The Perfect Dress

The shop had been there as long as Lily could remember. She thought back to when she was seven years old and her sister took her there for the first time. It was enormous, with frosted glass windows and pointy spires on the roof, like miniature church steeples. She had paid particularly great attention to the door. It was a large wooden door with an oval-shaped, stained-glass picture of a pink and red rose. The glass met the door in perfectly smooth connection. The handle curved outward and then down, like a swan, craning its neck to eat the last crumb of bread thrown at its feet. A small lever above the handle would release the lock and it clicked when you held it down with your thumb. The door made an eerie creaking sound when it opened, almost like the doors in the scary movies, but this door wasn’t scary.

All the women inside had treated her like a little princess. She watched her sister try on dress after dress; she sat in a huge chair upholstered in red velvet with little buttons pulling the fabric inward. She caressed the fabric with her finger, imprinting the feel of the fabric into her hand. She was given a box of jellybeans which she laid in her lap and fished out her favorite flavors. She pushed the gross ones into the hollow spaces underneath the buttons of the chair. One lady let her try on a small tiara from the glass case near the register.

Lily took a deep breath; it was her turn to get married. It was her turn to wear the beautiful dresses and model them in the mirror. This is the moment she had waited for so many years. She let her deep breath go and pushed the lever on the door which clicked and opened with a slight rush of air. The breeze brushed across her face and the smell of cedar and licorice invigorated her mind with more memories of the past. She closed her eyes and remembered her sister asking her to watch the dresses and to tell her which ones were her favorites. Her sister promised her that someday she would come back with Lily to pick out her own dress.

Lily was interrupted by the voice of a woman.

“How can I help you dear?”

The woman was in her early nineties at best and had her gray hair pushed back into a tight bun. Winged glasses hung from a string on her neck. She appeared to be blind in one eye and, from what Lily could deduce from the way she adjusted her ears, was probably mostly deaf as well, but she had the most endearing smile Lily had ever seen.

“I’m Lily. I had a four o’clock appointment. I know I am a little early.”

“Not a problem dear, just sign the register and have a seat. It shouldn’t be long.”

Lily walked over to the counter and signed the register, just like her sister had done so many years before her. She took a seat near the window and looked outside. The dress shop sat at the bottom of a steep hill, elm trees lined the sidewalk, and rose bushes were planted on both sides of the trees. The road coming down the hill stopped at the shop and turned to the north and south. Across from the shop, to the south, was an ancient, red-brick apartment building. Gargoyles perched on each corner, their grisly faces smiling at her and giving her their congratulations. Across from the red brick building, to the north, was a church. Also ancient, it was badly in need of repair, with rusted drain pipes and dirty, broken windows, the paint was peeling and at least two other layers of different colored paint showed beneath it. It reminded her of her mother, a deeply religious woman, frail and falling apart, but holding strong to her faith. She remembered when her sister had died and her mother told her, in her heavy southern accent, “It was her time to go. She had learned the truth about life, the secret that all humans yearn to discover, and when someone becomes enlightened with God and the truth, that is when he takes them away to be with him.”

The thought had shaken Lily to her core. She didn’t want to be enlightened, and she didn’t want anyone to take her away. Her sister never even had a chance to wear her dress and it yellowed and wrinkled in her mother’s closet for years. Her mother sold the dress at a garage sell for fifty dollars. It was then that Lily stopped listening in church.

Shortly afterward her mother died and she stopped going to church altogether. Lily didn’t want to think about it anymore, not on this day, the day of her wedding dress. She looked at the church again, but this time focused on the garden around it. The garden itself seemed not to notice the broken down house of worship, the dahlias glowing with pride, the marigolds singing out praises to the sun, and the lilies laughing like children on the first day of summer. It was a breezy autumn day, but the sun was shining and it was a perfect day to be planning the best day of her life.

Only a few moments had passed before the elderly lady came and tapped her on the shoulder. She was taken behind a large purple drape and racks of dresses were brought out. Another woman came to assist her, this one looking more like someone Lily could have gone to school with, in her mid twenties, with red hair and not a pinch of fat on her body.

“Hi, I’m Darla,” the woman introduced herself. “I’ve already picked a few out that I thought you might like.”

For the next hour and a half Darla and Lily picked and talked and tried on dresses. A-lines, mermaids, empires, columns, ball gowns, flowered, beaded, sparkling sequins, sleeveless, backless, Lily tried them all- Lily was poked and measured and abused in new ways she could never have imagined, but it would all be worth it when she found the right dress.

Then she saw it.

It was elegance in white, off the shoulder, but not sleeveless. It was long and flowed past her feet in silky waves around her as if to hold her up statuesque. There were patterns embroidered along the breast like the fiery breath of a dragon, and the sleeves were so soft and light you could see right through them. The sleeves attached to her hands by the middle finger, and lily of valley, fitting for her name, was etched into the sleeves at the portion that covered her palms. It was simple, it was mind blowing, it was sexy, it was modest, but most of all, it was perfect.

“Now you’ll have to pick out shoes, and did you want any accessories?” asked Darla. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to need much tailoring, it’s like it was made for you,” she laughed.

“It’s perfect,” whispered Lily. “Can I take it outside and see it in the light?”

“Of course! So many of our brides have outdoor weddings, but you’ll have to have Ethel escort you.”

Ethel, the elderly woman in the waiting room, walked back to the front with Lily and escorted her outside into the light. The day was moving along and the light was going to be fading fast. Soon the sunset would explode in purples and oranges across the clouds in the almost clear sky.

Lily walked along the sidewalk and looked around herself. She admired her image in the windows reflection. She took the sides of the dress and twirled like a little girl, like the little girl who had admired her sister several years earlier. It was her turn and it was perfect. This is what she would wear when she became Mrs. Bennett. No, not just Mrs. Bennett, but Mrs. Andrew Bennett.

A man came running down the steep hill, breaking her concentration, galloping awkwardly at high speed. He was yelling something, to no one in particular, but it wasn’t quite audible. It was as if he was speaking to the heavens. The wind had picked up and she strained her ears to listen to him.

He seemed to be running right at her and he was waving frantically in the air. He was noticeably distressed, yet not upset. She wanted to call out, but, "what does a person say to a complete stranger?" she asked herself.

The man stopped yelling. He slowed his pace as he reached the intersection where the road turned to the north and south. He stopped, bending over with his hand on his knee, catching his breath. He looked right at her, his gaze penetrating the weak spot in her neck where her breath would get caught when she cried. His face reminded Lily of someone who was so determined, so sure, someone who needed a brief moment to question his own reality. The look he held was so familiar.

"I know," he mouthed to her as clarity encompassed his elightened face and, quickly picking up his pace, he ran into the intersection.

“I know the answer to…,” he said, directed at Lily, but before he could even finish his sentence a truck hit him with full force. Witnesses would later say that the truck couldn’t stop. That it impacted and continued plummeting down the street, crushing the man beyond recognition.

A spatter of blood stained the left side of Lily’s dress. The larger drops of blood landed in the center of her shoulder and spread out, getting smaller and finer, creating a misty dust of red on her back and breasts, bring the dragon's fire-breath pattern to life.

"I love it," Lily told Ethel, “it’s just perfect.”

Lily bought the dress.