Diva Dismayed: Chapter 10 – Stepping out
In attempting to safeguard my delicate position in this new locale, I found an unexpected ally a few days later in the shape of the warden, Mrs King. A staid old body as she appeared to be to me, she proved herself eager to become my co-conspirator! One Sunday some weeks after my arrival, I was returning from the drugstore and encountered her in the lobby. She was on her way out to attend church. In a flash of inspiration I asked her to wait for me while I picked up a head covering so that I might accompany her. I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen but it felt like the right thing to do. At any rate she looked extremely pleased. We had quite a heart-to-heart on our way back from the service. At one point, she professed herself curious as to why I’d moved away from home at such a young age.

“Oh well, it was the only thing left for me to do.” I summarised the complexity of my former situation in a few sentences. “My mother was trying to marry me to someone much older than me, so I had to get right away. I broke off the engagement at the last minute.”

Well, it was true!

My companion looked suitably shocked and said so.

“Even now” I went on, “I don’t feel I’m totally safe. I worry that someone might turn up trying to find me. That could be most unpleasant. But there’s not much I can do about it.”

“Oh, isn’t there just?” she exclaimed angrily. “I don’t approve of any such goings-on. If anyone comes asking me about you I’ll soon send them packing, let me tell you.”

She smiled mischievously. “I’ll simply deny all knowledge. Your staying here will be our little secret!”

“Oh, thank-you!” I cried. “I somehow knew I would be able to count on you.”

The good lady beamed at me. “Don’t mention it.” She put her finger to her lips, winked slyly and linked my arm through hers. The fun of having a little subterfuge in her life was evidently not unwelcome!

The following Saturday I returned from work to find that Rachel had already prepared supper for us both. Though merely a sandwich, it was more than welcome. I’d skipped lunch and was famished. Saturday was the day of the week that the salon was at its busiest and today had been no exception. After we had eaten, my friend had a surprise in store.

She began “You sound like you are done in.” While we were eating I had complained repeatedly about how tired I felt.

“I guess that after such an exhausting day you will be looking forward to a quiet evening, to give you chance to recuperate?” she continued innocently.
There was an archness in her manner which hinted that she was leading up to something.

I answered cagily “Oh, I don’t know” wondering what was coming next.

Immediately she pounced. “Good, because I feel like painting the town red! And… tonight there’s the monthly dance over at the civic centre. It’s run by the nurse’s foundation so you and I can get in at the reduced rate. I guess it will be more like painting the town a gentle shade of pink than actually red. I can’t guarantee that the band will be any good, but we can go together. How about it?”

Dancing was a form of activity I’d enjoyed at the various school events and local hops back home. I was confident I could hold my own on the dancefloor, although who might want to partner me might be more problematic.

Rachel’s thoughts were ahead of mine. “As you might guess there’s bound to be a catch and in this case with so many of my nursing colleagues around, spare men are likely to be in short supply. You could well be looking at your only dance partner for the entire evening. Can you face the prospect of standing up with such an old lady?”

I beamed my acceptance. “Oh, it sounds perfect” I enthused and I didn’t say that just as a means of reassuring her. It would be a delight to have my glamorous friend dance with me. Familiarity had done nothing to stop me finding her physically attractive.

“That’s settled then. Have you got anything to wear?”

I nodded. “I found a stylish new dress among the clothes which Mom sent over and which I haven’t even tried on yet. It ought to be just the thing.”

“Okay then. We’d better get started on getting ourselves ready. Off you go!”

As I ran down to my apartment to get changed, happy thoughts filled my mind. I was confident that the frock which I was planning to wear would suit me. I took it out and my estimate of the dress’s wow factor had not been over-optimistic. It featured a swishy full skirt in a coral coloured satin material and had a contrasting halter bodice trimmed with the same satin. When I slipped it over my head, the silky sensation against my skin felt as delicious as my imaginings had promised. Sadly, however, when I tried to do up the zipper it was immediately plain that there was no way I would be able to pull it up past the waist. I repeated my efforts but in vain.

How could that be? When the trunk with my clothes had arrived weeks before, I’d reverted to my nightly practice of wearing one of my corsets. To make this night-time corseting more palatable my ingenious parent had converted each garment to a system known as fan-lacing, although the degree of tautness achieved was a little less severe. With this arrangement, it took merely a matter of moments for me to wrap the corset around me, clip the front together and then pull the laces tight. Unfastening it was just as easy.

Having obeyed this discipline religiously I felt sure my new dress would fit just right. On this occasion my confidence was sadly misplaced. It seemed that my corseting had been inadequate. There was no way I could close the zipper.

Anxious not to rip the dress’s flimsy fabric by tugging at it my next action was to enlist some help. I ran out of the door to go in search of my friend.

I emerged from my room just in time to see Rachel descending the stairs. She was ahead of me in her preparations and checking on my progress. My own worries were immediately eclipsed by the vision that was standing on the stair before me. It was like encountering something fresh from Hollywood.

“Well… What do you think?” she asked shyly.

I didn’t reply but merely stood dumbfounded.

Now she was looking at me anxiously. “Won’t I ‘do’?” She turned right the way around and smiling winningly at me, awaited the verdict.

“No” I shook my head and her face fell.

“Do-ing’ doesn’t come into it” I laughed. “You look so devastatingly gorgeous that no one will have eyes for anyone else all evening.”

It was quite comical to see her expression of relief at my words but I meant every syllable of them.

“You are sure?” she still doubted.

“I couldn’t be more so!”

Rachel had chosen a strappy shift dress in the palest of blues finishing just above the knee. In an empire line style it showed off her slender waist and generous curves admirably. With her tall heels, also in a powder blue, the brevity of the skirt made her legs seem a mile long. I reflected that while my aim had been to attempt to pass as a typical fifties chick, my friend had managed to portray an air of womanly elegance and beauty which was timeless.

Once her fears had been allayed her next action was to critique my dress. The result was favourable. She actually put her hands together and applauded.

“Oh, Jennifer! You look a picture. You know sometimes I can’t believe you’re…”

Her compliment soon brought my own troubles to the fore once again. My face must have betrayed that all was not well with me. At my friend’s look of concern I turned around silently to reveal the undone zipper, the cause of my distress.

“Oh, we’ll soon fix that” she reassured me.

I wasn’t so easily convinced but back in my bedroom, Rachel took charge. After she had tried and failed to do up the zipper. “Take the dress off, and I’ll measure it against you, or better still against one of your other dresses that you know fits you.”

The result of this operation was that she proclaimed the new dress was in fact two inches smaller round the waist than the tightest of my other frocks, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Petulantly I felt that if I couldn’t get into my selected outfit then I didn’t want to go out. The weirdness of a teenage boy making that proclamation was all that stopped me saying so!

“Odd for your mom to make a mistake like that” my friend mused, while we considered what was to be done.

I felt obliged to defend my parent. “Well I guess it could be the same size as my wedding dress, so she could have based the sizing on that when she bought this one.”

“Okay. Well then, how did you come to get into the wedding dress?”

“Oh!” The penny had finally dropped. “I wore my bridal corset underneath. It laces really tightly. Much more so than my night-time ones.”

“Well you goose, we’d better try that then.”

I stepped over to my dresser and retrieved what I’d come to regard as an instrument of torture. I fastened it around me then as bidden, I sat with my back to Rachel. She had kicked off her shoes and was kneeling on my bed ready to render assistance.

She worked away at the laces with a will until the steel-boned garment compressed my middle into its smallest compass. It felt even tighter than the last time I’d had it on.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to breathe in this, let alone dance” I complained.

Rachel ignored my protest as she tied the laces off. “Now let’s try your dress again.”

Ten minutes later I was engaged in putting the finishing touches to my makeup in ‘my’ bathroom, as I regarded it, fully attired in the said dress. I got a thrill of excitement just by looking in the mirror. The frock was adorable and that was pretty, pretty me! The icing on the cake was that I had a pair of heels which exactly matched the shade of my skirt. These were strange thoughts for a boy of my years to be harbouring but such strangeness had become my normality.
I gave myself another appraising glance in the mirror to make sure that everything was just so. The effect of the halter-style bodice with its keyhole neckline made me hesitate. The corset served in place of a bra and pushed everything upwards so I had much more cleavage on display than I would have wished. In mitigation I told myself that my wrap would make me decent and half believed it!

What I found most delightful was the shape of the skirt. Very full and with several layers of attached petticoats, its style was the height of the current fashion. Unlike my mother’s usual choices in dresses for me, it was also a ‘good’ length. For once my legs would be decently covered, at least before I started dancing! I gave a twirl and revelled in the way that the hem flew out and upwards. How much of my legs I showed would depend on how rapidly I chose to turn. I could be as flirtatious as I wanted and that was fine by me! I imagined mischievously swishing my skirt at a boy and seeing his reaction. Well, there had to be some compensations for the weirdness of my life!

By now I was really looking forward to the evening ahead of us. With Rachel as a companion how could I not be? She had run back upstairs to retrieve her purse and wrap so I collected mine, rang for the elevator and waited for her return. I heard footsteps on the stairway but they turned out to belong to someone else. To my surprise Della appeared, casually making her way down. It occurred to me that perhaps she had heard our excited chatter and was being inquisitive, but I tried to dismiss the ungenerous thought from my mind.

“Hi!” she greeted me. “Wow! Get you!”

I smiled and held out my arms to let her see my outfit in its entirety.

“Mmm, nice.” As if invited she stepped toward me and put her hands either side of my waist to hug me.

I pulled away instinctively then to mask the unfriendliness of my reaction I gave her a twirl, then back again. The response to that was more palatable. “Okay… those legs are hot, girl! Another!”

I obeyed and twirled even more vigorously.

“Nice, and I like your panties!” exclaimed the creature. She gave an unnaturally prolonged laugh.

Just then Rachel reappeared. Della looked appraisingly from me to my friend and back again. It was hard to see whether she was really smiling behind those glasses.

“Well flaunt it if you’ve got it… or if you think you have.” With that she ran back up to her room.

I didn’t know how to take her words. Was that supposed to be encouragement or censure? My face was a picture of puzzlement and Rachel shrugged her shoulders to indicate that we shared the feeling. Then the arrival of the elevator put the incident out of our minds.

“I thought we should travel down in style” I joked as I led the way in.

Noah must have been impressed by our glamorous attire. For once our descent to the lobby was unaccompanied by his usual grumbles.

As I stepped from the elevator I instinctively clutched my voluminous skirts close to my rear end. I wanted to be sure no wayward clothing would get entangled in the doors again, to my friend’s intense amusement.

“Once bitten…” laughed she.

Striving to ignore her ribbing, I kept turning my head over my shoulder to be doubly sure until my exit was complete.

“Enjy ye’selves, ladies” uttered the old man. “I wisht I was a-goin’ with ye’s.”

To my astonishment the aged attendant then started jitterbugging around before our eyes.

“I could show ye’s a thing or two” he leered, gyrating his ancient hips. “Boys these days don’t know nothin’!”

I shuddered at the grotesque sight.

“Thank-you Noah. You’re very kind” said Rachel, looking reprovingly at me as we hastily crossed the lobby to the door.

Once outside we dissolved into giggles and set off on our stroll to the dance hall. The evening was fine for walking and it seemed that we arrived in no time. Waiting in line to enter, I started to experience a few butterflies but each time a reassuring glance from my friend was enough to dispel any nerves and restore my confidence.

As I followed her into the hall I could see that the event was already in full swing. As soon as we were inside we were welcomed by some of her nursing colleagues who were sitting at a table near the door and who asked us to join them. They were a lively crowd and immediately pounced on me, wanting to know from Rachel who her ‘little’ friend was. I wasn’t too put out by little good-natured chaffing about my years, or my lack of them. I was only a little piqued by the teasing. I would show them! However it was nice to be accepted by such a friendly group. This was going to be fun!