The Secret Lives of Dresses, Vol. 5

I think anyone can tell by looking at me that I'm a Tuesday dress, but that's okay. When I was new I didn't like being a Tuesday dress so much. It's not glamorous, like being a Saturday night dress. Sometimes a Saturday night dress would come home (late, they're always out late) and start whispering and giggling with the other Saturday dresses, and I would wonder how it would be, to go out at night, and to be around so many people, all at once. I used to try to ask them, you know, to tell me what it was like, and what they saw, and what a party was like, but they would just laugh at me, so I gave up. I'm not a great talker, anyway.

Now I'm pretty happy to be a Tuesday dress. The Saturday dresses, they don't last long -- especially the night ones. They get worn hard, and they get so tired out. It's okay for a Tuesday dress to get a little worn, but not a Saturday dress. One day they just never come back to the closet, and then a little while later there's a new Saturday dress. The Sunday dresses, the ones that go out Sunday mornings; they last a long time because they don't get worn hard, but they keep themselves to themselves, and don't chat much. They sit a lot, I think, because of where the creases are when they come back. I don't like sitting so much; I like to be up and doing. And of course the suits, they get to go to the city, and ride trains, and have the best hats and even gloves, but they only get to do it every once in a while, so I wouldn't want to be a suit, either. I don't like to be cooped up.

I say I'm a Tuesday dress, but of course I get worn other days. It just seems like I see a lot of Tuesdays. I like Tuesdays. Tuesdays are new library book days, and George the butcher days (he always says how pretty we look, and I know he says it to all of us but I do like to think he means me especially), and carpool days. Lots of Tuesdays we go to old Mrs. Hewitt's, and see if she's doing okay, now that her daughter's married and moved away. Those Tuesdays we often bake in the morning, so we have something sweet to take to her. "Oh," we'll say, "These were left over from bridge group, and I thought you'd like some." I know it's a lie but I also know it's a nice lie. Mrs. Hewitt wouldn't feel right if she knew we baked just for her.

Tuesdays we're usually in a good mood. Sometimes we'll swing by the drugstore, give the kids a dime each for penny candy, and spend a while talking with the pharmacist. His wife died in the spring. We brought him a pie once, about a month or so after, but he cried and couldn't help it and it was awful. So we didn't do that again. But we'll go by and talk to him about the weather and how the high school team is doing and whether they're going to build the new town swimming pool finally this summer, while the kids decide how to spend their dimes.

Tuesdays our man usually comes home on the right train, too. I don't see him very often, because a little before that time we'll give ourselves a shake and say "Time for glad rags, girl!" and off I'll go into the laundry pile, and then a different dress, a dinner at home dress, will come out of the closet. If I do see our man it's not good, usually. It means that the repairman didn't come or the dinner burned or one of the kids did something terrible, like break a window or come home with a note from a teacher or jump off something high and have to see Dr. Michael, and so the whole day is out of whack and just wrong. So I don't really want to see him, if it means something like that has to happen.

So I don't mind being a Tuesday dress. I hope I'll be a Tuesday dress for a long time yet.