Skirt of Pearls
The dress craved motion, but she always found herself in stillness. Stuffed in the back of a wardrobe, smothered by tulle and silk.
Hidden away. Left behind.
She had been beautiful once, long ago. She had begun life in a young socialite’s dream. The socialite was dancing in a striking white dress with a skirt made of pearls, twirling and twirling under a sparkling diamond chandelier. She was the brightest star in the galaxy.
When the socialite woke up, she ran to the best seamstress in town, demanded she make the dress in time for the Beaumonts’ party, the best party of the year. The one where she would be most noticed.
Over late nights at the seamstress’s shop, over thousands of finger pricks and countless pearls lost to crevices in the creaky wood floors, the dress came to be. And when she was finished, she was as spectacular as she was in the socialite’s dream.
When the socialite appeared at the party, every head turned, took in the silky white fabric, the sheer white sleeves. But it was the pearls that were remembered, admired. The skirt of pearls that twisted around themselves, that gleamed in the party’s lowlights, that clinked and clanked together as the socialite swished across the room.
“So stunning,” the other women said.
“So unique.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Never said in the sneering tone of those who hid an insult with a compliment. Only ever spoken of with awe. So beautiful, she drew the eye of
the man who was the center of the party’s gravity. A man with words as silky and intricate as the dresses around him, who gazed at the
strands of pearls and saw only opportunity. A man who wove a tale with those smooth words, who gave promises to the socialite he never intended to keep.
And when those promises were broken, when there was nothing left but torn fabric and scattered pearls, the dress was stuffed into the back of the wardrobe, left there until she was nothing but a distant memory. Over the years, her fabric had grown worn, had been eaten away by moths, until she was nothing but the bones of a dress and some stubborn strands of pearls that clung on, refused to give way.
But still she waited. Someday, someone would open the wardrobe and see her there, see her fine bones and imagine what she could be again. Someday. Someday.
