I went to a benefit last week, in my capacity at my journal. It was incredible, an amazing evening, I was moved to tears, inspired, and made lots of great connections.
When I walked into the very famous, architecturally wow setting, though, I flinched because I was ever-so-slightly underdressed.
Actually, I didn’t “walk into” the venue. A man in “dinner clothes” saw me coming up the walk, and opened the door for me. He even had a carefully handlebarred mustache. Did he grow it because he knew he’d be pulling the tab on a pop-up storybook dinner every evening? Or did he have it, which led him into this job?
As the door swung open, I saw first golden glasses of champagne. It looked more yellow than I remembered, and the platters swung towards me in pleasing arcs.
I had taught all day. At home, I thought about the event. It was to benefit a group that trains and fosters teens who live in conflict areas, to dialogue with other teens from the same area, but from the “opposite side.” For example, white and black kids from Johannesburg, Catholic and Protestant kids from west Northern Belfast—where there are apparently still walls that separate neighborhoods.
I thought: young people, dialogue, interfaith stuff, charity, education. I knew I had to dress up, but it didn’t occur to me to dress like I would for a formal evening wedding, for example. In sum: I did not wear a dressy dress with stockings. I wore a pretty dress, in a slinky material, with slouchy little leggings underneath (not tights, but again, slinky like.) I wore a moss colored jacket over the dress, and topped the whole thing off with a hand-embroidered scarf from Palestine. I wore my black Mary Jane crocs down, but had some gold flats in my bag. (They’re actually my wedding shoes, and I need to break them in.)
I should have worn one of my black dresses, with stockings, and some fancy jewelry that I have. No hand-embroidered anything, and not so many layers.
After the champagne, I noticed who was there, and what they were wearing. I saw many very slender older ladies, in shoes whose names I know from magazines, but cannot spell from memory. In knit black dresses with trim jackets. I saw young women with shiny, shiny hair, and chic little bags. And the photographers! They were all sidling around behind everyone, in opposite arcs from the passed hor d’oeuvers, snapping away at people smiling at each other.
The first time I ever felt undressed was in the 8th grade. My English teacher, Mrs. Van Winkle (who had gone to school with my grandpa and taught my mother and all my uncles, and would go on to teach my sister and all my cousins) took me, as a treat, to St. Louis to the Fox Theater, to see a production of The Nutcracker Suite. At the time, my dad was still laid off from the coal mine. I hadn’t had new shoes (nor had my classmates) since the first lay offs.
I had dresses and many skirts. Despite my unchurched parents, Sugar Camp Missionary Baptist Church had been picking me up in the church van every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening, for years. I also loved to wear skirts to school, and had slightly fancier dressed from yearly Christmas pageants at school, and singing competitions. In hindsight, I should have worn one of those dresses, some tights, and some shiny black shoes. It was winter, after all.
I had never been to a play, or anything with live music, and had rarely been to St. Louis. For some reason, I thought that white pants, with white shoes, with no socks, would be just the most elegant thing. Perhaps _Miami Vice_ influenced the white pants and no socks with shoes thing. I definitely felt very elegant and “city.” For the top, I wore a turquoise sweater. I parted my hair on the side and curled and hairsprayed my bangs.
We went in Mrs. Van Winkle’s car. It was a Lincoln Towncar. It had leather interiors, maroon. And I noticed that it was much less bumpy inside than any car or truck I’d ever ridden in. Later, my dad did ask me what the inside of the car was like. I sat in the back seat, so perhaps Mr. Van Winkle came along with us, although I don’t remember him.
The Fox Theater is incredible. I can’t remember how interior design critics describe it. Think: lots of gold, gilding, high baroque, tiling, cabochon jewels in every cranny. Sweeping staircase, drapery, ornate carpets. Even now, I find it gorgeous. But twelve-year-old me? It was the fanciest, most rich place I’d ever been. It was like every glamourous ball I’d ever read about, better than two dozen Little House on the Prairie town-bought Christmas presents and a party for the Little Women girls thrown in. It was the kind of party the master of The Secret Garden would throw.
Other little girls were with their families. They had on Christmas dresses with cute little wool coats–red and black and grey–over their dresses. Oh, I had refused to wear a coat that night. All I had was a denim jacket, and it didn’t match. My parents, typically, didn’t insist. I hadn’t ever yet been in a suburb, and hadn’t ever yet met the kind of people who had dress coats, or who took annual family trips to The Nutcracker.
It’s hard now, looking back, to separate what I felt when I walked into the lobby, with what I know now about suburban middle-class St. Louis, or what I have experienced about the kinds of families that take annual family trips to the ballet. And I definitely know about and have a “dress coat.” But I knew, when my white shoes stepped onto that gorgeous carpet, that I had worn the wrong thing.
I had already felt the cold air on my ankles and legs, and reassured Mrs. Van Winkle that I wasn’t cold, on the way from the car.
Soon, though, I was in my seat, the lights went down, and I saw my first live performance. I pretended Mrs. Van Winkle was my mother, and I had a very fancy bedroom at home. All the way home, I pretended this, and fell asleep in the car imagining that I rode in it all the time.