A house of secrets

I was sitting on the porch rail of my mother's old house when my phone buzzed. Matt Hammond, again. He'd sent me a message the night before saying he'd be there at two, and at 1:58 his little blue dot appeared on the map like a promise kept.

We'd matched on that app maybe thirty hours earlier. I was twenty-nine, recently divorced, and swiping out of boredom more than hope. His profile said he was thirty-one, never married, liked old houses and "unusual clothes." That last part I read three times.

His car pulled up at two sharp. A gray hatchback, very tidy. He got out wearing a button-down shirt and nerves you could see from the driveway.

"You must be Monique," he said, hand out. "I'm Matt. Thanks for meeting me on a Saturday."

"I'm the one holding the open house, so technically you're doing me the favor." I shook his hand. His palm was warm and a little damp. "Come on in."

He stepped into the front hall and just stood there for a second, turning in a slow circle. "Okay, wow. It's so... empty. Staged. Like a furniture store where nobody's allowed to sit down."

"That's the idea. People can't picture their own lives in a room if somebody else's life is still lying around."

"It still feels like somebody's house, though. Not a listing." He ran a finger along the mantel, checking for dust, I think. There wasn't any. I'd been over this place twice.

"Yeah, well." I looked at the neutral gray walls, the vases with no flowers in them. "It was my mother's. She passed last spring, and it's mine now, and I need it sold."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, she'd hate all this beige." I laughed a little, and he laughed too. "I turn thirty next week. I'd really like the paperwork done and the keys handed over before that birthday shows up."

"Thirty's not so bad," he said. "I'm thirty-one. The water's fine."

"You would say that, you're already in it."

He smiled at that, and something in his shoulders came down an inch. Good. Nervous anyone never has a good Saturday.

* * *

I took him through the rooms the way I always do, kitchen first because kitchens sell houses, then the living room, then the hallway to the master bedroom. He was polite and asked decent questions. Square footage, roof age, whether the basement ever took water. Normal stuff. But twice on the way down the hall I caught him looking at me, then looking away fast, like I'd caught him at something.

The master bedroom was the biggest room and the emptiest, except for the closet. My mother's dresses were still in there because I hadn't had the stomach to clear them out yet. Forty years of a life in silk and cotton, hanging there in the quiet.

Matt walked in, took one look toward the closet, and stopped like the floor had a line drawn across it.

"Something catch your eye?" I asked.

"No. No, sorry. It's a nice room. Big windows." He was looking at the closet again while saying the opposite of that.

I've sold real estate for six years. I know when somebody wants something they think they can't have. "Matt. Can I ask you a weird question? You can tell me to mind my own business."

"Okay," he said, and his voice had already gone careful.

"Have you ever tried on women's clothes?"

The room got very small. He looked at the carpet, then at me, then at the closet, then at the carpet again. "Is it that obvious?"

"It's not obvious. You've got a button-down on and everything. I just have a good eye. Occupational hazard."

"Oh. Well!" He blew out a breath. "Yeah. I mean, sort of. I've thought about it since college. Like, really thought about it, for a long time. Over ten years now. But I never did anything about it. I bought a dress once, in a drugstore, of all places, and I stood in my apartment holding it and then I returned it the next day. Never even tried it on."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It felt like a thing you couldn't take back. Like if I put it on, I'd find out something about myself and then I'd have to live with it." He gave me a helpless little shrug. "Also, where do you even start? I'd just be a guy in a dress, alone, feeling dumb."

"You wouldn't have to be alone," I said.

He looked up sharply. "What?"

"I said you wouldn't have to do it alone. If you wanted." I nodded at the closet. "Those are my mother's dresses. Nobody's worn them in over a year. She was a tall woman with taste, and there's a whole closet there, and it's a Saturday afternoon, and this house doesn't belong to anybody's life anymore. It's kind of the perfect place for something you've never done."

"You'd... help me?"

"I'd help you pick something. That's all this is, an offer. You can say no and we go back to talking about the roof and that's fine too. Totally fine. And this has nothing to do with the house, you're not buying and I'm not selling."

He was quiet for a second, and I would say he thought about it for ages, but it was more like five seconds. "Yes," he said. "Yeah. I want to. Is that strange?"

"It's Saturday-strange. That's the best kind."

I crossed the room and opened the closet, and the smell of my mother's cedar blocks came out with the hangers. I hadn't said that part out loud in a while. Matt came up beside me, close enough that I could hear him breathing.

"Okay, so," I said, sliding hangers along the rod. "What draws you? Be honest. Silk? Cotton? A color?"

"I honestly don't know. Everything in here looks like a museum."

"Then let's start simple." I pulled out a cream silk blouse and held it against the light. Then I dug through the skirts and came up with a black pencil skirt, classic cut, knee length. "This. This says first day, not Halloween. A person trying something for the first time shouldn't look like a costume."

"That's... actually exactly what I was afraid of. Looking like a costume."

"Then this is the right place to start." I hung both pieces over my arm. "Bathroom's down the hall, but honestly the light in here is better. Your call."

"The light in here," he said, and then went a little pink, like he'd surprised himself.

I laid the blouse and skirt out on the bed. "Shirt off first. Keep on whatever's underneath, we're not doing anything you didn't sign up for."

"Right. Yes. Underneath stays!" He worked his button-down off with hands that weren't quite steady, and I pretended to be very interested in the hangers while he did it. Consent isn't just a yes once, it's a person still wanting to be there, and he was still there, still breathing, still stealing glances at the silk.

"Arms up," I said, and slid the blouse onto him myself, because his hands were shaking and mine weren't. The silk whispered over his shoulders and down. I buttoned it to the collarbone, then undid the top button, because the collarbone is a better line.

"Oh," he said quietly, looking down at himself. "Oh, that's. It feels different than I imagined."

"How did you imagine it?"

"I don't know. Like a joke? But it's not. It's just... soft."

"It's supposed to be soft. That's the whole point of silk." I held out the skirt. "Step in."

He stepped in and I worked the zipper at his side, then stood back to look. The skirt sat a little loose at the waist. My mother had been small through the hips and Matt was built like someone who took stairs instead of elevators.

"Hold still." I found the little side tab, cinched it, and smoothed the fabric over his hip with my flat hand. He made a small sound at that, the touch, the whole situation, who knows. "There. Look at you."

He turned to the long mirror on the closet door and stopped. I watched him in the glass, watching himself. Thirty-one years old, cream silk, black pencil skirt, and a face that could not decide between fear and delight.

"I don't look like a joke," he said. It came out almost a whisper.

"No, you don't. You look like somebody who's about to have an interesting afternoon." I picked a necklace off the hook