Jess had gone out the back and around, a comedy of adulthood that was not funny. She had left the dress because the dress had a stain she did not want to explain in a car and because Greg had said he would throw it in a bag. He had put it in the guest room instead, on the chair, under a cardigan that was Helen’s and did not cover satin. He had meant to deal with it on Sunday. Sunday became Monday. Monday became the kind of week in which a man tells himself he will handle a thing at the next quiet hour. There are no quiet hours in a house with a six-year-old. There are only hours a six-year-old has not yet opened.
Lucy found the dress on Saturday while Helen ironed and Greg read, which is to say she found it in the exact hour the house thought it was safest.
She had been looking for the good scissors, or a sticker, or the old Halloween crown. Guest rooms hold the overflow of a family’s unfinished business. To a child, a shiny dress is not unfinished business. It is treasure. She pulled it over her head and felt like a person in a commercial. The straps would not stay. The hem ate her feet. She found the heels in the same soft bag, nude, tall, ridiculous, perfect. She found the lipstick and made a mouth that looked like a mouth drawn by someone who had never seen a mouth. She looked in the guest-room mirror and said, to the gap in her teeth, “Pretty.”
Pretty was the whole project.
She wanted Daddy to see first because Daddy in the recliner was a captured audience. She wanted Mommy to see second because Mommy knew about clothes. She did not want to sneak. Sneaking is for cookies. This was a show.
In the hallway she practiced a step. The heel on her right foot turned her ankle a degree and she corrected, solemn as a person on ice. She held the satin up with both hands. The champagne color caught the floor-lamp light and threw it back like a secret that had decided to become a parade.
Helen, at the ironing board, heard a drag on the carpet and thought, socks. Greg turned a page of the newspaper and thought, the house is fine. The muted news showed a weather map. Steam rose. The mug on the coffee table remembered coffee.
Lucy reached the edge of the living room.