If Found Upriver, Please Return to Owner: __________

Girl bought a red strapless dress at a second-hand store in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Red like red hots candy. It would burn the Boy up. He would want to taste her on his tongue. She bought it. She looked gorgeous. Even she thought so. She bought it for him. Bought it for them both. Because he thought she was

Gorgeous.

Anticipation as the shop-keeper folded it and laid it wrapped in tissue in the box, gentle as an infant. She tried it on when she returned. He’d asked to see it. I don’t know when I’m going to wear it, she said looking down at the carpet. He was lying on the bed, stretched out observing her changing. Interested. All the time, he said. As if there was no question.

But she never found the right time. Didn’t get a chance. He didn’t last. He left her before the week was out.

And so she took that strapless red dress off the hanger and she folded it up and placed it back in the box like a now-dead infant and put the box at the top of her closet in the room where he no longer stretched out on the bed and watched her undress. Laid the receipt on top. She couldn’t have returned it anyway. Couldn’t go back and say no, I don’t want this, it won’t be permanent.

Nothing is permanent. She knew that now. You’ll be fine, he said. You’ll reinvent yourself, he said. She just shook her head.

She took the dress down to wear out one night. Determined to show how fine she could be. But it kept slipping down, threatening to expose her. She arrived home and unzipped it. Discovered that the boning had pierced through the fabric it would require mending. Or burial. She folded it

over

under

over:

 

a careful mortician.