THE GIRL IN THE EMERALD DRESS

THE GIRL IN THE EMERALD DRESS

..surprise! surprise! surprise!..

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“Mom, are you doing anything special on Saturday?” Theresa asked.

“Uh oh!” Gloria said as she turned to face her daughter. “Must be something serious. You never ask me to go anywhere with you. What’s happening?”

Theresa chuckled. “Mom, my prom is two months away and I’d like you to come with me when I pick out my dress. I already know what my friends are wearing, and I want something completely different.”

“Wow! You want MY input?” Gloria said in a surprised tone of voice.

“Yes, mom, I really do. I don’t want anything too splashy, too sexy, too plain, too boring. In other words, I have no idea what I want but I do know that I don’t want to be influenced by friends. I know their tastes and more often, they’re not mine.”

“Well, then, T, guess you’re stuck with me? What time do you want to begin your hunt?”

*

As she descended the stairs, she heard movement in the kitchen. “Mom!” she almost screeched in shock and surprise. “What are you doing up so early? You always like to sleep a bit later on the weekends.”

“Oh, T, you’re up early! Good! I didn’t want to wake you, but I thought we could get an early start.

“Uh, mom, are you now starting to read my mind?” she said as she laughed.

Gloria looked as surprised as Theresa at their combined thoughts.

“I heated the griddle. Let’s have some French toast before we leave. After all, we have a forty-minute drive to the mall.”

“Good idea, mom. I also want to talk over the few ideas I have.”

Gloria laughed and said, “Okay, let’s hear your thoughts.”

After breakfast, they began walking down the driveway. Gloria stopped and looked at her daughter. “Where are you going?” she asked as Theresa walked towards her mother’s car. “Don’t you want to drive?”

“Oh, mom, I’m too excited! Excited, nervous, filled with anticipation! All of which won’t help me keep my eyes on the road. Do you mind driving?”

Gloria couldn’t help but once again laugh at her daughter. “Theresa, you’re eighteen and level-headed. I sincerely doubt you’d be too distracted to pay attention but, no, I don’t mind driving. Get in.”

*

As they approached the first store, Gloria asked, “Why green? This year’s popular color is like an iceberg blue.”

“I thought about that, Mom, but Amy is getting blue, Patti is getting burgundy, and Tess has decided on yellow. Mom, can you imagine? Yellow, of all colors! And with her blonde hair, she’ll look like a ripe lemon!” Theresa laughed at her friends’ color choices and added, “As far as I know, there isn’t one person that I know that’s wearing green. And besides, with my red hair, it’ll be perfect.”

They entered the shop and Gloria remarked, “You’re more like my mother than I ever thought you’d be. Do you realize that, at her age, a tender seventy-two I might add, she has never dyed her hair? It’s still the same vibrant red as when she was young. And her eyes? The same color green as yours.”

After two hours, Theresa and her mom left the first store empty handed. She saw a few dresses that piqued her interest but not enough to make a purchase.

As they walked through the mall to the next store, Theresa spoke, “Mom, let’s hit the pizza place. I’m starving!”

It didn’t take them long to devour their lunch and as they headed to the next store, Theresa spotted a dress in another shop that wasn’t designed for formal gowns.

“Mom, DETOUR!” she almost shouted as she grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her toward the clothing store. As they waded through the children’s and men’s departments, Gloria asked, “Are you sure about this?”

“No, mom, not at all, but let’s look. It’s, I don’t know, a gut feeling.”

And there it was! In a glass case, was the dress Theresa was dreaming of. “Mom, I’ve got to try in on.”

With the dress now on a rack on the dressing room, Theresa asked her mom closed the door and Theresa stripped down to her underwear. Gloria gently removed the hanger and helped drape the gown over her daughter's head and shoulders. She took a step back and gasped.

“Omg, T, it’s perfect. It fits like it was made for you.”

*

Two months later, Theresa donned her dress and waited for Eric, her boyfriend of almost two years, to pick her up. She was giddy with delight.

Her mother, now as she looked at her grown-up daughter, couldn’t hold back her concern. “Remember, T, you’re still only eighteen and college is around the corner. Please don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Mom, you need to trust me. Eric and I have our own plans. He wants to go to law school and I want to go into medicine. We have too many plans to be stupid at this time in our lives.”

Gloria hugged her daughter as the doorbell rang. When Eric saw Theresa, with sheer uncontrollable delight, his eyes widened, and his jaw slackened. Goria thought he might have even drooled a bit.

After the “mandatory picture taking,” Theresa and Eric glided into the limo he’d hired for the night and off they drove.

As they entered the ballroom of the hotel, there stood Theresa’s three friends with their boyfriends.

As soon as Theresa and Eric approached, all three young women raised their left hands and fluttered their fingers.

Theresa gasped. It was Amy who spoke first. “It was so sudden and not at all planned. John gave me my ring last night. Stu gave Tess hers a few days ago and Mike proposed to Patti this past Wednesday. As for college? We’ll begin college in the fall and then, well, who knows what the future will bring?”

It was John who spoke next, and the words he said, chilled Theresa to the bone. “Look, I love Amy. If she decides not to continue with college, that’s fine with me. I would have no objection starting a family immediately.”

Theresa looked at Eric, hugged his neck and whispered in his ear, “Please Eric, tell me you’re not about to do something as stupid as this?”

He hugged her back and said, “T, I love you beyond words but, I’m not going to ruin the plans we made to prove to the world you’re mine and I’m yours. We already know that. And that’s good enough for me.”