The Red Dress By Iris Rosewater

It began a whole week ago, when Alice’s mother made the whole family go through their closets for donations. Alice had already finished her weeding, and was entertaining herself by wandering around the house and watching her older siblings go through theirs. Her mother was helping Jake, who was a notorious expert at lollygagging and was currently sidetracked by the discovery of a long-lost remote-control car found under a pile of winter clothes. Alice meandered down the hall, brushing her fingers along the lumpy texture of the walls as she went. She risked snooping at what Helen was throwing out. Six years her elder, Helen had reached her adolescence. Alice gazed at Helen’s freshly-pierced ears longingly. She sighed, fairly certain that she would die having to wait until she was 12.

“What do you want, Alice?” Helen huffed without looking at her.

“I’m done with my closet. Do you want any help with yours?” She asked innocently.

“No, thanks. I’m almost done, too.”

Alice stayed in the doorway for a few moments, just to see if she would be shooed away. When she wasn’t, she slinked in and made herself comfortable on Helen’s bed. A boy band was playing on the stereo. Helen was busily stuffing piles of clothes into bags. Alice watched, knowing that most of those clothes (the ones without any visible stains or defects) would be saved for her future wardrobe… when they would be woefully out-of-date. Not yet a slave to fashion, Alice wasn’t bothered by the prospect. She fiddled with the ties on Helen’s quilt and took in the culture of her domain. On the ceiling above the bed was a boy-band poster – as well as on the door and by the window. On a bulletin board by her closet was stuck a hundred clippings of photos and magazine articles from Teen Beat and Bop. Just next to it, hanging in the newly-cleared closet, something caught Alice’s eye. A dress… a true-red, spaghetti-strapped dancing dress with embroidery along the top of the bodice. The fabric was gathered perfectly along the waist, promising gorgeous twirls and pirouettes. And it looked just her size. Why in the world did Helen have it? Why wasn’t it passed down with all the other bundles of outgrown clothes?

“Whose dress is that?” asked Alice, prodding.

“Oh, that’s from my ballet recital in first grade.” Helen’s eyes suddenly recognized the delight and greed on Alice’s face. “It’s a keepsake now, Alice. It’s not to be worn again.”

Alice’s heart sank- but, only momentarily, because very quickly she began devising a plan.

The following Saturday, Helen would be spending the night at a friend’s house. Their parents would be going on a date. Alice would be “watched” by Jake, who would also have a friend over and was currently obsessed with building ramps and rigs for his remote-controlled car. She spent the day as invisible as possible. One of the perks and the tortures of being the youngest was that she was either in the center of attention or completely ignored. She decided to use it to her advantage and blend into the background. Since she had compliantly done her chores and anything else that was asked of her that day, no one noticed when she slipped into her dad’s office and tucked his bendy desk lamp into a box and stashed it in her room. No one saw her take a few CD’s from the shelf, either.

When dinnertime rolled around, she happily gulped down some hot-and-ready pizza left for them by their parents and waited for Helen’s friend to pick her up. Just in case her face showed any signs of naughtiness, she watched TV as camouflage. The doorbell rang. Jake’s friend came in and they erupted into a loud conversation about their plans to strap G.I. Joes onto the back of the RC car and disappeared into his bedroom. Someone knocked and Helen yelled a goodbye as she slammed the front door shut. Alice clicked off the TV.

The light was fading as well as the heat of the summer day. She turned on the porch light and pulled a cardboard box out from under the bench. From it, she pulled out the lamp and plugged it in with an extension cord, adjusting the head so that it lit the center of the deck. In the other outlet, she powered her Minnie Mouse CD player, arranging the snatched CD’s. A unicorn water bottle was placed on the bench. When the stage was set just right, she made her way to Helen’s closet for the crown jewel of the night: The red dress.

Just as she had suspected, it fit like a glove. She gave it a trial spin. the skirt swirled gracefully around her with heavy crushed velvet. Afraid of discovery, she darted back to the deck. She took a breath and pulled her straight auburn hair into a bun, securing it tightly with a sparkly butterfly scrunchy. She slipped her little feet into a pair of white bedroom dearfoams which most resembled ballet slippers, and pushed the play button.

In the spotlight of the desk lamp, she sat herself down, and splayed the perfect skirt around her in a circle. The first notes of Swan Lake’s delicate melody swelled as dusk fell and the stars began their shining. Alice gracefully lifted her arms in a frame around her head and bent from side to side before slowly rising to her feet. She pointed her toes, twirling and leaping to the dynamics of the music. When her favorite movement was finished, she pushed stop and curtsied to an imagined audience, who cheered and applauded their thunderous approval. “Encore!” they shouted, rising from their seats. What could she do but grant them another dance? Alice took a long drink from her water bottle. She replaced the CD with Sleeping Beauty and flounced to the center of her little stage. For two whole glorious hours, Alice danced in the red dress. She danced until her white slippers were covered in the pink and blue dust of sidewalk chalk from the concrete path where she preferred to do her jumps. She danced until tiny beads of sweat covered her pointed nose and clung to the wild hairs above her forehead. She danced around the garden, tucking a daisy behind her ear and throwing handfuls of white petals into the air, spinning as they fell like rain onto her bare shoulders. She danced into the night, under the spotlight of the full moon, in that forbidden dress.

Tiptoeing into Helen’s room, Alice stood in front of the closet with the red dress in hand. She traced her fingers over the embroidered swirls… she touched the velvety skirt and brushed it against her cheek before hanging it carefully in its place.

Secretly, Alice knew it was her keepsake, too.