Dress of Dreams
Denise Tierney
Word Count 360
Six months before I divorced my first husband, I joined Weight Watchers, where I lost 270 pounds. I liked to joke that 220 of it was my cheating husband. To celebrate, one day I went shopping with my dad’s wife, and I tried on my first ever size 8 dress. Everything about it was simply perfect.
It was a navy blue cotton brocade, tea-length dress by Scott McClintock. The neckline was a five-inch pleated band that wrapped around both shoulders, studded with a fabric rose at the left breast. The sleeves were tight and long, the waistline was pointed. The skirt was full, and had netting underneath to help it billow out.
I glided out of the dressing room on my tiptoes, shoulders thrown back. I've rarely felt so regal and beautiful in a dress. Several customers commented as I walked toward my dad's wife. I bought it, knowing someday I’d find a time and a place to wear it.
Four months later, my girlfriends and I attended a dance at a hotel, where there were going to be 700 singles. Finally, a chance to wear the dress! I met a man that night who commented over and over at how beautiful I looked.
Fifteen months later, we got engaged. I found a pattern of the exact same dress in a book and hired a seamstress to sew it in ivory. I picked it up the night before the wedding. The sleeves were too wide and I could barely zip it up, but I had to make it work. I was so excited to have made a copy of the dress I wore the night we met, but everyone said I was stupid to think he'd connect the dots.
As I walked down the chapel aisle, I saw that he had tears in his eyes. He grabbed my hands, looked into my eyes, and whispered, "It's the blue dress...."
We were married eighteen years, and have been divorced for almost eleven. He's a good man, though, and I have tears down my cheeks as I write this story. It was one of the best moments in my life.
Denise helps run Free Mom Hugs locally, an ally group for the LGBTQ community. She grew up in San Francisco Bay Area, lived the second half of her life in Houston and London before moving back to California.
