What would you wear if you were going to
have lunch with Nora Ephron?

(If you are the one person in the world who
doesn’t know who Nora Ephron is, Google
her and read about an amazing woman.)

Nora Ephron and her sister Delia had optioned
two of my books and we were going to meet
for the first time for lunch.

What would I wear? I’d been married a long time.
I never went any place good anymore. My life
was ShopRite, the Post Office, Walmart, and the
Bridgewater mall. My closet reflected my life.

What would I talk about? I figured Nora and Delia
usually had lunch with Meryl Streep and Meg Ryan.
I usually had lunch with my dog. I live in New Jersey.
What’s to talk about? Not much happens in New
Jersey except to Tony Soprano on HBO.

The only thing Nora and I had in common was that
we had each had three husbands (one at a time). I
didn’t think that was appropriate to talk about on
a “first date.”

I knew whatever I was going to wear had to be black.
We were going to lunch in Manhattan.

I wanted to wear something unique and subtle,
like the clothes at Barney’s, like Audrey Hepburn
would wear. But I was four times Audrey’s size.

The heck with Barney’s. Who could afford
anything at Barney’s anyway? Who could fit into
anything at Barney’s if they weren’t a size 0. The
only time I ever went into Barney’s was to use
their bathroom.

Sleepless nights thinking every floor in Bloomingdale’s.
Days spent hating everything in my closet. Why did
I buy such crap?

In the 40s and 50s when I grew up, I went to the movies
every Saturday afternoon. I idolized Hedy Lamarr,
Joan Crawford, Loretta Young. They had class. I wanted
to look like them.

I was a 60-year-old grandmother, 15 pounds overweight,
yet I wondered what Lana Turner would wear to lunch
with Nora and Delia.

Years before, I’d bought a small silver fox stole, the kind
with a face that had marble-like eyes, in a second-hand
store. I can’t resist a great sale and sometimes buy things
only Rita Hayworth could wear.

I once bought a small black felt hat with a veil that I never
wore. It would have looked great on Marlene Dietrich.

Hallelujah! Problem solved.

Hallelujah! I’d go Marlene Dietrich in my clothes. Hat
with veil, fox stole, simple black dress.

Drove to New York, parked my car in an outrageously
high-priced lot (never told my husband how much
it cost), and I walked to the restaurant.

Two teenage boys were walking in back of me and I
heard them giggling. Then I heard one of them say,
“That old lady has a dead animal around her neck.”
I was no longer Dietrich. I was no longer vintage. I
was Bette Davis in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”.

The restaurant was fancy. I looked for two women
in black but everybody was in black. Lunch went
well. I didn’t spill anything but reading the menu, the
veil kept getting in the way of my reading glasses.

The sisters discussed what they wanted to eat and
after much discussion ordered the same thing. They
gave the waiter very specific instructions about their
order.

When the food came, they only ate a few mouthfuls. 
No wonder they’re so thin and I’m not. I had to stop
myself from asking if I could take their leftovers home
for dinner.

Neither sister commented on my outfit. They were
very nice to me and my books. The conversation was
mostly about food. The only mention of vintage was
about vintage tomatoes. I’d never heard of them but
I made believe they were divine, too.

“Love, loss, and What I Wore,” the off-Broadway
show the sisters wrote—inspired by my books—
won awards and played to sold-out audiences for
over three years. Every month the cast changed.
Every cast was composed of big stars like Rosie
O’Donnell, Tracee Ellis Ross, Tyne Daly, Jane Lynch,
Kristin Chenoweth, Carol Kane, Brooke Shields,
Natasha Lyonne, Samantha Bee, and dozens and
dozens more.

I got to meet them.  I thought I was dreaming.
Lunch with Nora and Delia was a big part of the
dream.

I had other lunches with Nora, minus hat and fox stole.
She was so normal. Not like the big shot she was. She
listened. She gave good, practical advice. You’d like her.
She’d tell the actors, “Don’t act. Just tell the story.” 
And she’d tell everybody, “Be the heroine of your life,
not the victim.” I learned a lot from Nora.

I wish I could lunch with Nora and Delia again. Nora
died on June 20, 2012. My daughter died a few years
later on June 16^th. Even though my birthday is in June,
June has always been a sad month for me.

The hat and fox stole are in a box in the back of my closet.