SHORT STORY
The Orange Cuban Sun
A dress unleashes the imagination of a 53 year-old schoolteacher
By H.N. Cable
The truth is, it looked great hanging in the store; sleek and special. It looked like it was one of a kind. It fit me. It felt like me. I decided that it was me. Me as Woman. Woman with a capital W. In the mirror, I saw full breasts with wide hips and long, shapely legs completely tanned. I looked great. I looked sexy. It was a sexy dress and I was a sexy 53-year-old woman. I couldn’t turn away from the mirror, from the soft, pliant curves wrapped tightly in the sleek orange skin.
I’ll buy it, I told the saleswoman in a husky, womanly voice.
It’s you, said the neat saleswoman dressed in quiet gray.
I love it.
The color suits you.
I look …oh, I don’t know, do you really…
Cash or charge? She asked.
Now every time I open my closet door, I hear it say: Wear me, be a woman, wear me. I take it off its hangar squeezed between the hot red Mexican Sunset and the bright yellow Colombian Moon I bought years ago, and stroke it. It feels cool and soft like a silk slip or a baby’s bottom. I tell myself I should wear it while I’m still tan, and while it’s still summer, and while I’m still thin.
I put it on and look at myself in the mirror. It still fits, but now my hair is all wrong. I see that I’ll need new shoes too. Orange shoes. I look at myself sideways in the mirror. I’ll need to hold my stomach in; I’m bulging. How did I get to look three months pregnant? I’ll have to wear a girdle with it. I’ll have to buy a girdle and I don’t want to buy a girdle. Are girdles still for sale? Where would I wear this dress to anyway? I can’t wear it on the subway. I’d have to take a cab somewhere – To wherever I go. Where would I go? Where the hell would I wear an orange dress anyway? Orange, ORANGE. God, how could I have bought an orange dress? How could I have bought an orange anything? I’m a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers don’t wear orange dresses. Schoolteachers don’t wear orange. They wear brown, black, gray, blue, and not orange, not orange. How could I have done it? How could I have bought an orange dress?
Okay, it is soft and it is silky. It is soft and silky and it feels cool against my skin. If I were a man, I’d love to run my hands along this orange velvety skin. If I were a man, I’d hold me tight and feel the coolness of the silk. If I were a man, I’d never buy anything orange. What could have possessed me? There must me something terribly wrong with me. It doesn’t even fit. My stomach sticks out a mile. I bet this was a dress for a teenager. A skinny teenager. Not a 53-year-old woman with huge, flat breasts. Flat useless breasts like her 80 year-old mother. My God, that saleswoman must be laughing. She must be laughing at me. Why did I buy this damn thing?
Oh look, it’s got a slit up the front. I didn’t notice that before – the damn thing has a slit up its front. I’ve bought a tight orange dress with a slit up the front! I just don’t know how to shop, that’s all there is to it. I shouldn’t be allowed to walk into a shop on my own. I should only shop with a friend, someone who can tell me how I look. Someone who can give me advice. I have absolutely no taste. None. You’d think after all these years I’d be able to buy a dress I could actually wear. Well, it’s obvious that I can’t. I simply can’t. What I should do is just rip it up. Rip it up and throw it away. I could turn it into silky, soft, velvety, orange rags.
If I had any guts, any guts at all, I’d wear it. If I had a man in my life, maybe I’d wear it. If I had a man I could trust, a man who was like a brother to me, maybe I’d wear it, and then he and I would go somewhere. If I had a man in my life that could understand that once in a while I’d like to look like a woman and wear a sexy orange dress … He wouldn’t have to a handsome man, but he’d have to be strong. Strong and smart. He’d have to have a sense of humor too. He’d have to be able to laugh at himself and encourage me to do the same. It would be nice to be able to laugh with someone. He could talk about his feelings and listen to me talk about my feelings. My feelings would have to matter to him, and I’d try hard to have his feelings matter to me. I’d try very hard to see him for who he is, and he’d have to try to see me for who I am. He would have to like to see me in old jeans and sweatshirts, and in tight orange dresses. He’d have to like me to wear the silky, velvety orange dress. We could sit at home, he could put on a Salsa CD, and we could drink Sangria and pretend that we were in Cuba. Yes, Cuba. We could dance the Samba and he could be Marlon Brando and I could be Jean Simmons and we could be dancing in Cuba the way they danced in Guys and Dolls. And all the women would be wearing bright silk dresses with slits up the front. We could dance on a white sandy beach on a hot summer night, drinking piña coladas. His hands could slide gently up and down my hips, and before the music stopped we could make Hollywood Love.
