Anniversary Dress

I'm twenty-eight years old, and I own a farm, and last Thursday I bought a dress. But let me back up.

It was our anniversary coming up, three years since the county fair where I met Sakura. She was twenty-four then, working the pie booth, and I was twenty-five and bought four slices just to keep talking to her. Now she's twenty-seven and waits tables at the diner, and I still can't believe she picked me.

Anyway. She made this joke once, months ago, when we were driving back from her sister's place. We passed one of those clearance racks outside the church fair and she said, "You know what I'd love to see sometime? You, in that little green dress." She laughed. I laughed. Then I didn't stop thinking about it.

So that Thursday I finished the barn chores early. Which never happens. The cows knew something was up, I swear.

* * *

Anja's boutique is the only dress shop in Oakhaven, and Anja herself has run it for five years now. She's thirty-four, sharp as a tack, and she took one look at me standing in her doorway holding my cap and said, "Well. Either you're lost, Cyril, or this is going to be interesting."

"Interesting," I said. "I hope."

"Come in before the whole town sees you hovering." She waved me back between two racks of blouses. "So tell me what we're doing."

I'd rehearsed it the whole drive in and it still came out sideways. "It's for my girlfriend. Our anniversary. She, uh. She said once she'd like to see me in a dress. A green one. And I know how that sounds, but I've been thinking about it for months and I want to surprise her."

Anja didn't laugh. That was the part that got me. She just tilted her head and said, "Three years, right? Sakura, the one who's always in here on her lunch break talking about you?"

"You know her?"

"Honey, half this town knows her. She talks about you like you hung the moon." She pulled a tape measure off a hook around her neck. "Okay. Arms up."

I lifted my arms like I was surrendering. She ran the tape across my shoulders and down my chest, and she had this little smile going the whole time. Not mean. Knowing.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing. You're blushing is all. I measure big burly men for wedding suits every spring and none of them blush like that."

"It's different."

"It is different," she agreed. "But different isn't bad." She measured my waist and wrote a number on a pad. "Now. Green. What kind of green are we thinking? Dark like a pine tree, or bright like that tractor of yours?"

"There's a tractor shade of green?"

"There absolutely is. But I'm thinking not that." She walked the racks, pushing hangers along, and came back with three. "Try the middle one. Fitting room's in back, and yes, I'll be out here, and no, I won't peek."

I changed behind the curtain, hands shaking a little. The dress was a soft green, knee length, with a flared skirt and little covered buttons at the cuffs. When I looked in the mirror I didn't know whether to laugh or hide. So I did a bit of both and called, "Okay, don't laugh."

"I would never."

I pulled the curtain back and Anja put a hand over her mouth, but she was smiling. "Oh, Cyril. Turn around!"

I turned around like an idiot on a turntable.

"The color's perfect on you. But the fit's wrong through the shoulders, you're broader than the cut. Which means we go up a size and take it in at the waist, or we pick a different style." She was already reaching for another hanger. "And when do you need it?"

"Saturday. That's the anniversary."

"Two days. Fine. I'll do the alterations myself." She wrote on her pad again. "Pick it up Saturday morning, or I can deliver. Where are you?"

"Out past the grange hall. The old Hensley farm."

"I know the one." She looked at me over her glasses. "You're really doing this for her."

"I'm doing it for her. And maybe a little for me, if I'm honest. It's been sitting in my head since she said it and I need to know."

"Need to know what?"

"If it's as good an idea as I think it is. Or if I'm about to feel like a fool in my own kitchen."

Anja laughed. "Cyril, I've been married twice and dressed this whole town for every dance and funeral since I got here. Let me tell you something for free. Nobody ever felt like a fool for trying to give somebody they love a good surprise. They feel like a fool when they don't try."

She wrapped the green dress up in tissue while I paid, and she wouldn't take extra for the rush. "Saturday morning," she said. "Wear clean socks. You'll see why."

* * *

Saturday morning I drove back in and picked up the finished dress in a pink box with a ribbon on it, which Anja tied herself and which I immediately felt stupid carrying through the feed store parking lot. I stuck it in the cab behind the seat like it was contraband.

The plan was simple. Sakura worked till four. I'd get home, wash up, put the dress on, and be standing in the kitchen looking calm and handsome when she walked in. That was everything. That was all of it.

The dress laid out on our bed looked smaller in daylight than it had in the shop. I stood there with my hands on my hips looking at it, and I could feel my face going hot even though there was nobody in the house but me and the dog, and the dog doesn't judge.

"Okay," I told the dog. "Okay, Buck, shut up."

He didn't say anything, which I appreciated.

The fabric felt strange against my skin going on. Lighter than anything I own. My work shirts are all cotton and flannel and this was like putting on water. I got