From “Black Velvet & a Little Boi Smile”
My dress is too tight. I can’t breathe.
The day I met Maxim Sedaria my dress was also too tight. I couldn’t catch my breath then, and I haven’t been able to ever since.
The mother of the groom had made a brief introduction. “Amy, this is Maxim. The only one of Greg’s attendants who couldn’t manage to get to rehearsal.” She tacked on the kind of tight smile that underscored her disapproval.
Until that moment it was yet another wedding, with me wearing yet another bilious, ill-fitting dress I’d shove into the back of my closet. This one was aqua with mango-hued sequins that highlighted female attributes, part of the Viva Las Vegas Jill+Greg Hunk of Burning Love theme. I refused to tally up just how many times I’d stood up for friends. So far, they’d all managed to stay married while I, the lesbian in their midst, was the only divorcée. Since the split there’d been a string of not “happy ever afters,” none of which could even be counted as “happy for now” beyond a few late-night hours.
As with introductions at weddings, our gazes slid over each other with perfunctory politeness along with murmured niceties.
And then came back to lock like of opposite poles in the same dynamic magnet. I was frozen in place and robbed of air.
I hadn’t understood that the lone “she” among Greg’s attendants, the Maxim the groom referred to with distinct fondness, was the type of woman who wore a suit and tie like a second skin.
The black velvet jacket, with its flipped-up collar, looked both dangerous and dashing. The Elvis piled-high and slicked-back pompadour the groom’s party were all sporting cast Maxim’s already smoky eyes into the dramatic shadow of a dark, thick curl of black hair that gel was straining to keep in place. Her smile was slow, and as I struggled to appear politely nonchalant, it became knowing.
As if she could read my mind.
That kind of “I know what you want” smirk left me cold to most would-be flirts. Right now, however, I was flushed, almost trembling.
I can read the clothes. I can take in her sense of confidence and that bit of brashness. She’s not hiding it from anyone. Can I understand her the way she thinks she understands me? No, which is unfairly frustrating and mysterious. But maybe that was exactly why I was flustered.
I knew then why Jill had been positively smug when promising, “You’re going to hate the dress, but you’ll loving dancing with Maxim.”
