Three Ladies in Summer Dresses

By Loretta Morris

Early June in Chicago can be chilly, so when my girlfriends and I decided to go into the city for a night out, we were thrilled when the forecast declared it would be “unseasonably warm,” which translated to the mid 80’s! Hurray! We all immediately dug into the recesses of our closets and pulled out the cute sundresses which had been shoved to the back after a long cold midwestern winter and so-called spring. My dress was navy with pink flowers, which I paired with a pink pastel cardigan. Carol’s was a purplish paisley print with a yellow cardigan. Bonnie’s dress was a geometric black and white. With a white cardigan.

The three of us live in three different Chicago suburbs. We are definitely not of the thinking that Chicago is a scary and dangerous place. We’ll go anywhere. At that time we had started attending small, off-beat theater productions, some terrific and some horrific. Hopefully, the one we chose for our night’s entertainment would be the former. We were headed to the tiny, kitschy Chopin Theater located in a Chicago neighborhood that is both trendy and relatively safe. Bonnie would be the driver for the night.

Off we went. We made our way to Division Street, a busy Chicago artery, and headed east. No reason to get on the always congested Eisenhower Expressway. As we emerged from the tree-lined and peaceful suburban streets and entered the bustling city, we noticed that traffic was slowing down to a crawl. Maybe an accident? Road construction? Fortunately we allowed plenty of time for travel and dinner before the play started.

We also noticed that there were crowds and crowds of people on the sidewalks. There were families with little children in strollers, young teens in groups laughing and jostling each other, adults drinking and eating street food, grandmas and grandpas, school-aged children each vying for attention from their parents, and everyone in between. All were within the same few blocks, and all were enjoying the neighborhood. Being the first really warm night of the summer, and also a Saturday, we figured it wasn’t that unusual. But it didn’t feel usual. It felt like something special was or was about to happen.

The throngs of people grew and the traffic inched along. I was in the back seat, and happened to turn and look out the rear window at the exact time a Chicago traffic officer pulled a wooden barrier across the road just behind us. The car ahead of us flew the red, white, and blue flag of Puerto Rico out its back window, but since we were passing through the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of Humboldt Park we didn’t think much of it. Then we noticed another car had a flag. And another. And they were all honking their horns. And the people on the sidewalks were sitting in lawn chairs, and they were cheering, and music was blaring, and there were Puerto Rican flags hanging from windows and balconies, and…and….. AND WE WERE IN A PARADE!

Somehow we had made our way onto the Chicago Puerto Rican Parade route, and now we were stuck in the middle of it. “What should I do? What should I do?” cried Bonnie. “I can’t turn, the side streets are all blocked off!”

Carol and I burst into laughter, rolled down the windows, and began waving like we were Queens of England, resplendent in our very out-of-place summer outfits. “Start honking your horn, Bonnie,” Carol suggested, and Bonnie rolled down her window, gave a tentative wave to the onlookers, and laid on the horn along with the rest of the procession.

We did receive odd looks from many of the parade-goers who must have been thinking, who are these people in this silver Honda CRV? Who are these three whiter than white suburban women who looked like they just jumped off a page of the summer Talbots catalog?

But that’s who we were. Three ladies in crisp summer dresses and coordinating cardigans in stark contrast to the women on the street in their skin tight jeans and revealing midriff tops, so completely out of our element that it was comical. So we just rolled slowly along the parade route, smiling, waving, and soaking up the joyous atmosphere.

When we reached the end of the route, Bonnie, relieved, unceremoniously drove off and continued on to our destination, all of us still processing what had just happened and breaking into fits of laughter throughout the evening.

And the play? It was titled Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche, and it was terrific. And for the second time in the same night, we were clearly not dressed appropriately.