Gold or yellow or mustard, Grecian in cut, polished cotton or linen and it fits like a glove. I’m not really in a position to be buying dresses at the moment, or anything else really, but it lit up in the corner of my eye when I walked home the other day. Our new place is two vintage shops away from the tram-stop, and hats and gloves and dresses call out through the grey drizzle. Try me on! Empty your wallet! Come back in time with us! And so on.
Anyway, I tried it on, fervently hoping it wouldn’t fit, but it did. Perfectly. I put down a deposit, thinking that rent wouldn’t be coming up for a fornight and the bond from the old place would find its way into my pocket before that. I went home feeling very pleased with myself, and went back a few days later to pay it off, so I could wear it to a job interview.
The shopgirl looked up as I walked in. “I’ve come to pick up a dress, please,” I said. She fished around behind the counter and handed it over to me.
“Well, it says ‘nothing owing’. Was there anything else?”
For a long moment my mind clicked over. I could take the dress and just stroll out, with my money still in my pocket, with a dress the colour of two dollar coins. I could use the difference to buy perfume – I haven’t worn it in a year. I could drink champagne at my housewarming and buy caviar, or more prosaically a printer-scanner I’ve been meaning to get for ages, or pay bills off, or make rent week a little less lean. I could take the Boy out to dinner somewhere nice, maybe wearing the gold dress, and no-one would suspect that going out usually means something cheap in Chinatown or a bowl of pho, and not dressed up either.
But. Could I go to a job interview in a stolen dress? What if the person who write ‘nothing owing’ got in trouble? What if they lost their job because I was brazen enough to lie to the shopgirl’s face? I could make strolling out the door seem romantic, but I couldn’t get someone in trouble, and I would never be able to go there again. The shop would become The Stolen Shop, and I would have to slink past it on the way to the tram or even cross the road.
“I think that’s a mistake,’ I said. “I wish it weren’t. But I still owe you quite a bit of money.”
I paid it off, and walked out, and hopefully no-one will get in trouble. And gadding about in a dress the colour of money, I won’t have to ever feel cheap.
6 Comments
May 17, 2009 at 1:04 am
I can’t believe you didn’t pick the champagne and caviar option! Damn you and your good conscience.
May 21, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Yeah Jess, the writers with a good conscience lead boring lives.
May 21, 2009 at 5:05 pm
“Today I ALMOST had caviar and champagne.”
May 21, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Many huzzah’s to you Jessica. What goes around, comes around.
May 22, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Ok, I am obviously joking. Other people’s comments scare me into line.
May 23, 2009 at 6:25 pm
paulina, don’t let other people’s moral uprightness scare you.
i would’ve stolen the dress. but not when the opportunity presented itself. when you layby-d, i would’ve shoved the dress in my bag and ran. like winona.