The Red Dress

Journal

She saved the red dress for twenty years, waiting for a special day. Then one Tuesday, she just wore it to the grocery store.

She bought it when she was forty. It was too bright, too bold, too much. So she hung it in the closet and waited for the right occasion.

A wedding came. She wore black. A party came. She wore navy. The dress waited. Twenty years. The right day never came.

Then one morning, she opened the closet and stopped waiting. She put the dress on. Zipped it up. Looked in the mirror and laughed. 'Today,' she said. 'Today is the day.'

At the store, a woman stopped her by the tomatoes. 'That dress,' she said. 'You look wonderful.' She smiled. 'Thank you. I've been saving it for twenty years.'

The cashier said it, too. Then the man behind her. By the time she reached her car, three strangers had told her she looked beautiful.

She didn't go home. She bought an ice cream and sat in the park. Red dress. Grocery bags. Sunshine. She felt twenty years younger. Or maybe just finally herself.

The dress doesn't live in the closet anymore. It lives on her. She says the special day was never coming. So she made one. On a Tuesday. In the grocery store.