Dress Rehersal

I didn’t know that this game we were playing even had a set of rules – Issac Brock (from Black Cadilacs by Modest Mouse)

The air fills with the buzzing of the alarm clock on the nightstand, a hand reaches between lepored print sheets and hits the small back button on top, the buzzing stops and the room is still. Somewhere in another part of the old house the floor lets out a squeak, the squeak travels down the hall, glides under the crack of the oak bedroom door, and slips between the sheets, fumbling its way into the ears and bouncing across the eardrumb inside. A long slow sleepy sigh echoes its reply as the dovet cover begins to move, two feet tumble out and fall onto the carpeted floor below. Two hands brush across wrinkled skin and smile lines to tossle the gray wire hair on the top of the head, before moving to the legs where two arthritic knees are bent over the side, throbbing with the morning. The room adjusts as the body stands, the feet find their ways into a set of black slippers and the hands push through the silk fabric of a black robe, they tie a hasty knot around a solid middle.

The body is guided out the oak door, through the narrow hallway filled with mismatched picture frames holding pictures of grandchildren with peanut-butter faces and sundy best, and into the kitchen. The refridgerater hums a greeting as the two hands grope for the familiar round glass caraffe, they craddel it as the slippered feet shuffle across the yellow tile and wait patiently while the hands fill the glass with water before shuffeling back to the old coffee maker. The feet turn and walk back down the hall, through the oak door, and to the chair in front of the vanity. The body sits, while the feet are tucked carefully under the little chair. The two hands reach for a bright green head band and pull it over the hair. The hands then work with the hastened memory that comes from habit as it applies thick liquid foundation, to hide the wrinkles and age spots. Next comes the powder and blush, the thick gold eyeshaddow is smeered across the eyelid, followed in rappid succession with chunky blue eyeliner. The hands slow down as two sets of long eyelashes are attached to each eye and covered with layers of deep black mascarra. The eyes blink with approval, the hands push the body from the chair, and the feet slip across the carpet to the walk in closet. 

Hands grasp at the flesh colored support hose and body shapers; they are carefully put into place before the hands reach for the thickly padded bra, slipping the straps over shoulders and doing the small mettle hooks on the first row. The hands reach for the hanger that holds the fabric filled with blue sequens and pulls it over the head. The feet slip out of the black slippers and into black flats, while the hands tie a blue scarf over the wisps of hair. The body turns, goes out of the closet and to the bedside, it bends and purses the lips to softly kiss the head of the sleeping woman it finds there. The woman stirs and squeezes one of the hands, she whispers to remind her husband him of the dinner reservations, and to remember the highth of the slit in his new dress as he climbs onto the stool to introduce his parading queens.