The Red Dress at the VFW Hall

The VFW

Our VFW post sits on the edge of town by the grain elevator, a long, low building with a gravel lot.

Inside it is all dark wood paneling, a long bar along one wall, and a tile dance floor that has seen every wedding and every retirement for sixty years.

Marlene had done it up nicely. Somebody had hung white string lights along the walls.

There were long tables with white tablecloths, and an arch of gold and white balloons with a big gold 50 on it.

We pulled into the gravel lot at five minutes to seven. It was a cold October night, the kind where you can smell the harvest dust in the air. The lot was full of pickups and old Buicks.

I sat in the truck for a minute with my coat on over the red dress. I had my hand on the door handle and did not open it.

“We can go home,” Nick said. “Right now. Nobody would blame you.”

“I know,” I said. And then I opened the door.

We walked in together. I took my coat off at the coat rack by the door and hung it up, and I turned around, and there were about 120 people at those tables.

The room did not go quiet all at once. It went quiet in pieces, one table at a time, like a wave going out.

A woman I knew from church put her hand on her husband’s arm. A man at the bar turned around on his stool.

I held on to Nick’s arm and we walked to our table near the front. It was the longest walk of my life, and it was maybe thirty feet.

Marlene

Marlene sat at a front table in a gold blouse I had never seen before.

Her silver bob was fresh from the beauty shop, set and sprayed. Harold sat beside her in a suit that was a little short at the wrists.

She was laughing at something one of her sisters said when she looked up and saw me.

The laugh stopped. She set her fork down on her plate very carefully, the way you do in church.

She looked at my head. Then at Nick’s head. Then back at me. Her face did not change much, but her hand went to the collar of her blouse and stayed there.

I did not wave. I did not glare. I nodded at her, the way you nod at anybody across a room, and I sat down.

I want you to know that. I did not come to make a scene. I came to be at my in-laws’ party without a scarf on.

Harold saw us a second later. His eyebrows went up and he half stood, the way he does when he is about to come over and say something loud and kind.

Marlene put her hand on his sleeve, and he sat back down.

Supper

They served roast beef and mashed potatoes and green beans with the little fried onions on top.

I could not eat much. Food tasted like pennies by then. I moved it around my plate and drank my water.

People came by. That surprised me. Not many, but some. Nick’s cousin Brenda came and hugged me from behind and whispered, “You look beautiful,” and went back to her seat before I could answer.

An old farmer named Walt, who had driven truck with Harold for years, stopped at our table on his way to the bar.

He looked at Nick’s head and said, “Did you lose a bet, son?”

“Something like that,” Nick said.

Walt nodded, and then he looked at me, and he took off his seed cap and held it over his chest for just a second.

He did not say anything. He put the cap back on and walked off to the bar. I had to look down at my plate for a while after that.

I kept glancing at the front table. Marlene did not eat either.

She sat with her hands in her lap and talked when people spoke to her, but she did not look our way again.