When my granddaughter called last weekend, we talked about her school’s upcoming homecoming activities. She planned to attend the dance with her new beau. I asked if they get all gussied up; she said they don’t. She’s lucky. Shopping for a party dress can be a real pain. Just ask my husband.
     We have a wedding to attend in a week and he has spent the better part of a month accompanying me as I hunt down the perfect getup. All I want is an outfit to make my two younger sisters say, "Well, she doesn’t look as old and frumpy as she usually does." Is that too much to ask?
     Three Sundays and one Wednesday afternoon spent in hot pursuit of an ensemble have resulted in a long black skirt and black shell that can be paired with one of three new tops: two dinner-type jackets or a grey wool sweater with a fancy beaded collar. Each possibility hangs in my closet. Every time I look at them, my shoulders slump and my stomach clenches. None of them are what I had in mind when I set out on this quest. Over and over, I try them on in hopes of the "wow" feeling that has eluded me. The sweater is grey; its velveteen collar adorned with black bugle beads. I look like a somber member of a chamber orchestra or a mortician, not someone who wants to kick up her heels at a wedding dance.
     The two jackets are worse. Both are blue. One an iridescent bird’s egg; the other sapphire. I hate blue but succumbed to the pressure of salespeople who insisted, over my protestations, that blue is my color. "With your eyes…perfect," they said.
     I am reminded of shopping for high school prom dresses. Mom always accompanied me. She had fashion sense and charge-a-plates. We would traipse through Anthonie’s in South Minneapolis and Frank Murphy’s in downtown Saint Paul. One year, I had the same problem that besets me now. Unable to decide between a sophisticated Jackie Kennedy style in linen and a youngish chiffon creation of black and white-checked gingham with a yellow gross grain ribbon tied at the waist, I brought both home and obsessed.
     "Have you found an outfit?" my friends ask in E-mails. They offer suggestions; probably worried I will forsake the search and show up at the gala in jeans and a sweatshirt. The situation has become so pitiful my sister-in-law offered to lend me her new outfit, saying she could wear something from her closet.
     It’s not like this wedding will be all about me. Everyone’s eyes will be on the darling young bride in her gorgeous gown with the train and veil. No one cares about the groom’s 60-year-old aunt. Even so, I wake up in the middle of the night, my heart pounding to the beat of, "What, oh what, will I wear? Where, oh where, will I find it?"
     At the bridal shower, my hip younger sister introduced me as the family matriarch. As I said, old and frumpy. If only I’d saved that black and white-checked gingham frock from senior year. My husband would be a very happy man.