I'm No Saint : Part 2

Memoir of a Wayward Wife
by Elizabeth Hayt

(Page 2 of 4)

In preparation for taking my vows, I had taken a squirt of Binaca peppermint breath spray but, because my hand was jittery, missed my mouth and instead spritzed my eyeball. My eye felt as if it had been doused with lighter fluid and started watering uncontrollably. My geisha face was now running down my neck. A blushing bride I was not.

I was no longer on speaking terms with Andee. I had asked her to be my maid of honor and wear a Betsey Johnson pink lace dress, the color of Pepto-Bismol, like my other bridesmaids. She refused, or rather her mother did, convincing her daughter it was a waste to spend money - $350 to be exact, plus another $75 for a crinoline - on a shade she would never wear again. She was willing to buy the dress but only in white, which her mother insisted would be more versatile. I said no dice. Only the bride could be in white. If Andee didn't agree to wear pink, she couldn't be in the wedding party. Fine, she huffed. Then she went ahead, bought the dress in white, and wore it to my wedding out of spite.

I had been fantasizing about my gown since elementary school, when I would sketch in the margins of my composition books little tiara-topped brides in Cinderella skirts, Empire waists, high Victorian necks, or plunging décolletés. The version that I wound up with - a white silk taffeta confection with pouf sleeves, a bow-trimmed neckline, lace bodice, and six-foot train - was the dress of the moment, a knockoff of Lady Di's. The Princess of Wales and I were nearly the same age and, although her fairy-tale marriage was already fraying by the time mine came around, when I spotted a copy of her dress at Bergdorf's it conjured all kinds of romantic fantasies. Charlie was going to be my prince and we would live happily-ever-after in a manse trimmed and tasseled by a professional decorator where we would entertain and breed well. When my mother saw the two-thousand-dollar price tag of the dress, she vetoed it until we saw the design again for half the cost at Kleinfeld, a discount bridal shop in Brooklyn.

The entire wedding was an exercise in cutting corners. I wanted to be married at a swank hotel in Manhattan, like the Plaza or Pierre, even if it meant settling for a bare-bones cocktail party with pigs-in-a-blanket and cheese puffs. My mother wouldn't have it.

"Think of Aunt Ruth and Uncle Norm," she said.

They liked ballroom dancing on cruise ships. Uncle Norm dyed his hair shoe-polish black, and Aunt Ruth wore false eyelashes that he glued on for her. How could we ask them to travel all the way from Boca for an affair and not give them a sit-down dinner? But a wedding at the Plaza? Who were we, the Rockefellers? My mother opted for more bang for the buck and chose the Garden City Hotel, the best that Long Island had to offer.

My father was a radiologist but, being on a hospital salary in the Bronx, he wasn't rolling in dough. Although I was his only daughter, he squabbled with my mother about the cost of my wedding, which resulted in my firsthand knowledge of the expression "Cheap is expensive in the end."

Take the flowers. My mother and I spent several Saturdays studying arrangements at floral shops on Long Island's South Shore. We decided on a big name in Cedarhurst, forking over a deposit. Two weeks before the wedding, my mother's best friend told her she had just been to a bar mitzvah with centerpieces by our florist. They were pathetic, the withered blooms dropping all over the tables. My mother panicked. What would everyone say if my wedding turned out to be a funeral of flowers? My solution? Forfeit the deposit and sign on the florist's rival. My mother agreed: Better to lose the five hundred dollars than the freesias. We hired the competition but that wasn't the last of the original contender. He smacked my mother with a lawsuit, and she was eventually forced to pay the balance of the bill. Plus damages.

Then there was the photographer, a woman recommended to me by another Great Neck girl, part of the local stampede to the altar. Since her wedding was tasteful but hardly extravagant, I figured she had found an affordable, yet talented photographer. I gave my mother the go-ahead to hire the woman, but we never bothered to check out her work. Her style turned out to be candid camera: lopsided shots of guests with wind-tunnel expressions and their hands cropped out of the picture, making them seem like amputees. The pictures of me were no better. I appeared to be a stroke victim, with either one eye closed or my pink tongue glistening at the side of my mouth.

One year after I got married, my mother took me to Bachrach Studios in Manhattan where another hairdresser and makeup artist were waiting for me. (The ones who had done me up for my real wedding day were both dead of AIDS by then.) We unpacked my gown from the dry cleaner's storage box, and I clasped a fresh bouquet of white roses, posing for a new set of pictures, pretending to be a bride-to-be rather than the wife I already was, with my natural flowing brunette hair now cut into a Donna Reed bob, artificially brightened with blond streaks.

The highlight of this circus of appearances was the walk down the aisle itself. My father paused to lift my veil and tenderly kiss me on the cheek before handing me over to the groom. The whole ritual of giving the bride away was a joke. I figured my father was so happy to get rid of me, he'd kick up his heels and dance between the rows of guests, singing, "Heaven, I'm in heaven . . ." During the reception, he pulled a pocket calculator out of his morning coat and took Charlie aside. Punching in several figures, my father showed the tally to my new husband and said, "That's how much money you'll save me once she's off my payroll. Thanks."

Did I come with a dowry of kitchen appliances, too?

Watching their feudal exchange, I wondered how the hell I'd wound up here. One year earlier, I had entered an art history graduate program at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. I roomed with Jessica, a fat banker suffering from severe adult acne, who'd placed an ad in the Village Voice looking for someone to share her railroad studio on York Avenue. I stayed because the rent was affordable - six hundred dollars a month - the maximum my father agreed to.

Copyright © 2005 by Elizabeth Hayt

About the Author

Elizabeth Hayt is a freelance journalist whose articles have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle. While on romantic sabbatical, she lives with her three dogs in New York City.