“I knew you’d be back,” she snorted as she stubbed out her cigarette in the snow outside.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing at her feet. I’d never seen shoes anything quite like the ones she was wearing. Leather like a clog; zippered like a boot; with a transparent panel to showcase the toes.

“Not for you,” she sniped. “You wouldn’t know what to do with shoes like these.”

Translation: But Adrienne would, since she’s so fabulously sophisticated and knows Dries Van Noten—and his mother— personally.

My stomach dropped; I blinked away tears. Fran was particularly beastly at that moment—she hadn’t slept well; hadn’t had her coffee; had had only three out of her four morning cigarettes. But I couldn’t afford to be sensitive. Following her past the customer-alert bell and to her throne at her desk with Olive at her feet, I stated my business in no uncertain terms:

“Help me,” I said. “Help me find my wedding dress.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

I assumed that meant yes.

“And thank God, too,” she went on, needlessly, gratuitously. “You’re going to need my help with that woman waiting in the wings.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” She sipped her coffee, stared me down. I recognized the look. She was about to pour salt in my wound; grind it in gleefully; set herself up as the only person who could save me. “Because competition doesn’t get much worse than that.”

“I know.”

“I just want you to understand what you’re up against.”

She sat down, settled back in her chair, glanced at Olive and patted her head. (I marveled at how, with her dog, she was the picture of gentleness, while with people—me, for instance—she was anything but.) And then she asked me what kind of dress I thought I wanted.

I knew she couldn’t have cared less what I wanted, since she would veto it immediately anyway. But I also knew I had to give her some answer, some direction, some sense of what I liked. After all, it was my wedding, and my dress. Wasn’t it?

“Maybe Vera Wang . . . ”

“Please,” she said, with undisguised disgust, condescension. “Vera Wang is yesterday. Everybody wears Vera Wang. She’s practically in malls, now.”

Oh.

“What else?”

“Badgley Mischka,” I said, “or however you pronounce his name.” I’d seen several of his dresses advertised in high-end magazines’ special wedding issues (Town & Country; InStyle), which was the extent of my knowledge.

“Their names.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Their names. There’s two of them: Mark and James.” She thought a minute before dismissing them, too. “Look. You want something different. Something unusual. Something memorable.”

“Well, not something as ‘different’ and ‘unusual’ and ‘memorable’ as your shoes,” I said, feeling the old cynicism and sarcasm—the old me—surging back through my veins. “I mean, I still want to be able to tell that it’s a dress.”