Good in Bed

“Green?” I ventured. I really wanted to get off the phone. I had three baskets of laundry reposing in the trunk of my car. I wanted to get out of the office, go to the gym, wash my clothes, buy some milk. “Like a pale green, I guess.”

Sandy sighed. “See, that’s not it,” she said. “It’s really more blue, I think. The girl at the Bridal Barn said the color’s called seafoam, but that’s really more of a green-sounding thing, I think.”

“We could say blue,” I said. Another sigh from Sandy. “Light blue?” I essayed.

“See, but it’s not really blue,” she said. “You say blue, and people think, you know, blue like the sky, or navy blue, and it’s not, like, dark or anything…”

“Pale blue?” I offered, ru

“I just don’t think any of those are quite right,” Sandy said primly.

“Hmm,” I said. “Well, if you want to think about it and call me back…”

Which was when Sandy started to cry. I could hear her sobbing on the other end of the phone as the soap opera droned in the background and the child, who I imagined, had sticky cheeks and possibly a stubbed toe, continued to whine, “Ma!”

“I want it to be right,” she said between her sobs. “You know, I waited so long for this day… I want everything to be perfect… and I can’t even say what color my dress is”

“Oh, now,” I said, feeling ridiculously ineffectual. “Oh, listen, it’s not that bad”

“Maybe you could come here,” she said, still crying. “You’re a reporter, right? Maybe you could look at the dress and say what’s right.”

I thought of my laundry, my plans for the night.

“Please?” asked Sandy, in a tiny, pleading voice.

I sighed. The laundry could wait, I supposed. And now I was curious. Who was this woman, and how did someone who couldn’t spell seafoam find love?

I asked her for directions, mentally cursed myself for being such a softie, and told her I’d be there in an hour.

To be perfectly honest, I was expecting a trailer park. Central Pe

I got out of the car with my notebook in my hand. Sandy smiled through the screen door. I could see two small hands clutching her thigh, a child’s face peeping around her leg, then vanishing behind it.

The house was cheaply furnished, but neat and clean, with stacks of magazines on the pine-veneer coffee table: Guns amp; Ammo, Road amp; Track, Sport amp; Field. The ampersand collection, I thought to myself. Powder-blue wall-to-wall carpet lined the living room floor; fresh white linoleum – the kind you roll down in a single sheet, with patterns stamped on it to make it look like separate tiles – covered the kitchen. “Do you want a soda? I was just about to have one myself,” she said shyly.

I didn’t want soda. I wanted to see the dress, come up with an adjective, hit the road, and be good amp; gone by the time Melrose Place was on. But she seemed desperate, and I was thirsty, so I sat down at her kitchen table under the stitched sampler that read “Bless This Home,” with my notebook at my side.

Sandy took a gulp of her drink, burped gently against the back of her hand, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Excuse me, please.”

“Are you nervous about the wedding?” I asked.

“Nervous,” she repeated, and laughed a little. “Honey, I’m terri-fied!”

“Is it…” I wanted to tread carefully here, “have you done the whole wedding thing before?”

Sandy shook her head. “Not like this. My first time I eloped. That was when I found out I was pregnant with Trevor. Justice of the peace over in Bald Eagle,” she said. “I wore my prom dress to that one.”

“Oh,” said I.

“Second time,” she continued, “there never was a wedding at all. That was Dylan’s daddy, who I guess you could call my common-law husband. We were together seven years.”

“Dylan, that’s me!” piped up a little voice from underneath the table. A small, sleek blond head peeked out. “My daddy’s in the army.”

“That’s right, honey,” said Sandy, absently tousling Dylan’s hair with one hand. She raised her eyebrows significantly toward me, shook her head, and whispered, “J-a-i-l.”

“Oh,” I said again.

“For stealing cars,” she whispered. “Not anything, you know, too bad. I actually met Bryan, my fiancé, when I went visiting Dylan’s dad,” she said.

“So Bryan’s…” I was just starting to learn how the long pause could sometimes be a reporter’s best friend.

“Going to be paroled tomorrow,” Sandy said. “He was in for fraud.”

Which, I guessed from the pride in her voice, was a step up even from grand theft auto.

“So you met him in prison?”

“We were actually corresponding for some time before then,” Sandy said. “He put an ad in the classified section… here, I saved it!” She hopped up, causing our soda glasses to rattle, and came up with a laminated piece of paper no bigger than a postage stamp. “Christian gentleman, tall, athletic build, Leo, seeks sensitive pen-pal for letters and maybe more,” it read.

“He got twelve responses,” Sandy said, beaming. “He said he liked my letter the best.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I was real honest,” she said. “I explained my situation. How I was a single mother. How I wanted a role model for my boys.”

“And you think…”

“He’ll be a good daddy,” she said. She sat down again, staring into her glass like it contained the mysteries of the ages instead of flat generic cola. “I believe in love,” she said, her voice strong and clear.

“Did your parents…” I began. She waved one hand in the air, as if to shoo away the very idea.

“My father left when I was four, I think,” she said. “Then it was just my mom and one boyfriend after another. Daddy Rick, Daddy Sam, Daddy Aaron. I swore it wasn’t go

“Mom?” Dylan was back, his lips dyed Kool-Aid red, holding his brother’s hand. Where Dylan was small and fine-boned and blond, this boy – Trevor, I guessed – was darker and sturdier, with a thoughtful look on his face.

Sandy stood up and shot me a tentative smile. “You wait right here,” she said. “Boys, you come with me. Let’s show the reporter lady momma’s pretty dress!”

After all of that – the prison, the husbands, the Christian classified ad – I was prepared for something dreadful, some off-the-rack horror show of a dress. The Bridal Barn specialized in those.

But Sandy’s dress was beautiful. Tightly fitted on top, a fairytale princess boned bodice spangled with snowflake-sized crystals that caught the light, a deeply scooped neckline that showed off the creamy skin of her chest, swelling into a wave of tulle that swished around her feet. Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes sparkled. She looked like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, like Glinda the good witch. Trevor held her hand solemnly as she made her way into the kitchen, humming “Here Comes the Bride.” Dylan had appropriated her veil and popped it on his own head.

Sandy stood under the kitchen light and twirled. The edge of her skirt whispered along the floor. Dylan laughed and clapped his hands, and Trevor stared up at his mother, how her bare arms and shoulders rose out of the dress, how her hair fell against her skin. She twirled and twirled and her sons stared at her as if they were under a spell, until finally she stopped. “What do you think?” she asked. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing hard. I could see each breath make her bosom swell against the tight-fitted scalloped edges of the bodice. She turned once more, and I could see tiny cloth rosebuds stitched all down the back, tight as a baby’s pursed lips. “Is it blue? Green?”