The Dress My Neighbor Wore Saturday
Gary straightened up. He looked at his wife. She was standing in the middle of her own patio in a lace dress with her hands clasped at her waist.
“She does a lot of ordering,” he said slowly. “She said she sends back what doesn’t suit. I never looked. Why would I look?”
“Gary, don’t,” Vicki said. It was the first time her voice had changed.
He looked at her a moment longer. Then he walked down the driveway to the front of the garage, bent, and ran the big door up by hand.
Nobody told us to follow him. Forty people simply set their plates down and went.
His truck was parked on the left. The whole right-hand bay, where her car should have been, was boxes. They were stacked against the back wall higher than my head, and on a set of metal shelves, and in two rows across the floor. Some were opened and emptied and flattened. Most were not opened at all.
Seven months of them.
Gary stood there with his arms hanging. I do not think I have ever seen a man’s face do what his did.
Then he picked up the nearest box and read the label out loud.
“Carol and Tom. 1420.”
He set it down on the driveway and picked up the next.
“Brenda. 1402.”
“Jeff and Kim. 1411.”
“Lori. 1407.”
“Lori. 1407.”
“Lori. 1407.”
He kept going. He did not stop and nobody stopped him. People came forward one at a time as their names were called, like children at an awards day, and stood by their little piles.
Carol opened hers right there on the concrete. It was a framed photograph, a canvas print of her first great-grandbaby in a christening gown. She had ordered it in July and then ordered it again.
She held it against her chest and did not say anything at all. Tom put his arm around her.
“I was keeping them safe,” Vicki said. She had followed us down and was standing at the edge of the garage, in the light. “With all the stealing going on. I was going to give them back. I was holding them.”
“For seven months, Vicki?” Brenda said. That was all. In her fourth grade teacher voice.
“I held the ladder,” Vicki said to me. I do not know why she said that. I think she meant it as proof that she was my friend.
“You did,” I said.
That was when a car door shut out on the circle, and I heard my daughter’s voice.
“Sorry we’re late! Kyle’s mother would not let us leave without a casserole.”
Amber came up the driveway in her jeans and her WKU sweatshirt with a foil pan in her hands, Kyle a step behind her. She was smiling. Then she saw the crowd, and the garage, and the boxes on the ground.
Then she saw Vicki.
She stopped walking. The smile went off her face in pieces.
“Mom,” she said. “That’s your dress.”
“Amber, honey, no,” Vicki said. “Gary bought me this. For our anniversary.”
“I never bought that,” Gary said. He did not even turn around. He was still holding a box. “I never bought you a dress in my life, Vicki. You know I wouldn’t know how.”