The Perfectly Fluttery Dress

Emily is once again house-sitting for a friend of her parents. Boomers talk and how much they pay the house-sitter has become another way for this network to keep up with Joneses. The latest payment has been cash, bread, beer, half a dozen wines (cab savs mixed with shirazes) and various chocolates. The first pack of Tim Tams disappeared on Emily's night of arrival.

Emily spent a solid hour of the morning after on the foreign toilet. The walls and door are covered in photographs from a bygone era when photographs were taken to a store to be 'developed' from 'film'. They paint a shared life of slumming with friends, meeting celebrities and occasional blackface. All Emily can think is: need to get my shit together awww shit finally shit my brains out.

Lo, Emily sets out to get a boyfriend. (This is not to say that a boyfriend will remedy Emily's flaws but that getting a boyfriend, as objective, will require Emily to work on herself.) Because no one has figured out how to harness the internet towards the ends of human courtship, Emily intends to look her best at all times.

Emily checks her wardrobe and is unsure. One jonquil-themed dress is pretty, very suited to afternoon picnics and their toddlers. Another short black number is useful for brief encounters were faces are irrelevant. An emerald evening gown strikes an elegant figure during courtship but unorthodox for preamble, whereas the fluffy dressing gown is utilitarian for visits to the shops.

Ah. Pressure test has revealed the weak point in Emily's wardrobe. Instead of indulging retail therapy, one of many vices in the way of getting boyfriend, Emily instead sets about crafting a neat casual dress. She wakes on her day off with clear eyes zeroed on this goal. The objective of getting boyfriend is waylaid, two days of plant-based lunches having returned confidence to her pooping. Funny how that works.

Emily consults her sketch book. Every left hand page is a work of imagination, a featureless charcoal outline modelling garments colour-matched with page-corner accruements which imply setting (plants for season, equipment for activity). Each corresponding right hand page is a work of logistics, measurements of cloth, angles of cut, what is sown in what order. Stopping on pages blotted with Zonte's Footstep 'Madrugador' 2020 Tempranillo, Emily goes bingo.

Emily sneaks home, rolling over side fence once folks leave for pokies, to grab her sewing machine. She holds knife at friend's throat to reclaim fabrics long owed. She walks the dog. A coffee and smoke bring upon a nervous poop. No more procrastination.

It is a long cool night of seamstressing after a warm day. At nine, Emily moves outside so that she may chain smoke. Mossies are repelled by toxic waft and neighbours with windows cracked open are woken, then confused, by the chitter-chitter of sewing machine. Emily's eyes start to dry at midnight. At, oh, two-hundred, Emily numbly follows sketch books instructions, doubling over not because she wants to be sure but due to forgetting what has been done.

Emily collapses at three and wakes at nine. A coffee, shower and dart, in no particular order because that shit indulged simultaneous by skilful bitch, before Emily appraises last nights work. She tries it on. It fits, a long cream dress with brown indent margins running up to the armpits, a piece she dubs the 'chocolate éclair'.

Emily is satisfied with her craftsmanship but the proof is in the French pastry - she wears it down to the supermarket (read: needs replacement smokes). Her posture is good and she receives other customer's smiles - the dress is polite enough. Upon side-eyed glances into reflective store windows, however, Emily finds no men behind her with eyes discretely pointed at her reflection. The reliable perve in aisle nine had looked at her shins before his nose bled.

(Carl later explains: 'I saw that dress. It filled my mind with static. I knew that I knew you, I couldn't quite remember your name. I wanted to call you Goody Something. I also wanted to sue a guy for taking wood from my woodlot and blame my fucking on witchcraft.')

Back to the sewing machine. A short night because most of the work is already done. A big night because the outing's poor reaction has left Emily pissed and she fuels her drive with booze. Fabric off-cuts accumulate.

Emily tries the modified outfit to the supermarket in search of cos lettuce and male attention. Amy goes 'I like that dress' before disappearing under Hi-Vis Invisibility Cloak and cocking shotgun. Men avert their gaze, suddenly distracted by jars of asparagus in spring water, whilst their sons stare without quite realising why. Emily realises that, whilst men would like her goods, they are packaged in a fashion similar to not-legal teens and are therefore not obviously certified adult.

Fine then. Emily returns to the sewing machine. Off cuts are implemented at whim. No cigarettes and no booze - instead, Emily burns a small part of her humanity and a single-digit percentile of her sanity. Also candles.

Emily wakes manic from lack of proper sleep. She dons the dress and dances around housesit lounge room to one song played on repeat. She goes to buy asparagus.

The Greek chick in the Chinese restaurant puckers and nods twice noooice. A smile from the cute trolley boy. But now, walking his north to her south, a handsome someone new, a couple of years older and a couple of inches taller than Emily.

They pass. A freak blurt of wind flutter's the dress perfectly. The front left corner lifts to reveal glimpse of thigh. The lifted section of dress moves in two clockwise Mexican waves.

The handsome someone turns to their peripheral vision: 'Hallo. Muay' name is Gustavo.'

Emily responds: 'Nice to meet you, Gus. I'd love to chat, but I gotta' grab some asparagus.'

Time passes:

 

'I've been testing it.' Emily, admiring the autumnal gold of a session ale. 'The dress only rustles to catch the attention of eights-and-above who are single.'

'And you're looking to sell?' Carl dwells on IPA. 'One of these has landed in your sheets and you've gotten comfortable?'

'No. First I wanted the dress to land a man but, later, I wanted the dress' success and men's attention was the proof I needed. Now I have plans for something else I want to tailor. Are you still in the feather game?'

'No.' Carl's unseen hand clenches fist. 'I've been too busy hustling.'

'But you still have Quetzalcoatl Feathers?'

Carl lies: 'About five dozen. Two-fifty CatScript (₵$) worth.'

'If you can scrounge up another five dozen, the dress is yours.'

'Deal.'

Which makes this an expensive dress, but Carl has ten dozen feathers that he will be happy to be rid of.

* Mandatory footnote.