choker. Before she turns around to show everyone, Randy says to her, “The only person who will be wearing the dress is you. Only you know what’s right for you.” But even with accessories, her family and friends can’t let go of their vision of her in a “sexy” dress, and the bride can’t bear to wear a dress that no one likes. She leaves the store defeated and dressless.
The other bride in the show is the complete opposite: a bombshell who wants to show it off! Her mother wants her in a traditional wedding gown and preferably covered up. At some point, one of the other family members jokes, “What do you want, Joan, to have your daughter in a wedding dress or a turtleneck muumuu?” This bride doesn’t care and is trying on all the sexiest skin-baring Pnina Tornai dresses she can shimmy herself into. When she settles on a strapless fitted mermaid dress with a corseted bodice with see-through lace, and asks, “Whaddya think, Ma?” I’m pretty sure Ma is about to have a stroke. But Ma just shakes her head and says, “Your poor father.” But it doesn’t matter because this bride says yes to the dress and suddenly everyone is on board and even her mother is joining in on the group hug.
The advice Randy gives the first bride is almost exactly what I told myself when I was dress shopping, and it paid off, even if it didn’t result in wearing my dream dress down the aisle. The second bride reminds me of Gabriela and when I was trying to tell her to slow down and she was having none of it. And because she was having none of it, she broke her personal record. If she’d listened to me, she would have ended finishing somewhere in the middle of the pack. Randy’s words, Gabriela’s determination. …
It all hits me.
Reading the self-help books is the same thing as listening to others. I’m simply trading the opinions and advice of my family and friends for these self-help authors’ advice. While I have to think the authors’ advice is well-meaning, just like mine was to Gabriela yesterday, and some of it has made me examine my life more closely, at the end of the day the person I have to listen to is myself. Only I can know what’s right for me. I’m the only one who is going to be wearing the dress … or in a broader context—I’m the only one who is actually going to be living my life. So, really, the only opinion that matters is my own.
It’s time I start listening to my heart and making my own rules.
Monday morning, I’m sitting at The Cauldron waiting for Eric to finish up a phone call with a vendor before we start our meeting. After the race, he didn’t text me the entire weekend, nor I him. I’ve been lying low and avoiding him; the boundaries were getting a little too blurred for me, and I’ve decided it’s better to keep everything professional between us.
“Sorry about that.” Eric takes the chair across from me. “I had to clear that up, otherwise we would’ve had ten times our regular order of paper cups and no place to store them.”
“No worries. Let’s see, what should we talk about first?”
“How about how was the rest of your weekend?” He grins.
“It was good, thanks. Yours?” Boundaries, Allison. Keep it simple.
“Nothing too exciting. Mostly worked and worked out. Did you have a good date on Saturday night?”
Date? Oh, he must mean Kate. I nod in response. “Uh-huh.” I don’t want to hear if he had a date or if working out included with a beautiful brunette, so I say, “So let’s talk about this press release I wrote on Friday. Did you get a chance to review it?”
We talk about the press release, and after we’ve finished Eric says, “So I’d still love to take you out for a celebratory dinner. Are you free this Saturday?”
Boundaries, Allison, boundaries, I remind myself. But I also have no plans and would love to have dinner with Eric. And if he’s free on Saturday night, then I’m guessing things with The Brunette didn’t work out. Boundaries, schmoundaries. “I am, and dinner sounds great!”
“Great.” He grins at my probably too-enthusiastic response. “Do you have any favorite places?”
“I’ll let you decide. I’m easy.” I’m also curious where he’ll take me. If he takes me somewhere casual, then it’s not a date; if he takes me somewhere nice, then perhaps it is a date. But I’m not getting my hopes up, I warn myself.
“Okay, then. It’s a date.”
“It’s a date.” I smile back at him, my hopes unfortunately raised high. “So should we go over my task list for the week?” We talk business for about twenty minutes and to do so I manage to control my excitement about Saturday. Once we’ve gone over everything on the list, I wrap it up and say, “I better get working on these items then. And unless you have any more changes, I need to send this press release out and then make some calls from home.”
THE CALL I make from home is to Jordan. “I have a date with Eric on Saturday!”
“Shut up! A real date? Not a business thing? Is there going to be kissing? Tell me there will be kissing.”
“Uh, actually, I don’t know.” Sure, Eric used the word “date.” But then so did I when I had first invited him out to lunch. “I mean, I think it’s a date, but now I’m not totally sure.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure? Then why are you calling me in the middle of the day at work to get my hopes up?”
I tell her how it went down. “It sounds like this might be a date,” is her verdict. “And if I were you, I would dress appropriately. Then if it isn’t really a date, it will at least get him thinking that it should be.”
AFTER JORDAN AND I hang up the next call is a surprise.
“Hi, Suzy,” I answer.
“Allison! I’m calling with great news!”