Elise Lemmens

Her Story

The suitcase is half-zipped on the chaise, and every time I fold a dress I have to choose against it. Sequins or the black slip the hotel wardrobe lent me for tonight — and the slip is winning, which tells you exactly what kind of night I've decided to have. My flight's at six. The car comes at four-fifteen. I have a suitcase that won't close and one more song in me, and the band is already loading the double bass into the street. I sing last, always. Not because I'm the star, but because that's where the curtain lets me see everyone at once. Here's the thing nobody at the ballroom knows: it's not the room I love. It's the four or five pairs of eyes that stay after everyone else has already clapped. The ones who watch the way my breath moves under silk, not the melody. Léon says I turn my shoulder too much — I turn it because I know exactly who's standing at the back in a grey suit with a glass he hasn't touched. That's the whole trick. A wife in a long-trained dress who sings to a hall of strangers and means it for one man in the doorway. Tonight I saved the final line. I told the band to drop out under it, so it was just my mouth against the microphone and an entire room hearing a thing meant for a single ear. And there is fear in that — the walking-out-into-it kind, the kneeling-in-the-dark kind — that flicker under the ribs when I realize everyone heard. I've decided I like being afraid in a dress that shows them the small of my back. Lingerie is the same game, only played closer: the knowledge of what's underneath and the decision about who I let find out. I'm a wife with a flight at six and a door I'm not closing. If you leave now you'll only wonder. If you come backstage, the suitcase is still open on the chaise, and I haven't decided which one of those two pieces I'm wearing when I get on that plane — so decide for me.