Page 2 of Sunny Side Up

At least it started on a positive note. After a morning spa session with two of my closest friends, Brooke and Noor, a celebratory New Year’s treat to ourselves, I was drunk on palo santo essential oils, a bright manicure, freshly waxed eyebrows, and the delicious, elated sense of self-worth that comes from spending time with incredible women who celebrate every fiber of your being.

At the lunch that followed, the three of us spent a good half hour passing around our phones to show off the swimsuits and beach-adjacent outfits we’d saved and screenshot as packing inspiration for our upcoming midwinter divorcée escape to Harbour Island.

After Brooke left to pick up her kids from a playdate, Noor suggested she and I try on our digital mood boards in person.

At Bergdorf’s, naturally, because, like me, Noor—a fellow divorcée without kids—viewed Bergdorf Goodman as one of the end-all, be-all New York City shopping institutions.

The difference was that, unlike me, Noor—a celebrity-chef-slash-restaurateur who was quickly becoming a fixture on the daytime television cooking scene—could probably fit into the sample sizes of every designer in the place, whereas I mostly came here for major accessory splurges.

So I walked in ready to play one of my favorite mind games, This Looks Stretchy, Think It Could Fit?

, while knowing I would probably end up with yet another sarong, maybe a pair of sandals from the men’s section.

No problem. I was mostly there to hang out with Noor.

She was one of the funniest people I knew.

I would have gone with her to a dentist appointment if she’d suggested it.

Turns out, that may have been less painful.

We rode the escalator one floor up to the beauty counters, where we took our time spritzing our wrists, smelling each other, and rating designer perfumes on a scale of Upper East Side Grandma in a Mink Coat to Downtown Blue-Chip Gallerist with a Separate Wardrobe for Her BDSM Extracurriculars.

We experimented with bronzers at Chanel and lipsticks at Tom Ford, where the makeup artists fawned over us like we were their dolls.

One high-cheekboned model-ballerina-alien behind the Guerlain counter told me she wished she had my skin, and I nearly gave her the password to my bank account. Love me some luxury customer service.

Then we went up to the designer shoe salon, where skyscraper- high heels glittered and beckoned.

While Noor walked in a trance toward a pair of truly insane Versace platforms that, according to her, kept selling out online before she could buy them, I decided to walk over to Dior’s in-house boutique and peruse the newest resort colorways.

I realized that this whole experience was, quite honestly, the nicest afternoon of shopping I’d had in…

ever. Everyone at the store was so gracious and helpful.

Like they actually wanted me there. Like they thought I belonged.

I appraised my outfit in the mirror behind a wall of quilted leather handbags and printed toile totes.

I certainly felt like I looked the part: hot-pink Max Mara teddy coat, blond hair tucked back but with a few strategic face-framing pieces pulled out of my bright-blue cashmere beanie.

(A standard color combination for me: the bolder, the better.) Underneath my coat, I wore a skintight, chin-high, dark-navy turtleneck and matching wide-leg pants with white-soled Vans: a neck-to-ankle monochromatic tribute to the great Phoebe Philo.

I’d come a long way since my days as an awkward, wide-eyed, New York City newcomer who didn’t know herself, let alone her personal style.

Standing tall among the Dior, I felt confident and supremely adult: I paid other people’s salaries, with excellent health care benefits.

I put my brands in front of luxury retail buyers, just like Bergdorf Goodman.

My picture was in a publication that my parents occasionally bought at the airport.

I belonged! The sixth floor could no longer rattle me.

Noor returned to me, quintessential Bergdorf-purple shopping bag in hand.

“You got the shoes!” Maybe it was a good omen, I thought to myself as we linked arms and headed to the elevator and up to our final destination, the sixth floor: sportswear, coats, evening wear, lingerie, hosiery…

and swimwear. Noor and I split up. I watched her work quickly, methodically, loading her arms with minimalistic one-pieces by ERES, Karla Colletto, Matteau. Ugh, she was so chic.

I turned my attention to all the suits that caught my eye: I wanted colorful Brazilian-cut bikinis.

Flirty, feminine ruffles. Knit Missoni zigzags, beaded straps, hand-embroidered florals.

I wanted high-cut legs and low-cut tops.

I wanted to feel confident and sexy. I wanted my “ Birth of Venus meets Phoebe-Cates-coming-out-of-the-pool-scene” fantasy.

But one tag after the other shut that down in a matter of seconds: small, extra small, extra-extra small.

Medium, extra-extra- extra small (what the fuck), small, a single size large that looked like it had come from the kids’ section, and my favorite: One Size Fits All.

“I’m heading to the dressing room, Sunny,” I heard Noor call.

“Be there in a sec!” I felt my face grow hot. Didn’t I know better? Shouldn’t I have expected this?

You belong here , I reminded myself. You are an adult with an excellent credit score. You use your Waterpik every single day. You were just offered a glass of champagne at Dior. Go ask someone for help. You’d think I was pumping myself up to hit on Jason Momoa.

I walked up to a petite woman wearing a 1960s-esque pastel floral bell-sleeve dress and gold sandals with straps wrapped around her ankles at least four times.

She must have changed when she got in to work.

It was freezing outside. The only giveaway that she worked at Bergdorf’s was the fact that she was taking the time to carefully rehang and remerchandise all the tiny little swimsuits that had wilted off their hangers—so delicate they couldn’t bear to hold on any longer.

I cleared my throat.

She turned around.

We both smiled.

“Hi! How can I help?”

I replied in one breath with my usual TMI.

“I’m heading to the Bahamas in a few weeks with my girlfriends.

Women friends. Weird word. We’re all recently divorced—that’s how we met, isn’t that funny?

I mean it’s not funny-funny, but you know what I mean—so we decided to take a ‘divorcation’ and we’re really doing it up: We’re chartering a boat, getting massages, going snorkeling, going out , and we decided to dress like the movie version of ourselves—giant hats, caftans, jewelry at the beach, you get it—”

She blinked at me with a professional blank expression.

“ So , I’m looking for some real showstopper swimsuits. In larger sizes.”

“Follow me.”

That was easy.

She led me out of the swim section, toward the lingerie. Okay, getting creative, I’m into it , I thought.

We passed the lingerie— Makes total sense, that would have been weird —and walked toward the sleepwear section. Huh.

An elderly woman was restocking silk pajama sets, hair in a chignon, eyeglasses on a chain around her neck.

“Francis?”

“Hello, dear!”

“Francis is OG,” the sixties Bergdorf pixie told me. “Francis, can you please help this customer find her swim size? She has a”—she gestured toward me—“ divorce party coming up on the beach.”

“A divor cation ,” I said, this time with instant regret.

Brooke had titled our shared itinerary “First Wives Club: The Ultimate Divorcation” as a joke.

It made me cringe to hear it in the wild, outside the comfort of our three-person group chat, but I was already blacking out, unable to control my words, slowly exiting the back wall of my body like that meme of Homer Simpson backing into a bush.

Why do you always feel compelled to tell strangers everything about yourself? Shut up, be mysterious!

“Ah,” replied Francis. She nodded and pointed to her chest, then mine, then to hers again, as if she and I were in a secret club for Women with Ample Bosoms.

She guided me toward a rack of shapewear that hung next to the hosiery. Sixties Pixie walked away while Francis tutted to herself.

“Et voilà!” She handed me three different one-pieces—one red, one pink, and a black-and-white floral skirted tankini.

“There you are, dear. There’s a dressing room right here, if you’re ready to try on.”

I could see Noor, basically naked, in the distance. She was wearing a low-cut white swimsuit with a silvery see-through caftan over it, scouring the swim racks with such fierce intensity that I doubted she realized I was gone.

“This is perfect, thank you,” I said, accepting my consolation prize.

I stepped into the pajama section’s dressing room, hung up the suits, rolled my head to both sides, and decided to get straight into it.

The black-and-white floral was something my mom would wear, so I didn’t even bother. Also, a tankini ? Immediate no. I pulled the beanie off my head and shook off my giant coat.

No wonder I’m sweating.

I stretched the turtleneck up over my head, paused to unhook my chin, then birthed myself through its never-ending fabric neck. My hair stood upright in static shock. My chest looked red, angry. I was feeling a little lightheaded. This wasn’t good.

I stepped out of my pants and started to feel a pulse in my right temple.

I couldn’t tell if the thumping noise was the faint pop-club remix meant to lull customers into a shopping trance or my own blood threatening to turn up the anxiety that was already humming steadily in the background.

Shouldn’t a store like this play soothing classical music, or, like, the Bridgerton soundtrack?