When I was pregnant with Nat, I had a dream about him, and I saw him clearly, a two-year-old boy, standing in my sister’s room in my childhood home, laughing and running away from me. I can still see him as plain as day, Dream Nat, on my sister’s kelly green shag carpet (we grew up in the 70’s after all; mine was orange). He looked exactly the way he ended up looking, as a toddler. Even so, I did not believe the dream at the time and I continued to imagine that I was going to have a girl.<\/p>\n
Well, we all know the end of that fairy tale. I did not ever have a girl. But what a set of boys I had! And how appropriate that Nat, my oldest, would be the first to go to a prom, even though a few have been offered to Max already (but Max is determinedly Alternative, and sneers at things like proms).<\/p>\n
Yesterday, however, we learned that Nat’s school had messed up in terms of obtaining the tuxes for the boys. I was mad. I said out loud, “There is no way in hell that Nat is not going to have a tux for his prom.” And I knew that was true. But how would I do it? I had three hours to get him a tux, in the middle of June, wedding season. I frantically called tuxedo places, but the only one that answered at 9 on a Saturday morning was Read and White<\/a>. The only place that was not part of some big chain, the only place that is not a “Wearhouse,” (such an attractive place to get clothing from) or the name of a hemorhoid-soothing pad.<\/p>\n Like Dorothy, I asked the Read and White guy, in a panic, “Will you help us? Can you help us?” As if he were the wizard, the man behind the curtain. He was just so calm and soft-spoken, that I calmed down, too.<\/p>\n We drove over there and we were the only customers in the store. The 60-ish man behind the counter understood everything right away — everything and everyone — and with the same laid-back voice he’d used on the phone, he began getting Nat the pieces of his tux. He would whip out the tape measure and try to get a bead on Nat’s shoulders or waist, just in time before Nat would dance away on one of his treks around the shop. He instructed me to pick out a vest — so many lovely colors! — in a size Small of course, and Ned helped Nat get on his pants. I chose a pale baby blue.<\/p>\n This man was like a magical being, who materialized just when we needed him. A Fairy Godfather. Just puttering in his shop, transforming Nat for his prom. Bibbity bobbity boo.<\/p>\n Eventually all of the parts came together and Nat emerged from the dressing room. He looked like the young Robert Redford, in The Great Gatsby<\/span><\/a>, I realized, and said that to Ned, who just laughed at me. But he really did. I had an odd feeling, something like deja vu. Then, as I was buttoning up the last of the vest buttons, I felt a song in my head, the one from Sleeping Beauty. <\/span>So I said, “Why, it’s my dream prince!” and then I started singing, “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream.”<\/span> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a flash I remembered when I did, indeed, walk with Nat once upon a dream.<\/p>\n
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![The Great Gatsby<\/span><\/a>, I realized, and said that to Ned, who just laughed at me. But he really did. I had an odd feeling, something like deja vu. Then, as I was buttoning up the last of the vest buttons, I felt a song in my head, the one from Sleeping Beauty. <\/span>So I said, “Why, it’s my dream prince!” and then I started singing,<\/span><\/p>\n“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream.”<\/span> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a flash I remembered when I did, indeed, walk with Nat once upon a dream.<\/p>\n](\"http:\/\/nobodysperfectmom.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/02\/robert-redford1.jpg\"){kind=link}