"Whatever you do, don't cry on her. Don't cry on the gown. Don't cry anywhere near the gown. You do have tissues, don't you?" Bisitra warned my mother.
"You think I'm going to cry just because I see my daughter in a wedding dress? I'm not going to cry. Is she dressed yet?" Galina Florescu asked eagerly.
"Almost." said Ulrike, my 'personal stylist', twitching the front hem into position. She had returned from New York with my luggage and a question—did I mind if her title was personal stylist? I told her it was fine with me. "Madame Bisitra, this design is inspired."
"Thank you," replied Bisitra, "but really, it's not. It's simple because I couldn't manage anything else, and the fabrics do the rest. Even so, if I hadn't been making her clothing for years, I never could have managed to fit it properly."
"Well, you did a wonderful job." Ulrike concluded.
"Ow!" I said, as Bisitra jabbed me with a pin. I was standing on an ottoman in my dressing room so Bisitra could work on the closure at my waist.
"I'm sorry, my lady." Bisitra said. "Are you bleeding? Don't bleed."
"I'll try not to, if I can help it." I told her. "Mother? There's something in my saved mail that might interest you. The Daily Bugle sent a copy of the interview I did, so it could be approved before they went to the presses."
"Thank you, dear." I heard her cross the bedroom and sit down at my desk. "'Joviana Florescu, 25, the fiancée of Victor Von Doom, monarch of Latveria, is not what one would expect.'" She read aloud. "That's a nice picture of you—and Bisitra, she's wearing that green summer suit you made her, in that sateen. 'Yes, she is tall and slender, a striking beauty with the porcelain skin of an aristocrat from a past epoch—but along with the supermodel looks comes a supergenius brain.'"
"Laying it on rather thick, aren't they?" I asked. "Makes me wonder if Victor owns a chunk of the publication."
"You are entirely too cynical." Galina chided me. "'The young woman who soon will take on the name of Doom is disconcertingly intelligent, and has a good, if slightly wicked sense of humor. At the onset of the interview, she asked if the Daily Bugle wanted to know her views on the war over oil, the mutant question, or the hostilities between the Sudan and Wakanda, and accepted with rueful grace the reply that no, what the Bugle was interested in was wedding plans and the story of her engagement to the seemingly impassive world leader. I now regret not asking, as her reply would have been intriguing.' You would ask that, wouldn't you, Joviana?"
"You know I would." I called back.
"You have the shoes that you're going to wear? Good." Bisitra said, as Ulrike brought over the satin pumps I had decided on. I stepped off the ottoman into them.
"All right! You can come in now." Bisitra called to my mother. "But remember—no crying on the dress!"
"I'm telling you, I'm not going to cry." Galina's voice grew louder as she got closer to the dressing room door.
"That's what you think." Bisitra said, darkly. "I know mothers."
The door opened; my mother stood framed in the opening for a long moment that imprinted itself on my memory, a melting look of love, tenderness, and pride.
Then she burst into tears. "Oh, Joviana, my darling!"
Bisitra knew mothers, all right.
Once she recovered from her initial reaction to the sight of me in my ceremony gown, she walked around me in a circle, surveying my appearance and Bisitra's work with a critical eye. "I remember that a lot of the new dresses had colored sashes or ribbons—do you think you ought to add one? It looks so—plain at the waistline."
"No, Madame." Ulrike said. "The effect is so striking because it is so unadorned, except for the overdress itself. Adding anything would detract from that. The simplicity is what will have this gown talked about and written about—and copied."
"I still wonder if strapless might not have been more elegant." Galina fretted.
"No." I put my foot down, metaphorically, as I had when the subject had come up before. "I don't want the bishop to have a heart attack right in front of me. He looks overdue for one already. My arms will be bare, and that will be daring enough."
"Galina, don't you like it?" Bisitra asked pitifully.
"Yes, of course I do! It's beautiful; almost as beautiful as my daughter." My mother took my face in her hands.
"You would have to say that—you're my mother." I teased her. "Bisitra, I agree. I love it. I would choose this exact style even if I had six months—a year—to get ready."
"Thank you," Bisitra said, with relief and gratitude. "All I can think of is how much better it would have been—but it will be ready, God willing. Now, what about your hair? I brought a whole bolt of silk tulle veiling."
"I was thinking about an updo, something like my usual—." I began.
"No." said all three women simultaneously.
"No? Why not?" I asked, a little hurt.
"My lady--." Ulrike started to say.
"I've been trying to tell her for years," Galina put in, "but she gets huffy whenever I bring it up. Maybe you can tell her so she listens."
"I'll try, Madame. My lady, you have beautiful hair, but the way you style it is—too severe for your face. You have strong features, and you need to wear your hair a little looser, a little less controlled, to keep your face from looking… hard."
"You do come across as intimidating—until people get to know you." added Bisitra. "Whether you wear it at the nape of your neck or the top of your head, your hair looks like it was scraped into place—and you put so many pins in it that you bristle like a hedgehog."
"But if I don't, it comes apart. By lunchtime, I look like a bird's nest—a messy bird's nest—if I don't pin it in place."
"A bird's nest would be preferable." said Galina, the traitoress. "A bird's nest would be human and approachable."
"Ah!" I gasped. "I'm not approachable?"
"You don't come across as approachable." soothed Ulrike. "Do you know that American TV series, Frasier—and the one before it, Cheers? There was a character on those shows, called Lilith, who wore her hair the way you do. I've heard people mention the connection."
Lilith, the ice bitch. That was how I came across. I wanted to sit down and have a good cry immediately. "But I've worn my hair like this for years."
"It wasn't so bad when you were younger—when you still had some of the softness of baby fat." offered my mother.
"It goes frizzy when there's any humidity whatsoever." I said. "I don't like frizzy, messy hair on me. Plus, I wear it over my ears like this for a reason—my ears stick out."
"The frizzing can be fixed with the right styling product." Ulrike said. "I got some anti-frizz samples when I was touring Manhattan. I stopped in several stores..."
"No applying anything while she's in the dress!" Bisitra was going to develop an ulcer with worrying about that gown.
"I don't like sprays, mousses or gels." I said. "I hate it when my hair's all stiff and hard."
"The kinds I got won't do that—ones with a bit of silicone in them."
I was undergoing a hair intervention. I felt miffed—then my eye fell on the Rosetti Proserpine. Jane Morris, and her soft cloud of hair…and remembered how people responded to me when it was messy recently—I had pulled it to pieces before applying for Latverian citizenship, and the Doombot responded by comparing me to that portrait. I had shaken it loose before I went in to talk to Wanda, and it had still been loose when I talked to Pietro in the kitchen. Maybe they had a point.
Victor had never expressed any opinion about my hair, but he had never expressed any opinion about my appearance, except to comment on how elegant I looked, once or twice.
"How should I be wearing it?" I asked.
Ulrike let out her breath. "Madame Bisitra, can she sit down in the dress? I have a steamer on hand, just in case."
"About time!" my mother said.
"She can sit--but carefully. And no styling products!" Bisitra warned us.
"My lady, if it will please you to sit down at your dressing table—." I started to cross the room.
"Wait!" That was Bisitra again. "You need to practice walking in that gown. Every time you take a step, kick the hem forward just a little, or you'll be treading on it and ripping out the stitches."
I walked very carefully, kicking the hem as I was told, and sat. Ulrike began pulling out hair pins, and then she brushed it out.
"I'll bet brushing it when she was a child was a chore. That natural wave, and as thick as it is!" Bisitra commented.
"Actually, no." Galina Florescu remembered. "When she was little, it was straight as string, and not even half as thick. When she had to have chemotherapy, of course it all fell out, and when it grew back—it was like this." That was a nice piece of unconscious rationalization on her part—the first Joviana Florescu and I did not look very much alike.
"Chemotherapy?" Ulrike paused in her work.
"That's right. Joviana had childhood leukemia."
"Oh, my lady!" Ulrike looked at me in the mirror, stricken.
"I recovered, as you can see." I told her.
"Of course you did—you're here today." She teased, twisted, coiled, and re-pinned my hair into a completely unfamiliar shape—a softer, looser style, low on my nape, with ear coverage.
"Will it stay?" I asked.
"All day, if need be." Answered Ulrike.
"I like it. That's more like the real Joviana!" Galina approved of it.
"My lady, do you have a hairpiece you plan to wear?" asked my personal stylist.
"Yes, I do. Mother—that grey case by your elbow, that's it."
She picked it up and opened it, saying, with approval, "Ah, how very appropriate."
Victor, Boris and I had returned to the castle to find the Burgomaster of Doomstadt and a small delegation waiting to present me with a wedding gift from the citizens of the city, which turned out to be yet another mind-boggling piece of jewelry.
It was made to look like four stalks of wheat with ripe seed-heads on them—in gold, with diamond grains of wheat. Made in a U-shape, and meant to be worn like a Roman emperor's laurel wreath, open in the front and closed in the back, the wheat-ears came up to my temples, two on each side, bunched together.
The reason my mother had said it was so appropriate went back to a Latverian wedding tradition, just as the 'old, new borrowed, blue' was traditional in English speaking countries. Latverian brides wore wreaths of wheat in their hair to symbolize or bestow fertility—which in my case was either very appropriate or superfluous, considering my condition, and the embryonic daughter who might be thirty-two—or even sixty-four!—cells large by now. They grew so fast!
At least I knew what to do about this extravagant piece of jewelry, which had been purchased from the citizenry's collected funds—which was to keep it, but find out how much it cost, and then donate at least twice as much to some civic charity or project in the near future.
"I can attach a veil to that—wait a moment." Bisitra fetched her bolt of tulle, sent it unrolling down the length of the dressing room, and pinned it to the back of the wheat wreath. Then Ulrike slid it into place, and Galina burst into tears again.
"I know, I know—not near the dress. Joviana, dearest, I'll swear you haven't taken a good look at yourself yet. Come over to the three-way mirror—."
I went, carefully kicking the hem, as instructed. I looked, and saw, in front and on either side of me, the reflections multiplying and kaleidoscoping— a bride.
A bride who was beautiful.
A bride who was—me.
As so often happened at emotional moments, a line from a Tori Amos song sprang to my mind—'Never thought my day would come…'
TBC….