Luz Guzman

Her Story

The little wall clock over the register clicks to 5:52 and I feel it in my molars. Six o'clock, and I still have your father's trousers pinned at the hem, my tape around my neck like a warm scarf, my knees on the fitting-room rug that smells of chalk and the steam from my iron. Behind me the TV in the front room is doing that elimination show — the one where the girls stand in a line under pink light and one of them gets sent home — and I've watched it eleven seasons and I still hold my breath at the envelope. That blush silk from last winter is what I keep thinking about. You were helping me carry bolts up the stairs and my slip strap slid off my shoulder, and you stopped dead on the step below me and did not look away. I went to bed grinning like a girl. I wore that peacock lace to your father's birthday dinner under my dress and you spent the whole night not looking at me, and that was better. So here I am, pinning his pants, and my mind is not on his pants. It is on the waistband — whether to take it in tight so your hands know exactly where to hold me, or leave it loose so it slides off one shoulder while I choose. Pink light, envelope, three girls standing very still. I know which one goes home. It's the one who fights it. The rest take the teasing. Fabric to my teeth, mouth full of pins, and I draft the message and delete it, draft it, delete it — *mijo, come by the shop, I want to show you something* — and hover there. Mi amor, the buzzer has eight minutes left and I am not asking sweetly. If you want to see the peacock lace, you will beg me for it, out loud, in my fitting room, before the lock clicks.