Martha was reaching into her carpetbag again.
“So I brought her a changing room.” She flapped open a large curtain and gave one end to Tony. “Where’s Kate? Here, Kate, please hold this.” Kate stepped forward to take the other end.
“Now we’ll just pop behind here, and Sandra can try on her new dress. Tony, make sure you face the other way!” The guests laughed again.
But Sandra balked.
“No, I can’t, Martha. Not here. Not like this. Please.”
Martha’s face fell.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Oh, Martha, I love it!” Love it! shouted the sound system. Sandra switched the microphone off.
“Martha, it’s so beautiful. It’s such a generous gift. I don’t know what to say. But it’s special. I need to be private about it.” There were tears in Sandra’s eyes.
“Oh!” said Martha. “Is that all? That’s all right, then.” She took the microphone back from Sandra and flicked the switch on.
“Sorry to disappoint you, folks. You’re not going to see it on her after all. But we’ll give you a preview.” She took the dress and held it up against Sandra by the shoulders, moving around behind her so everyone could see. Kate gave her end of the curtain to Tony and began clapping. The appreciation gathered momentum. The crowd cheered and whistled.
“OK, that’s it,” said Martha, when the noise subsided. “If you want a closer look we’ll hang it from this curtain rail. Now that’s the end of the speeches. There’s more food and drinks, so please help yourselves.”
“Who’s running this show?” asked Sandra, recovering enough to laugh.
“Us,” said Martha. “You and me.”
IT WAS a late night. Sandra, Kate, and Martha had done most of the catering themselves, and there was a lot to clean up. Much to Martha’s amusement, Sandra changed into sneakers and ran around collecting glasses in her shimmery green dress. Sandra and Kate washed up. Martha repacked Sandra’s new dress in its tissue paper, then swept the hall floor. Kate offered to take Martha home, but Sandra wanted to do it herself.
At Martha’s front gate Sandra turned off the engine.
“Martha, it was a great success. Thank you so much for all your hard work over the months. And I owe you an apology.”
“It’s OK, Sandra.”
But Sandra rattled on. “I know I pressured you too much. I said I was doing it for you, but it was for me, really. I just get fixated on things; I don’t see that people around me are hurting. You got so sick. I’m really sorry for the pain I caused you. I really am.”
“Sandra, it’s all in the past.”
But Sandra couldn’t stop. “Anyway, you should do really well now. Those garments created a lot of interest—and people loved the horse. And the dress! The dress! Did you see how people were drawn to it? Oh, Martha, it’s such an extravagant gift. I don’t deserve it. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Martha opened her car door, got out, then leaned back in and kissed Sandra on the cheek.
“Sandra, it takes two to tango. I should have looked after myself better. And about that dress; make sure you put it on. It was always meant for you. It’s for wearing, that dress, even if you don’t go out in it. But you must wear it.”
Sandra would have kept talking, yabbering on, but Martha shut the car door firmly and let herself through her own front door without looking back.
THE house was cold, so Sandra turned on the heat. She was still buzzing; there was no way she would sleep yet. She ran a long deep bath and soaked. When she got out, her skin was as rosy and soft as a child’s. She dried herself and walked naked through the warm house to where Martha’s box still sat on the kitchen table. She untied the blue ribbon a second time and took out the dress.
Fine and light and soft as it was, the dress had more substance than Sandra remembered. Carefully, shyly almost, she let it fall over her head. She felt the shift of balance as it settled around her, the shoulders perfectly in place, the sleeves exactly the right length, the firm enfolding of her bosom, the easy draping to the touch of warmth at her ankle.
The dress held her.
She walked slowly back to the bedroom. The dress gathered around, propelled her forward to where the feathers flew upward on the walls. In the mirror she saw immediately that some transformation had taken place. Something rigid and unyielding had softened and become beautiful.
She did a small pirouette, watching herself in the mirror. It was dangerous, this dress: it made you feel like a princess.
It took her a long time, but in the end she found it, Jack’s CD of Weber’s Invitation. She put the disc in the player and stood in the center of the living room, listening, with tears in her eyes, to the courteous invitation of the cello, the woodwind’s cautious response. She hardly knew whether to laugh or weep. The cello persisted; it was almost time for the waltz. Sandra took a deep breath, curtsied her acceptance, and stepped into the pattern of the dance.
Acknowledgments
A book is never written in isolation. My thanks to my beloved friend and husband, Russell, for faith, hope, love, and holding; to my children, David, Daniel, Michael, and Elisabeth, for joy, laughter, and expanding horizons; to Jane Rosenman, Bob Wyatt, Peg Anderson, and Nicola Young for incisive editing; to Nicholas Jose for generous mentoring; to the University of Adelaide for the support of its creative writing program, particularly through the dedicated work of Susan Hosking and Tom Shapcott; to Joy Harris and her literary agency team for energetic care; to Julie Watts for holding open the door and to Clare Forster for the welcome; to the visual artists Holly Story (“Dolly Varden”), Anne Farren (“Shiro Kuro,” man’s shirt), Halka Marsáková (“Lace Raincoat”), Ruby Brilliant (“And Death”), Lindsay Obermeyer (sweater with fifteen-foot sleeves), Bronwen Sandland (“Housecosy”), and photographer Reg Morrison (“Knitter”) for rich inspiration; to Mary Jose, Kay Lawrence, Neville Carlier, and Eric Jorve for generous specialist support; to Pat Lawton for letting me rewrite a childhood story; to my mother for arranging books to come to the country by train and for insisting that I learn to knit “properly”; to my aunts Rita and Bessie, both knitters, who bequeathed to me my grandmother’s Bakelite knitting needle box; to the countless women and men with whom I have shared friendship and/or knitting, particularly my daughter, Elisabeth, my sister Beryl, Chimene O’Rafferty, Cathie Sharp, Bev Priest, and Maureen Harris; to Ian Bone, Ray Tyndale, Lesley Williams, Jan Harrow, Mandy Treagus, Julie Ireland, Patrick Allington, Malcolm Walker, Tony Bujega, Sabina Hopfer, and Christopher Lappas for sharing the writing journey; to Laurel Carpenter and Yvonne Elson and my mother again for their prayers. And thanks be to God.
About the Author
ANNE BARTLETT spent her childhood in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. While raising her four children, now grown, she worked as an editor, a ghostwriter, and a feature writer as well as knitting original creations for clothing designers. She recently finished a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Adelaide. She lives with her husband, who has been a pastor for more than twenty years, in South Australia.
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