Taxiing from LaGuardia into midtown, we dropped our bags at the Regency Hotel, where Anne had arranged a room for us using her corporate discount. Then, after stopping briefly for coffee and a cigarette (Fran) and a fresh hot glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut (Gayle) at the first Starbucks we saw; and to take in Fifth Avenue in midtown on a quiet Saturday morning (me), we began our hunt.

First stop: Saks.

Nothing.

Second stop: Morgane Le Fay on Madison.

Nothing.

Third stop: Barneys.

Nothing.

Already exhausted, defeated, and hungry, we had a quick lunch at Fred’s in the basement of Barneys before resuming our as yet fruitless search at Bergdorf Goodman sometime after three o’clock.

By now we knew the drill.

Fran would case the joint, deal with the salesperson, check the racks. If there was something even remotely interesting, she would have them bring the dress out in my size and order me to try it on; then she would force me to come out of the dressing room to model it. I would pad down the mock-runway stretch of cream-colored carpeting and pose—slouched, stiff, fingers splayed; left foot and toes, though unseen beneath the dress, curled under and dragging behind—and await their judgment.

Gayle loved everything.

Fran hated everything.

The salesperson didn’t get a vote (Fran’s rules).

I just wanted to go home and put an end to this charade. Fran was right. The wedding, at this point, would probably never take place.

“I’ve never seen such horrible dresses,” she said, loudly, hoping to be overheard. “It’s a good thing Recine isn’t here today, or I would have told him what a loser he is for working here.”

“Who’s Recine?”

“One of the women’s buyers. We get drunk every year after the shows.”

I stared at her blankly.

“The fashion shows. In Milan. And Paris.” Her eyes darted around the store, and I registered, for the first time, an almost undetectable trace of vulnerability in her: She’d never lived in New York. No matter how many times she’d been around the world, no matter how avant-garde the shoes she wore were, no matter how refined and forward-thinking her taste was, she would always be just a little bit out of her element here, just a little bit of an outsider.

“It’s a good thing you might not need a dress now,” she said, recovering her equilibrium quickly enough. “Because we might not find one.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

She slapped me on the back so hard that if I’d had a foreign object stuck in my throat, it would have been immediately dislodged and gone flying into somebody’s hair. “Come on, Elise. I’m just kidding,” she said, even though I knew she wondered if Donald and Adrienne were just a matter of time.