My Little Blue Dress (2 page)

T
HANKS TO SOMEONE'S
sense of drama, my Queen of the May preinterview was scheduled for the last possible day, the fourth Saturday in April 1905, and I remember the dread descending that morning before I'd even opened my eyes. I tried to will myself back to sleep but my eyelids snapped open of their own accord and I lifted my head to glumly regard the simple but expensive white pinafore that me mam and I had picked out months before at the Fancy Shop up in Bliffington. It hung coldly from the back of my desk chair, like a funereal shroud, if there is such a thing. From the kitchen below wafted up a distressing lack of odor,
that I knew to be emanating from a bowl of complexion-friendly mixed berries rather than my usual deep-fried platter. “As tha roused thaself, lass?” came me mam's cheery voice up the stairs. “Is tha ready?”

No, I wasn't, and I mouthed as much into the frigid air of my bedroom. “Aye, me mam! Just fixin' me ringlets!”

After several deep breaths I tumbled out of bed to confront my destiny.

O
N THE STREET
outside the grocer's, me mam squatted down to give me a final hair and face check.

“Is tha nervous, lass?” She smiled.

I shook my head. I wasn't nervous. The streets were deserted and there was no one around to hate me. I just felt numb. On complete autopilot.

“Well,
I
were,” she confided. “April o' me Queenship t'were a terrible 'umid climate in these parts, an' me ringlets all frizzed up rotten like an 'eron's nest. Oh, it were awful!” She chuckled at the memory. “But oh lass . . .” Her voice tailed off. She plucked a loose ringlet from my cheek and tucked it gently behind my ear. “Oh me smallest lass tha's more comely than I
ever
were. Lass, tha's
beautiful
.”

I gave her hand a squeeze. She was having a bittersweet moment, I could tell, and I was pretty sure I knew why. In the summer following her Queen of the May victory, a few weeks after she'd married me da, a haberdasher had come to our house from all the way up in Bliffington to offer me mam a whole guinea if she would quickly stand amidst bolts of cloth in his emporium while an artist made a drawing for a handbill. It had been a really awkward scene, apparently,
according to Karen, who got the story from her own mam. A full thirty minutes the haberdasher had stood there on our kitchen floor, making his pitch to me da while me mam did the dishes and pretended not to care. Me da heard him out, apparently, never saying a word, then politely showed him to the door and closed it in his face.

And he would not now be back, that haberdasher, not for me mam at least. Though still only in her late twenties she was no longer much to look at. Every once in a while, if you caught her in the right light, you might catch a
trace
of her former beauty, flickering beneath her skin like the bulge of a fine antique being carried to market in an old leather bag—but then tilt your head even slightly and
boom.
It was gone.

“Thanks, me mam. Thanks for everythin'.”

“Oh lass,” she said huskily. “Best o' luck and I'll see thee back at 'ome.” We hugged carefully so as not to wrinkle my outfit.

T
HE PREINTERVIEW ROOM,
I discovered when I poked my head around its door, was spare and dusty, with the classic feel of a dance studio or rehearsal space. In the center of the floor was an
X
made of silver duct tape, and behind a trestle table against the facing wall sat the three members of the preinterview committee, their heads bent over their paperwork.

The only one I recognized was the man in the middle, our butcher, a gigantic and amiable man with a huge mustache and a perfectly spherical bald head. He was flanked, as the village constitution insisted he had to be, by two randomly selected representatives of other villages to ensure
impartiality. To his left sat an impassive old man from Clee (according to a piece of folded cardboard in front of him) with a disconcertingly massive pile of hair that looked like a loaf of bread with the crusts cut off and to his right, representing Hughley, a tall and rather debonair young man in his late twenties with a wide mouth and a square jaw weaving a three-piece brown woolen suit the exact same shade as his sideburns and his longish hair.

I tapped on the door. All three looked up. The butcher, who'd seen me before, beamed broadly. The other two were stunned. “Hail there lass,” the butcher said softly, as if a magical little fawn had just appeared in a woodland clearing and he didn't want to scare her away.

“Hail, our butcher,” I replied. “Is tha ready for me now, or shall I bide me time out 'ere in t'vestibule?”

“Nay, nay lass.” He beckoned me in with both hands. “We're more'n ready for thee. Bring thaself in. Nowt to be frit o'.”

I walked erectly to the
X
and smiled at my evaluators. The two non-Murbery judges were still gawping at my beauty, especially the young-looking Hughley man, who had slumped low in his chair and was now positively
leering
at me, like I was a barmaid in a seaport town rather than an innocent little five-year-old girl. I flashed him a mouthful of baby teeth, trying to shame him into showing some respect, but all he did was raise an eyebrow.

“Reet then,” said the butcher, obviously flipping through his clipboard. “Why doesn't tha start by tellin' us about . . . oh 'eck.” He tossed his question list aside and creaked back happily in his chair. “Jus' about why it is that tha wants to be Queen o' t'May. What appeals to thee about it?”

“Why?”

“Aye.”

“Alreet. Well, that's a reet fair question,” I began. “An' I think I'd 'ave to say that t'
main
reason that I've come down 'ere this mornin' is not because I 'ave any kind of,” I deepened my voice satirically, “
obsession wi' bein' Queen o' t'May
than that I'm keen to simply . . . what's t'word . . .
participate.
Oh, it would be reet nice to win t'thing, don't get me wrong.” I flashed a smile. “But far more important, to me at least, is jus' showin' up an' takin' part. Ever since I were a lickle babe, I've been aware o' a sense in which . . .”

“An' 'ow old is tha now, lass?” asked the old judge from Clee, his quill pen hovering above his clipboard.

“Five, sir. I am five year old. At t'moment.”

“Carry on, lass.”

“Aye.” I cleared my tiny throat again and readdressed the spot on the wall. “I were sayin' that ever since I were a tiny babe in me crib I've been conscious o' t'extent to which it's rituals like Queen o' t'May, an' the springtime fayre as an 'ole, which bind us together as a village. I mean after t'long, col' months o' winter. To be able to all gather together in t'same place an' turn to one another an' say,” I jabbed my finger, “ ‘
Alreet!
Winter's
over!
We made it through! We survived! An' now let's begin t'cycle again, an' let's prove to ourselves that we know it
is
a cycle by 'oldin' t'same celebration we 'eld
last
year,' ” I gestured over my shoulder, “ ‘an' by once again electing a queen'. Does tha know what I'm sayin'?” There were nods all round. “It's annual rituals like Queen o' t'May that serve as . . . almos' as t'
heartbeat
o' a community. Because a community . . . an' people get this wrong all t'time . . . a community is a great deal more than just a bunch of people 'oose 'ouses are quite close by each other, it's . . . it's an
organism
.”

I tailed off not entirely comfortable with how I was sounding. None of this was coming out right.

“Lass?” inquired the butcher.

“Sorry. All I'm sayin' is that I want to be Queen o' t'May because I love t'village o' Murb'ry an' I want to do whatever I can to 'elp it thrive.”

There ensued a lengthy pause, during which all three judges stared at me.

“Well!” said the butcher eventually. “Them's a selection of reet satisfactory answers, lass. On be'alf o' t'committee I'd like to thank thee for thine time and express to thee 'ow much we're looking for'ard to thine appearance at Queen o' t'May competition proper, two Saturdays hence, on t'inaugural afternoon o' Murb'ry Fayre. Thank' ee, lass, an' . . .”

“Wait.”

It was the lanky, dissolute judge from Hughley. He was tapping his teeth with the end of his pencil and peering at me intently.

The butcher covered his eyes with his hand. “Please, Jack. Not again.”

“Aye,” said Jack aggressively. “Again. I believe if tha consults t'constitution o' t'Murb'ry Fayre Committee tha'll find that t'judges from surroundin' towns are entitled to ask any question o' a candidate that occurs to 'em.”

Creaking back in his chair the butcher stared at the ceiling.

“Does tha 'ave a question for me, sir?”

“Aye, lass. I do,” said Jack. A very simple one. Me question is this.” He paused dramatically. “Does tha really
want
to be Queen o' t'May, lass? Or is tha fakin'?”

I went cold.

“Oh, now.” The butcher surged forward in his chair. “I
warned thee, Jack. I warned thee about 'arassin' t'contestants. Don't know 'ow tha's been accustomed to be'avin' down in 'Ughley Town but 'ere in Murb'ry tha'll keep a civil tongue in thine 'ead whilst addressin' our girlfolk or tha'll be tastin' me belt an' no mistake.”

Jack's gaze never left me. He smiled gently. “I'm not 'arrassin' thee am I, lass? Tha's not in an 'urry to leave, is tha?”

I dumbly shook my head.

“Well, then?”

“Yes,” I said, “I do want to be Queen o' t'May.”

“Reet.” Jack nodded. “O' course tha does. An' tha knows o' course what bein' Queen o' t'May entails, doesn't tha? Tha's aware that for two 'ole weeks this springtime season tha'll 'ave ev'ry eye in Murb'ry upon thee, evaluatin' thee an' scrutinizin' thee, listenin' to thine words as tha declares t'Fayre officially open, an' congratulates t'winner o' t'Best Three Carrots competition on 'is triumph?”

“O' course,” I said weakly, pretty sure I was about to vomit.

“ 'Cause wi' all due respeck, lass.” Jack steepled his fingers. “Wi' all due respeck it seems to me that tha may not be necessarily very
suited
to them types o' acktivity. As I lissen to thine words I find meself struck by a certain . . . 'ow shall I put this . . . a certain
fanciness
in thine mode o' speech, lass. For a lickle five-year-ol' lass from a tiny village like Murb'ry, tha talks . . .” he scratched his cheek, “funny.”

BOOM!
The butcher pounded the trestle with both palms. “Reet. Tha's crossed t'line now, Jack.” He stood and fumbled at his buckle. “Tha's jus' earned thaself a thrashin' o' biblical proportions. I 'ope tha' likes t'flavor o' Bliffin'ton leather because . . .”

“Stop.”

This was me.

I didn't feel cold anymore, and I didn't feel sick.

Far from it.

All of a sudden I was having what I think people call an “epiphany.”

This Jack person, it occurred to me in a great rush of warmth, was absolutely right. I
did
talk funny. I sounded freakishly worldly and sophisticated.