Three Blue Dresses
by Ellen Graham
Number One 1965
My first blue dress came all the way from DuQuoin, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah. Grandma Lehn lives in DuQuoin and we don't see her much. She is rich and she is distant. She sends things. The dress is the color of the asters in Mom's garden. It has silk ribbons, lace, tiny buttons, ruffles, a bow at the neck, puffed sleeves, and starchy petticoats. It is frilly , girly, too tight across the back, stiff-skirted, and puffy. I hate it. It hurts to put it on and it hurts to take it off. It pinches my chubby belly, just like my Girl Scout uniform. It has a matching plastic headband that is so tight I get a headache. Mom is mad I won't wear it. Or the rabbit fur muff Grandma sent. I think grade school is hard enough without wearing that on the bus. It is like something a girl in the olden days would wear to skate to school. Mom takes me to the Cottonwood Mall to buy a shift the color of mustard. She tells the saleslady I have broad shoulders and it takes me a while to understand this isn't a compliment.
Number Two 1985
Because it was a perfect dress, because it was a drop waist silk, because it was a perfect indigo, because it was a sleeveless, because it was scooped back and front, because I was young, because I was perfect then, because you touched my back with your perfect musician fingers, because your eyes were the color of smoke, because your knee pressed against mine, because I could smell the sweet peas, because we were together in the garden, because I saw a perfect full moon behind your perfect naked body, because your hair was thick, because I could hear the crickets, because your skin was perfect, because I can close my eyes and still you're there, I will always love that dress.
Number Three Right Now
The dress I have on now is the exact milky blue of the Salish Sea when it laps the rocks at the inlet. It is as soft as a moth's wing. Washed over and over and over again. It feels warm. Comforting. Comes to my knees. Short sleeved. Actually, it is technically a gown. Open in the front. The scalpel needs easy access. As I sit. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting in my blue dress.
Ellen Graham is a freelance theater director based in Washington. Her writing focuses on the West and stories of open spaces, both on the land and in the heart. A prize-winner in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, she has also been published in Narrative, High Desert Journal and Everyday Fiction. She is at work on a series of stories about growing up in Salt Lake City. She can be reached at herownself@outlook.com. Thanks for reading.