Los Gatos Weekly-Times

How a dress averted the collision of two queens

By Mary Ann Cook

My dress once met the QE II--the woman, not the ship. I know what you're thinking: Big deal. After all, I wasn't the one wearing the dress when the Queen came to call, so it doesn't add up to any royal hobnobbing points for me. But we live in an image-conscious age, and I was the one who created that particular image, who chose the very dress the queen was received in/with/by.

Here's how my dress achieved celebrity status. My friend Jackie was living in Yosemite. Her husband was president of the company that ran all the concessions, so he was the Big Bear as far as the commercial side of Yosemite went.

"You're the Queen of Rhode Island," I said to Jackie, once I learned Yosemite was the size of Rhode Island. She pooh-poohed the idea, said they lived a simple, quiet life in the woods, facing Half Dome and whatever stars of film or industry happened to be passing through that week. The Pope had even threatened to come to call, but didn't.

In short, she eschewed any claim to power, pomp or circumstance. She often protested there wasn't a competitive bone in her body. Yet in a restaurant if one table was noisier than ours, she would worry, "Are they having more fun than we are?" And if she decided we had been usurped, she would grow suddenly quiet to ponder exactly how to regain our first-in-fun title.

When it came to costuming, though, she really didn't have any competitive blood coursing through her veins. After all, her husband never wore a tie, and she hardly ever had to don cocktail finery, which is how I got into the act. Because she lived in what is the equivalent of an island, because it was a long and tortured drive to the couture shops of Oakhurst, and because she didn't like to shop, she was always on the shorts when it came to being decked out for fussier occasions, like receiving heads of state, cabinet members or the ruling junta of the Hells Angels.

So when Queen Elizabeth II chose a stay in Yosemite as part of her U.S. visit some years ago, my friend had to carefully appraise her wardrobe. She looked with trepidation, but she emerged triumphant, bearing a dress fit for a queen and fit for dining with a queen. It was a dress I had bought her in thanks for a trip we had taken together. A bit unusual for a hostess gift, perhaps, but I knew how inaccessible shopping was for her. Little did I dream the dress would assume a position of historic significance.

A dress you buy for another has to cover a lot of bases. It has to fit not only the recipient's frame, but her frame of mind--what she figures she looks good in. Jackie had said she was delighted with the dress, but when I heard it was going to meet the queen I had proof positive of its success. "My" dress was chosen to be the very vehicle to confront royalty in. Here was an honor I never dreamed possible! Imagine my pride in dining with the Queen! Well, not me exactly, but close, nearly as close as a zipper.

The route of the dress was relayed to me in exquisite detail. It would be seated in the royal suite of the Ahwanee, at a table set for six. Three heads of state and their wives or husband would be present: the one who reigned over England and its dominion; the one who reigned over the trees and tundra and the one who reigned over the Yosemite cash registers.

My friend wasn't worried at all about conversing with Q. Elizabeth. After all, they had much in common. They were both having trouble getting sons settled down in a life's work with a suitable partner. And they were both renovating homes. When Elizabeth extended an invitation to Buckingham Palace, Jackie returned the favor by urging Liz to extend her itinerary to include a stop at Bass Lake. She and her husband had just purchased a fixer-upper at Bass Lake that was so abhorrent to most eyes that when it was being shown, the real estate agent said to me, sotto voce, "Only Jackie would see any redeeming features in this dump."

With so much commonality, conversation while dining a la reine should prove no problem. As for protocol, the hosts had been coached ahead of time on that. It wasn't protocol but alcohol that worried her. The queen, she knew, often had a glass of wine with dinner, and she wanted to join her in this custom.

But, when nervous, my friend tended to excesses, and she was bound to be nervous when facing off with another queen. In short, she feared she would gulp such quantities of liquid, all unwittingly, that she would be in no condition to be a contender on the chessboard of diplomacy. So she opted for the liquor she liked the least in all the world. And because it was so distasteful and so foreign she sipped it sensibly and sparingly.

But I don't think it was pink wine that saved the day, it was me, with that dress. Because she looked so staggeringly good, my friend's confidence level shot up, driving out her former nervousness. A reassuring glance in the mirror quelled the butterflies, relaxed the stiffness of the situation. Thus was the feared collision of two queens with wildly differing alcohol intakes successfully averted.

With this legacy behind me, I'm negotiating now to be wardrobe consultant for the Other Queen, the one who wears those clunky shoes and purses. Just think what that could do for the value of the pound, the success of the Common Market and the speed of the Chunnel.

Mary Ann Cook is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.