The Secret Lives of Dresses (20 page)

D
ora was up in plenty of time to shower and take a little extra time choosing a dress from the closet. Today’s was a deep-plum mandarin-collared shirtdress with gray piping along the placket. Dora dropped her lip balm into one pocket, and a clean handkerchief into the other, and grabbed a gray cardigan before going downstairs to make coffee. She tiptoed past Camille’s door, but heard nothing but deep, resonant snores coming from within.

Con was there, right on time, at seven. He didn’t honk, but he didn’t have to, because Dora was watching at the window for his truck. She carried out two travel mugs of coffee.

“You like it black, right?” she said, as she climbed into the truck. The seat didn’t seem so high today.

“I do, and I thank you. I’ll have to call my regular coffee place and let them know I’m not dead, though. They worry if I don’t come in.”

“No rule against drinking two cups of coffee, you know.”

In the quiet of the early morning Dora and Con were quiet, too. Forsyth’s glorious fall was almost over. The leaves left on the trees were flaming red and orange, the gutters full of fallen leaves.

They were nearly at the shop before Con spoke. “I like your dress,” he said. “It suits you.”

“Thank you. Mimi picked it out for me.”

“She has a good eye.”

Dora didn’t know what to say, but luckily they were already at Mimi’s shop. “Here we are,” he said, as his phone rang.

“Yes, Mrs. Featherston, I’m right downstairs now. . . . Be right up. . . .” He waved as Dora hopped out. She waved back, a bit limply, as he drove around the corner.

Tuesday was busy. Dora spent the time before opening setting out new stock and refilling the racks, and she was glad she had. She sold four dresses, a suit, a handbag, and a pair of 1950s stilettos before they’d been open an hour. None had had a secret life. Dora had been so sure that one of the dresses (a wool sheath with a complicated, fussy neckline, in a strident royal blue) would have one, but there was nothing in the file. It was a dress for a bossy woman, but the customer who had tried it on had been hesitant, asking Dora question after question. Did it fit quite right in the shoulders? Could she really wear something this bright? Would she have the right shoes? What kind of jewelry would you wear with that neckline? Dora answered all the questions truthfully, as best she could, but she knew there was some underlying unarticulated question that Mimi would have known how to elicit. Even though the woman bought the dress, Dora felt like they were both left vaguely dissatisfied with the sale.

Dora even started jotting down a few notes about the dress and its secret life on the back of one of the store postcards (“Bossy woman?—Meeting debacle?—never worn again?”) before a gaggle of high-school girls came in and swallowed her attention. Things stayed busy until Maux showed up at lunchtime, and by then Dora had to run out to the bank for change.

“Usually bank robbers go for larger bills,” a deep voice from over her shoulder interjected as Dora juggled three rolls of quarters and tried to jam a stack of singles into her pocket.

Startled, Dora dropped a roll of quarters, and it landed on the terrazzo with a thud. Stooping to pick it up, Dora found herself facing Con.

“It’s not a dropped handkerchief, but at least allow me the trivial courtesy of retrieving your . . . laundry money?”

“It’s for the shop—we’ve had a crazy morning. Mimi used to say Tuesdays were good days, but I had no idea it would be this busy. Thanks again for the ride, by the way.”

“Not a problem, happy to do it.” Con gestured to the ATM line. “I’d better take my place—if I don’t get cash I can’t buy the boys lunch, and I like to do that if they’re going to spend the afternoon taking out the cabinets they installed yesterday. Do you need a ride to the hospital tonight?”

“Gabby’s going to take me, actually, on her way to some meeting or other.” Dora looked down at the bank floor. “I should just drive down here, but Mimi always went to ridiculous lengths for car-pooling. . . . She hated driving more than absolutely necessary. I mean, I don’t think she hated the driving, as much as the parking. Every time I drove to the store I could see her thinking that it was one less parking space for a paying customer.”

Con laughed. “I can see that. The Featherstons are rabid on the subject of parking around here. They’re always complaining that the building doesn’t have enough spaces.”

“What, they can’t just buy them?”

“They’ve tried. Nobody’s selling. Everyone in the building has figured out that if they sell their parking space separately, they’ll never resell their condo. And even the Featherstons aren’t rich enough to buy a whole apartment just for the parking space. Yet.” Con shrugged. “Anyway I might stop by at the hospital tonight, if you don’t mind. I thought I was going to have to work late, but Mrs. Featherston still hasn’t decided on her molding, so we should be done by six, at the latest.” Con gave her a questioning look.

“And for tonight’s distraction—what do you think of bowling? We could grab pizza there, or something, unless you owe Camille a dinner to make up for yesterday.” He smiled at her. “Evenings after the hospital were always the worst for me. I’d eat a frozen burrito and watch reruns of
SportsCenter
, and that’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone.”

“Did you thaw them first?” Dora smiled. “The burritos?”

“Mostly. Sometimes they were a little cold in the middle. So tonight? Bowling?” He paused. “Unless you’d rather watch
SportsCenter
?”

“No, no
SportsCenter
for me.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you at the hospital. See you then—and, look”—Con nodded towards the security guard, who was busy flirting with one of the tellers—“I think you can still make a clean getaway.”

“Got it. Don’t rat me out, now, you hear?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Dora turned to let a shuffling man, who must have been creeping up on eighty, rearrange his cane and adjust his hat before graciously accepting his offer of an opened door. Her skirts swished as she walked by, and the heels of her loafers clacked pleasantly on the floor of the lobby.

Maux was swamped at the register and sent Dora a look of exasperation as she came in the door. “What took you so long?”

“Ran into someone at the bank. You know, people asking about Mimi.”

“People?”

“Con.”

“Oh, you mean
Beefcake
. He’s dreeeeamy.” Maux’s singsong made Dora laugh.

“We’re going bowling tonight, after the hospital. He has this distraction karma to pay off, or something.”

“Really?”

“Are you surprised at the bowling? Or that I’m going with Con?”

“Well, a little of both. You’re a terrible bowler. And aren’t you supposed to be alternately moping and scheming about that boss of yours?”

“Gary?” Now Dora sounded surprised. “I didn’t even think about Gary.”

“Now, that’s surprising.”

Dora was about to protest, but then she saw a girl heading for the dressing room with a fragile thirties silk dress that, conservatively, was three sizes smaller than she was. Dora ran to go talk her out of trying it on.

“That was well done,” Maux said later, when the rush had finally died down. “I hate to discourage people from trying things on, but she was going to demolish that dress.”

“I told her it was mislabeled as a ten when it was really a six, and that I’d been meaning to re-mark it all day. Then I showed her that red ruffle dress.”

“The 1970s one that looks like nothing on the hanger but great when you have it on?”

“Yep, that one. She bought it.” Dora tried not to look too pleased with herself.

“Did it have a secret life? I always thought that one would.”

“Wait, did everyone but me know about the secret lives?” Dora tried to sound like she was joking.

Maux looked uncomfortable. “Um, I didn’t know Mimi hadn’t told you. She’d just started giving them away—she called it her new project. Honestly, Mimi didn’t really make a big deal out of them. It was like the auto-body shop giving out calendars, or something. Just a business thing.”

“Right. Short stories about dresses, refrigerator magnets, totally the same thing. Did Mimi write them?”

“I think so, but she’s never come out and said it. You know Mimi, she wouldn’t take the credit even if she’d brought about world peace.”

“Hmmm.” Dora was still trying to figure out what she thought about the secret lives. “I forgot to look.” Dora turned to the spindle that held the completed receipts. “It was number nine oh five—want to check?”

“Oh, yeah.” Maux sounded satisfied. “It’s got one, I knew it!”

 

Maux folded the secret life and put it carefully back in the envelope. There was something weird about her left hand. Dora was about to ask if Maux had hurt herself when she noticed that what she’d thought was an injury was Maux, admiring a large new ring.

“Maux?” Dora looked pointedly at Maux’s hand.

“Ha, I won!” Maux almost shouted. Dora was confused.

“Harvey thought that, with everything going on—you know—you wouldn’t notice the ring before closing today. I told him you were like Mimi, you notice everything . . . but I was starting to worry, Dora.”

“You’re . . .” Comprehension snuck in.

“Engaged!” Maux threw some of the desk postcards in the air like confetti.

“Congratulations! I mean, how wonderful!” Dora rushed to hug Maux, who accepted it with good grace.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Mimi you congratulated a bride,” Maux smirked. “I must have heard her say a thousand times that you felicitate a bride and congratulate a groom, although I have no idea why there’s a difference.”

“Oh, she explained it to me once,” Dora said. “You congratulate a groom because you congratulate someone for achievements, and he is supposed to achieve you. The other way around sounds like what Mimi called ‘husband-hunting.’”

Maux snorted. “Then you can congratulate the hell out of me. I landed Harvey and I’m gonna keep him.”

“So . . . how did he propose? Do his parents know?”

Maux sighed. “That whole rigamarole of going out to dinner with them two nights in a row was because Harvey dicked around and muffed the proposal before the first dinner. He was all set to propose to me at the fountain, you know the one downtown, and he forgot the ring! His parents had been in on it, and that dinner was supposed to be our let’s-celebrate dinner, and then he had to take them aside and tell them that he hadn’t proposed. So then we did it all over again the next night. Only this time, he remembered the ring!”

“So let me see it!” Dora grabbed for Maux’s hand. The ring was a black piece of onyx, cut like a traditional diamond in a prong setting.

“Wow.” The ring was disturbingly beautiful—like Maux. “Harvey did a good job.”

“Yeah, we’re not actually diamond people, you know. I think they generally look like shit. And Harvey has such strong goth connections—he had a friend make this for us.” Maux held her hand out and regarded it. “Needless to say, I love it. And him. And I’m getting married!”

Dora and Maux talked wedding details the rest of the afternoon, in between customers. Maux even looked at Mimi’s rack of wedding dresses, which she kept in the back room—strictly by appointment only.

“Too soon,” she said, fingering a satin column. “I gotta get used to the idea first.”

Maux insisted on helping Dora with the closing. “You’ve been doing too much,” she said. “Harv and I are going out tonight to do a little engagement celebration with our friends, but it won’t start until late. I’ve got plenty of time.”

She tidied and cleaned and even hauled out the vacuum cleaner, while Dora did the register tally. It had been a good day.

Maux had just left when Gabby rushed in. It was only a few minutes after six, but Gabby apologized as if it had been midnight.

“I just don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, Dora,” she said, shaking her head. “I swear, if my head wasn’t attached I would leave it on the bus. Not that I take the bus. On the front seat of the car, maybe?”

Gabby looked at Dora, consideringly. “That’s a good dress, Dora. Did you have a good day in it?”

That was so much like something Mimi would say that Dora couldn’t answer. She only nodded. She took a few deep breaths. “It was a great day—I’ll tell you all about it. What did you do today?”

“Oh, this and that,” said Gabby, airily. “Errands. You know.” She seemed disinclined to elaborate.

Dora locked up and pocketed the keys. “Well, here’s the big news; Maux and Harvey are engaged!”

“Don’t that beat all!” Gabby looked genuinely pleased. She sniffled a little. Gabby almost always got a bit teary at just the mention of a wedding.

“Here’s the funny thing: Maux has this huge ring, of course, but it’s an onyx cut to look like a diamond, in a Tiffany-style setting, and everything. It’s amazing. I’m sure she can’t wait for you to see it.” Dora smiled. “But that’s not the funny part—it took me until way late in the day before I even noticed it!”