The Secret Lives of Dresses (14 page)

Dora squinched her face tight, to keep from crying. Her eyes were full, but anger was holding them as reservoirs for some future need. If Adam was going to be a big crybaby, Dora wasn’t.

“It’s not true, it’s not true,” Dora gasped. “I am not an orfin. I don’t need a mama, I don’t need a daddy, I have a Mimi.”

“Dora, Dora.” Miss Angela was giving her a hug. “It’s okay. Why don’t you sit here for a minute, and then we’ll see how you feel.”

Dora was left in the chair while Miss Angela went to the phone.

“Dora, guess what? Mimi is going to come, and you are going to go home for the afternoon. We’ll see you again tomorrow.”

“But my picture!”

Miss Angela didn’t understand. “Don’t worry, Dora, we can put your picture up with all the others.”

Dora hadn’t even considered that the lack of a mama or a daddy would be cause for her picture to be rejected; Dora had been upset that she had only finished one color of the sprinkles on her ice-cream cone, and everyone knew that you couldn’t get one-color sprinkles, unless they were brown, and Dora’s were green. Who had ever heard of one-color green sprinkles? If the details weren’t right, the picture wouldn’t result in actual ice cream, Dora was sure of it.

It was useless to ask to go and finish her picture—she’d thrown all the crayons, first of all—and anyway, she could see Miss Kristen lining everyone up to go out on the playground. Dora took a book from Miss Angela’s chair and read it to herself, even though it was a baby book, about teddy bears.

When Mimi came, not ten minutes later, she was incandescent. Dora had never seen her so angry, and for a moment wondered if throwing crayons was worse, even, than lying or forgetting to brush your teeth, the two things Mimi always told her not to do. But Mimi’s angry face was turned towards Miss Angela, and there were words coming from the office that sounded like “allow” and “irresponsible,” and then Mimi was coming to get her, with Dora’s jacket and schoolbag. Dora reached up her hand to Mimi, and Mimi took it, just like in her picture.

And Dora’s picture must have worked, because as soon as they were out of the door of the school, Mimi kissed her and said, “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

The ice-cream shop was only a couple blocks from school, so they didn’t bother to get back into Mimi’s Volkswagen; Mimi carried the schoolbag and Dora carried her jacket. Mimi didn’t even ask her to put it on. The ice-cream place was deserted; they went straight to the counter. Mimi said, “One sugar cone of butter pecan, please, and one sugar cone of strawberry.” Mimi looked down at Dora. “With sprinkles,” she added.

Dora had thought then that if throwing crayons at stupid boys resulted in ice cream she would do it every day.

Mimi paid for their cones and they went outside, to sit on the bench in front of the store. She took one bite from her cone—Mimi never licked her ice cream, but ate it, like you would a banana—and looked at Dora.

Dora looked back, and then realized what Mimi expected. “I’m sorry I threw crayons at Adam,” she said.

Mimi laughed. “I wish I could have seen it! That Adam is a pill, and his mother is a horse pill. But, yes, you shouldn’t throw things at people.” Mimi took a deep breath, then another bite of butter pecan, then another deep breath.

“Miss Angela was right, Dora. I should have talked to you about this before, but I guess I didn’t think about it. You are an orphan. Your daddy”—and here Mimi’s voice caught—“and your mama . . . they died, Dora, back when you were just a baby.” Mimi’s ice cream was melting, a rivulet of butter pecan coursing down the cone. “Your daddy was my little boy, and he loved your mama very much, and they had you, and they were so happy. But they had an accident, and that’s why you live with me. And I am very happy that our family is you and me together. But our family is a little different than other people’s families, and that’s why boys like Adam will be stupid about it, because they don’t understand different. But we do, and that’s why we’re not stupid.” Mimi’s ice cream was soaking the napkin wrapped around her cone, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Well, one of the reasons we’re not stupid.”

Dora had been carefully licking all the sprinkles off her cone before giving in to the Mimi-impulse and biting a big chunk of strawberry out of the ice cream. She wasn’t sure why Mimi was upset, or if she should be upset, too, about a daddy and a mama that she used to have when she was a tiny baby and who had died.

“Like Semiramis?” Dora asked. Semiramis had been Mimi’s cat, who had also died when Dora was a baby. Mimi had a picture of Semiramis on her desk.

“Yes, Dora, like Semiramis.”

Reassured that Dora understood, Mimi finally turned her attention to her ice cream. Dora finished hers.

And that had been the last discussion they had had about Dora’s parents.

Dora had been sitting quietly, holding Mimi’s hand, for about an hour when Maux came by. Maux was wearing a tight 1940s cream-and-brown printed rayon dress, with tights and brown work boots. Dora thought she vaguely recognized the dress from the store. It looked great on Maux, but, then, everything did.

“Hey, Dora. Mimi.” Maux’s voice dropped to match the quiet in the room. She came over and sat next to Dora in the other chair.

“I’m sorry Harvey didn’t come with me, Mimi.” Maux didn’t seem to be dissuaded by Mimi’s lack of response. “His parents are in town. I can’t stay long—we’re taking them to that fancy French restaurant tonight. Or, rather, they’re taking us, I hope. They took us to the new Italian place last night, and, Mimi, their pumpkin ravioli are divine. It’s got some kind of sage sauce that will curl your toes. I ate the whole thing, plus I asked for extra bread to go with it. I had the tiramisù, too. Which was excellent. And two glasses of wine. Harvey’s dad ordered it, and he knew what he was doing.”

Maux patted her stomach. “Harvey’s parents must think I’m a pig—but it was so good!”

Dora stood up. “I’m going to go find Gabby, and some coffee. You want some?”

“No, no, I’m good. You go right ahead. I’ll be right here. Harvey’s not coming to get me for a good while.” Maux picked up Mimi’s hand and held it, just as Dora had.

Dora wandered out into the corridor. There was no sign of Gabby. There was a coffee machine at the end of the hall, by the stairwell, but Dora passed it by. She stood and looked out the window instead. It was getting dark, and the trees looked bare and shivery outside, even though she knew it wasn’t cold out. Dora felt dark and shivery, too. She stood there, watching the cars go in and out of the garage. If she unfocused her eyes just right, they were mere patterns of light and dark. She shoved her hands into her pockets. There was a handkerchief in her pocket. Mimi had kept a huge stack of them on the dresser in her closet room, and Dora had put one in her pocket this morning almost without thinking. Mimi had always carried a handkerchief. Sometimes two—“one for blow and one for show,” she used to say. Dora took out her handkerchief and tied a knot in it for luck. Mimi used to do that, too, whenever she felt she needed luck particularly badly.

Dora stopped outside Mimi’s door, steeling herself to go back in. She could hear Maux talking. “You’d be proud of Dora,” she was saying. Dora stood still. “She’s so good in the store. No surprise, considering how much time she spent there with you. She barely has to think about it, just does whatever needs doing.” Dora felt a lump in her throat. She went in.

“No Gabby? No coffee?” Maux asked Dora. Dora looked blank. “Oh. Yeah. Couldn’t find either.”

Maux talked a bit about her apprenticeship—“We’re redoing all the ductwork in the high-school auditorium. You won’t
believe
the stuff we’ve found”—and retailed a few items of gossip about some of the other storekeepers on the block. “Barbara Ann told me she’s found a bunch of liquor bottles in her garbage. She was more upset about the lack of recycling than the possibility of a secret drinker, but I thought you’d want to know.”

Gabby burst in with a couple bottles of water. “I thought you’d want some water, Dora. It’s so dry in here! You’d think they’d run a humidifier or something.” Dora just knew Maux was gearing up to talk to Gabby about legionnaires’ disease and air-recycling systems, and headed her off at the pass. “Maux, when did you have to meet Harvey, again?”

“About now,” Maux said, checking her phone. “Oh yeah, he’s downstairs. Gotta go have another ceremonial parental dinner.” She gave Dora a big hug, and Gabby one that was only slightly smaller. “I’ve got work at the auditorium from seven to four tomorrow, but I can always call in, or come by later. Don’t hesitate—you call me if you need me.” Dora nodded.

“Has she . . . ,” Gabby whispered.

“No,” Dora said. She sank back into the chair, and took Mimi’s hand again. Gabby sat there with her, as the light died in the room. Neither of them made a move to turn on the light.

They were sitting there in the dark when Dr. Czerny opened the door. Dora rose and followed her out into the hall. Dora spoke first. “Has there been any . . . change? The nurse couldn’t tell us.”

“No, no change. I stopped by to see if you’d brought in any of the health directives you mentioned?”

Dora felt stricken. “I’m so sorry. I found them, but I forgot to bring them.”

“It’s fine—just bring them next time you come in, if you can.” Dr. Czerny gave her a searching look. “You should go home, and get some rest. There’s not much you can do here, and I know your grandmother wouldn’t want you to exhaust yourself.”

Dora just nodded. She felt as if she’d been carrying a heavy backpack for hours. Her neck and shoulders were tight with the stress of it.

Gabby came out. She blinked in the light.

“I think she’s breathing better,” she said. Dr. Czerny didn’t comment.

Dora took her chance. “Gabby, I think I’m going to go say good night to Mimi.” She went back in the room.

Dora held her own breath and listened, but she couldn’t hear any change in Mimi’s breathing. She squeezed Mimi’s hand, gently. “Oh, Mimi,” she said. “I love you so.” She kissed Mimi’s cheek. Grabbing her bag, she pushed back into the hall.

Gabby and Dora were quiet on the ride home, ignoring each other’s sniffles through tacit agreement.

Dinner was ham and some of the leftover biscuits. Gabby didn’t even bother to turn on the television. Dora washed the two lonely dishes and the butter knife, and Gabby wandered into the hall to look at the mail.

“Oh Lordy,” Gabby yelped. “I’m sorry, honey, but if you’d told me your aunt Camille was coming, I’d have found three good reasons to be elsewhere. That woman puts my back up.”

“Camille?” Dora ran into the hall and looked out. Gabby was staring at the front walk as if it had suddenly become paved with rattlers. Camille was rolling up to the front door like an ocean liner, dragging a suitcase, the old-fashioned square kind, on a leash. It was upholstered in a pattern that suggested that a dentist’s waiting-room couch had been skinned and tanned.

Camille didn’t bother to ring the doorbell, or even knock. She opened the door and shouted “
Dora!
You here?”

“Right here, Camille.” Camille flounced into the hall and smothered Dora in a heavily perfumed hug. She pointedly didn’t greet Gabby.

“Baby, how are you holding up?”

Dora fought the urge to say, “I was fine until you got here.” Gabby was right; if Camille had a superpower, it would be making everyone near her sullen and unresponsive.

Camille didn’t notice that Dora hadn’t answered.

“I can’t believe I had to hear about Mimi from Joanna; she volunteers over at Baptist, you know, and when she saw Mimi’s name on the list she just turned on her cell phone, right there in the hospital, and called me. Didn’t even care that she could have turned off some poor man’s pacemaker.”

“Pacemaker?”

“Intensive-care machine or whatever it is that’s hurt when you use a cell phone in a hospital. But never mind, never mind, I know you must be just prostrate,
pros-
trate, so I came as soon as I could. Now that Lionel’s at Duke, you know, I’m free as a bird. Although I like to be home at the weekends, you know, for when the kiddos need me to do their laundry.”

Camille gestured to her suitcase. “Would you be a doll and take this up to Mimi’s room for me?”

Dora flailed, recoiling at the notion of Camille in Mimi’s room, among Mimi’s things.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Camille; she could be home any day, and I want everything to be ready for her. . . .”

“Honey, Mimi’s gonna be in that hospital for a good long while, at the very least—you know that, don’t you?”

Dora didn’t want to listen to Camille. She didn’t want to talk to Camille. She didn’t want to look at Camille, in her designer tracksuit and flip-flops, her elaborate pedicure (three colors of nail polish!), and her birthstone jewelry.

“You know, you should really stay in my room. There’s a dog, next door—right on the side of the house by Mimi’s room—who barks all night; I can sleep through it—since college I can sleep through anything—and besides, my room has the newer mattress. And I know how a bad night’s sleep affects your back. I’ll stay on the bed in the closet room; I should really spend some time cleaning in there, anyway.”

Camille didn’t look convinced, but she acquiesced with a show of grace.

“Whatever you need, honey, that’s fine with me. I know that space is tight, here, too.” She looked pointedly at Gabby, and then her suitcase, which crouched like a large dog, senile and angry, at her feet.

Dora took the hint and the suitcase (ignoring Camille’s snideness; Camille had petulantly, often, and at great length complained about Gabby living with Mimi and “taking advantage”) and hauled the awkward beast up to her own room. She cleared away her few things and made the bed quickly while she was there, and took a perverse pleasure in not changing the sheets for Camille.