The Secret Lives of Dresses (7 page)

When he picked me up from the cleaners, I was a little surprised, but not much. I try not to have any expectations. I don’t think
, I’m going to be worn on Tuesday,
and then get all snagged because she wears the gray dress instead, you know? Makes things smoother. Anyway, he was always doing little nice things for her, like bringing her flowers he’d picked himself, or drawing her little doodles, or cutting out funny articles from the newspaper for her.

But there are some expectations you have, whether you have them deliberately or not. Like, if you leave a full closet, you expect to go back to a full closet. Not to be hanging there all by your lonesome, with only a bunch of naked hangers and a single tattered scarf for company.

He called out “Sylvie?” when he brought me back to their apartment. He had nudged the door open with his hip; I was in one hand and a shopping bag was in the other, and there was an awkward loaf of French bread sticking out of the bag that did nothing but get in the way. I thought I heard some bottles clink, too. Maybe wine, maybe that bottled beer she liked. Likes, I mean.

The apartment—it didn’t really seem at first glance that anything had changed, but then you saw the holes. The silver-framed picture of her mother wasn’t on the mantelpiece, and the little rocking chair wasn’t in the corner. I could see into the kitchen and the new toaster was gone, although the old percolator was still there. She didn’t drink coffee.

I think he saw those things, or the lack of those things, when I did, or even sooner. He dropped the shopping bag, but he held on to me. He just said “No,” in a sort of sighing, resigned way. It was a “no” that never had a chance of being a “yes.”

He walked from the parlor through the whole apartment, leaving the shopping bag slumped on its side just inside the open door. I didn’t know why he carried me around instead of throwing me over a chair, as she usually did, but he did, even holding me high so I wouldn’t drag on the floor.

Her silver candlesticks weren’t on the sideboard in the dining room, and her little jars of cream and powder were gone from the bathroom. Her robe wasn’t on the hook on the back of the bedroom door. Her suitcase wasn’t under the bed, and the drawers of the dresser weren’t shut all the way. The book he’d given her for her birthday was still on the nightstand, though. I guess she forgot it, even though she hadn’t finished it. The bookmark stuck out, only a few pages in.

He looked in the closet last of all, and then he hung me up there. I thought he would just shove me into the middle of all the empty hangers, but he hung me all the way to one side, the way she liked to.

I don’t know how long I’ve been hanging here by myself; it’s hard to tell the days when the closet isn’t opened every morning. He’s opened the closet twice, but the room’s been dark, both times, and he isn’t dressed for work when he does open the closet. I mean, he’s wearing street clothes, not pajamas, but they’re all rumpled and not very clean, either.

When he would go to meet her at her office he’d be very nicely dressed. “Have to compete with that clotheshorse Phil at your agency,” I heard him say to her once, when she told him it was nice to see him in a tie, for a change. It was supposed to be a joke, that bit about Phil, but I don’t think he was joking.

Phil really did know about clothes. He once told her that my color brought out her eyes. That was nice to hear. You like to be flattering, you know? She didn’t seem to mind hearing that, either.

He didn’t say that, about me and her eyes, in the office, though. He said it at the restaurant they were in. I was happy he said that, because when they went in she had said, “Oh, Phil, this place is a bit ritzy, isn’t it, and me in an office dress?” and then he had said that thing about my color and her eyes. I’ve tried, but I can’t remember exactly what he said. I remember how he said it, kind of in a low, rumbly voice, not at all the way he talked at the office.

The restaurant was pretty fancy, fancier than any I’d ever been in, with flowers on the tables, and white tablecloths, and waiters with long aprons and funny accents. They even had wine with their lunch. It wasn’t the kind of place where she usually had lunch while wearing me. That’s why I was at the cleaners—Phil made her laugh so much during lunch that her glass wobbled and a couple of drops hit my skirt.

The cleaners got out the spots. She’ll be so happy when she comes back.