The Anniversary Dress – Part 1: Fitting

Aurélie found the card in his coat pocket: Atelier Marchetti, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, fitting, Thursday, 3 p.m.

She stared at it, her heart doing something horrible. She was forty-three, a teacher, married twenty years to Julien, who was forty-six, balding, endearing, and the last man on earth she would suspect.

She went on Thursday. She stood across the street from the atelier with her bag clenched in both hands, and watched Julien go in with a bouquet of white roses.

Then she crossed the road and walked in behind him.

"Aurélie!" he said, spinning round, ashen.

"Who is she?" said Aurélie.

A tiny, silver-haired woman emerged from behind a curtain, pins in her mouth, and looked from one to the other. "Ah," she said, taking out the pins. "The wife."

"The wife?"

"Madame." The seamstress waved her inside. "He ordered it eight months ago. A dress. Midnight blue. For his wife's size, which he measured, I don't know how, from your wardrobe."

Julien had gone scarlet. "I was going to surprise you."

Aurélie looked at the dress on the form. Midnight silk, bias-cut, plain and exquisite, with a low back. Tears blurred her sight.

"You did all this?"

"It's twenty years," said Julien, miserably. "I wanted it to be something."

"I thought you were having an affair."

"With a seamstress? She's seventy!"

"I'm seventy-one," said the seamstress, haughtily.

Aurélie burst out laughing, and so did Julien, helplessly, and so did the seamstress, until they all had to sit down.

"Can I ask you something?" said Julien, wiping his eyes.

"Yes."

"Will you try it on?"

"Green?" said Aurélie, softly, the old word.

"Green," said Julien. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Midnight Blue.