Standing in the dressing room, pants crumpled at my feet. I don't bother to take them off. A little coaxing gets the zipper on the cocktail dress all the way up.
It fits well, though has a lot of cleavage. I like the cut, the shoulders. It flatters my shape. The fabric, a blaze of blurry orange and yellow poppies, works surprisingly well with my yellowish skin tone and dark hair.
I line up a selfie, to send to my best friend. She, with two small children, is always close to her phone.
I change the angle, the light, but it's not working.
My face sags and bags, like an old grey bed sheet. It shows every one of the 1,980 hours I've worked since last June.
I am tired.
I realign the selfie to cut off my head, leaving only the curl of my hair on my shoulder.
Buy it, the text comes back. It's sexy.
~
Rosie, my heart is devastated.
I think she's joking at first. She can, this friend, from time to time. Then I think she's not.
I decide it must be her dog, that beautiful, joyful golden retriever. He had so much grey in his muzzle when I left Canada.
What's up? I text back.
It is not her dog.
~
I pluck, I pluck. I wax furiously, and hold my breath against the pain. I treat my hair with four different products to make it soft, lay down, curl just so.
I study my shredded nails. I've never had a manicure. I wonder if I should. Would that be the tipping point? Would that make men pursue me?
I notice on Facebook that it's the Irish welder's birthday today, so I mutter a happy birthday to him as we pass in the shop.
He smiles at me over his glasses, and catches my hand and heart in one. "Thank you, my dear."
I wonder if he calls his fiancée 'my dear'. I know I remind him of her; he has said as much.
I start making him a birthday crown out of an old cardboard box, but decide it's creepy, and throw it away instead. I don't talk to him for the rest of the day.
~
James, the man I was seeing, has died.
What?! How?! When?!
I hadn't heard from him in three days. It was so weird. We never went a day without talking on the phone, texting. So I texted his mother, and she went and found him. He had an accident. They think he broke his neck. There will be an autopsy.
Oh, my dear. I am so sorry.
~
I text my best friend. I tell her about my friend and her James. I tell her I love her, and I hope she doesn't die suddenly.