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She's could name the exact date she last wore a sundress.
Yet, for a reason that defies understanding, she still owns it and every other dress she hid away so many years ago. Each and every one predates her marriage to Marvin; predates the one night stand that saw her trapped in a loveless marriage. Reds and violets and oranges and blues seem to mock her choices. Mock her decision to stay married to a man who saw her more as a mother than a wife. The man who took advantage of her and who she was too in love with to see there wasn't any room for her.
Once she liked to show off her shoulders and her calves, thinking it was what originally drew Marvin to her. Once she liked to wear things that made her feel beautiful and desired.
Her fingers hover over her favorite one: a strappy orange dress with the large flowers. She still knows when she last wore it: the date she went on with Marvin. The one where his fingers danced along her shoulders and she was too infatuated with him to see his smile didn't quite meet his eyes. She thought the hesitation in his movements meant he was nervous. That he didn't want to screw this up with her. That he wanted to take his time and not rush.
A moment or three and it was over.
A moment or five to learn she was pregnant.
A moment or twelve to marry a man she knew next to nothing about.
But good girls didn't have children out of wedlock. Good girls married the man and created a home and a family no matter what the odds. Good wives made the dinner and loved their husbands and turned a blind eye when they stayed out with the guys. Good wives didn't suspect a friend was anything more than that. She had no reason to ever doubt or question or worry.
She had no idea how blind she really was.
Eventually she stopped wearing the pretty dresses. Stopped showing off her curves and her shoulders to a man who preferred hard angles to her softer ones. She learned to accept her lot in life and to know that sundresses weren't for women like her. Sundresses were for carefree women, not one who needed to play mother to the man she married.
Perhaps the dresses she loved so much were cursed. It was the only logical explanation. And so they were relegated to the back of the closet; hidden away, never to be seen again.
She should have thrown them out -- but there was a small part of her that hoped, one day, she'd have reason to be young and smiling and wanted again.
There's someone new in her life now. A man she shouldn't want, but she does. Maybe that's the key to all of this: stop wanting the person you're supposed to crave and go after the one who should be off limits. It's worked for Marvin. Why can't it work for her?
So she digs and searches, needing to find that dress that started it all. Needing to remove the curse and give it and herself a new lease on life. Wear the clothing that makes her feel young and vibrant and girlish. Wanting to recapture her misspent youth with a man who seems to want her in return. Someone whose hand hesitates near hers and makes the butterflies dance in her stomach. She hopes she hasn't misread his signs once again. Prays that his hesitations are for all the reasons she once wanted to see in Marvin.
She pulls the yellow sundress from the hanger and slips it on over her head before she can talk herself out of it.
She's skittish, knowing what happened the last time. If the dress truly is cursed, her precious psychiatrist could turn out like her ex-husband just because she dared to let her hair flow free and leave her shoulders bare.
But what else does a person wear to a picnic?
So when she walks through the park to meet him, all she can do is think of the last time. The signs she missed. Praying desperately that this won't go the same way yet again.
She steps into the clearing, her gaze downcast. She shouldn't have come. She shouldn't have worn this. Mendel knows too much, knows her dreams and her fears. It was a stupid idea, it was stupid to hope.
Against her better judgement, she lifts her head.
There he stands, waiting for her.
And his smile meets his eyes.