The Apron Strings

My name is Naomi, I'm thirty-three, and I fix transmissions for a living. I also own eleven dresses, four pairs of heels, and a lipstick collection my ex would've paid money to never see. That's the setup, so let's get it over with.

Ray and I dated when I was twenty-one, back in college. He was a grad student, older, and thought that made him an expert on everything. It lasted eight months. When he dumped me, he told me I was "not feminine enough to be worth the effort." His words. I drove home that night in my beat-up Corolla and sat in the parking lot of a Walmart for an hour. Then I went in and bought a sundress off the clearance rack, size too big, some fake flowers printed all over it, and a lipstick called Coral Crush. I put it on in my apartment and looked in the mirror and felt something unclench in my chest for the first time in months.

It wasn't a sex thing, not mostly. It was more like armor. Grease under my nails, a torque wrench in my hand all day, and then on weekends a skirt and heels and nobody at the shop the wiser. I never told a soul. Not the guys at the garage, not my sister, and definitely not Landon.

Landon's my boyfriend now. He's thirty-five, a carpenter, built like a doorframe. I met him five years ago when his F-150 came in with a fuel pump problem and he stood there watching me work with his arms crossed like he was afraid to help. He's good people. He doesn't know about the dresses. That's been eating at me for a while, but I never found the door to walk through.

Then I heard Ray was running the BBQ booth at the Harvest Hill Fair this year. And something petty and wonderful woke up in me. I was gonna walk up to that booth in a sundress and heels, on Landon's arm, and watch Ray's face do the math.

* * *

I spent forty minutes on my hair Saturday afternoon. Floral sundress, yellow, the good one that actually fits. Wedge heels because I'd be walking on fairground gravel and I'm not an idiot. Red lipstick, the confident kind, not the shy kind. I looked at myself in the full mirror on the back of my closet door and thought, damn, Ray is gonna swallow his own tongue.

The fair smelled like grilled corn and sawdust and that sweet greasy cloud that hangs over every funnel cake stand in America. I found Landon at the woodworking demo, running a lathe for a crowd of maybe nine people and two retirees with opinions.

He saw me and almost ruined a chair leg. "Naomi? Whoa. Hi. You look, hold on." He shut the lathe off and wiped his hands on his jeans. "You look incredible."

"Thanks. Figured I'd dress up for once."

"For once? You always look good." He kissed my cheek, careful not to get sawdust on the dress, which I appreciated. "But I gotta be honest, I'm mid-shift for another hour. Doug went to get more cedar and I can't leave the demo."

"Go. I'll wait. I'm good at waiting."

"You sure? You could watch me make a stool leg. Real riveting stuff."

"I'll pass, but I'll be right over there by your booth."

He squeezed my hand and went back to work. I parked myself on a hay bale near his display and started scanning the midway for Ray.

It didn't take long. Ray was thirty-eight now, still smug, still wearing sunglasses on a chain around his neck like a retired detective. He was behind a BBQ booth with a big hand-painted sign, and he spotted me across three vendor rows like I was the only steak in the case.

"Oh no," I said to nobody.

He came over at a stroll, taking his time, and called out before he even got to me. "Well, well. Naomi? That you under all that?"

"Hello, Ray."

He looked me up and down slow, like he was inspecting a house flip. "Huh. Look at you. Somebody finally taught you to shop."

"Nobody taught me anything. I've always known how to shop. You just never paid attention."

He laughed like I'd told a joke and turned to wave someone over. "Rosaline! Come here, baby, I want you to meet somebody."

A woman came around the booth. Late twenties I'd have guessed, turned out she was thirty-two, dark hair done up nice, nails that cost real money. She gave me a polite smile that I already liked better than Ray.

"Rosaline, this is Naomi. We dated a hundred years ago. She was going through a phase."

"A phase," I repeated.

"Tomboy phase," he said, winking at Rosaline. "I fixed most of it but the warranty ran out."

Rosaline's smile got tighter. "That's a pretty dress," she said to me.

"Thank you. I like your nails."

"See, she's got taste," Rosaline said, and shot Ray a look.

Ray leaned in a little, voice dropping like he was doing me a favor. "Seriously though, Naomi, good for you, cleaning up. Takes some women a long time to figure out what men actually want."

Here's what I want you to understand. I had a whole speech loaded. Something about how he was the one who never figured out what he wanted, how he ran a BBQ booth at a county fair and called it an empire. But before I could fire it off, a goat screamed.

Not like a person screaming. Goat screaming, which is worse. Somewhere behind the woodworking demo, something bleated like it was being murdered and took off running, and a couple of 4-H volunteers took off after it, and one of them tripped over Landon's extension cord and knocked his whole display of finished cutting boards onto the ground.

"Naomi!" Landon yelled from the lathe, hands full. "Can you grab the boards? I can't leave this thing spinning!"

I would like to tell you I handled it with dignity. What actually happened is I stood there in my good dress with sawdust clouds settling everywhere and Ray grinning at me like I'd been caught shoplifting, and I made an executive decision.