Borderlands 6

by Thomas F Monteleone

  For my dad to have her all this time, letting her fly, keeping it all to himself, how hard it must have been for him to ground her.

  Once I completed the sale and shaved off another two hundred acres of land, I sold my house and moved Dennis and myself into Dad’s ranch. Sam, my boss, thought it was a good move since Dad’s house was much larger than my own and we still owned plenty of land.

  I showed Dennis where Dad’s grave marker was near his barn. Not her barn. “Is this where you want me to bury you when you die, Daddy?”

  “You can. But I’m not going to die for a long time.”

  We walked to the edge of the fence and looked over at her barn. I put my hand on his shoulder, letting the suckers on my palm squeeze and release the cloth of his shirt. Cancer apparently ran in the family. Not the cancer that killed, but the cancer that made you stronger, made you feel good all the time. At least for a little while.

  “See this fence, Dennis?”

  “He nodded.”

  “You cannot go past this fence,” I said, feeling the words my father said so long ago rise inside me. “This is the no-pass line. If I catch you or any of your friends past this line, that’ll be your ass.” I looked down at him. “Understand?”

  He nodded.

  I told him to run inside and clean up for supper.

  The Dress

  Peter Salomon

  All editors have certain biases either against or for certain types of stories. Children or teenagers can make a tale painfully annoying or . . . utterly creepy. Peter Salomon achieves the latter with his subtle narrative about a young woman and her worn-out apparel.

  Victoria ran fingers down her dress to smooth out the wrinkles. It didn’t help. Never did. The fabric wrinkled right back up. The lace curled, a little yellow, but mostly white. Squeezing the edges between her fingers to keep it together, a string ripped free, caught the breeze, and disappeared. Another. She lunged after, trying to save it, but fell short, unable to move as quickly as the wind.

  Time for a new dress. Past time. Too little time. Papa told her the rules, repeated them until she knew them by heart. The rules were all she had of him now. The rules and the dress, fraying and wrinkled and wasting away. Like her, disappearing in the wind with every thread.

  “When the dress begins to fray,” Papa said, his hands working the loom with an artist’s touch.

  “I know, Papa,” Victoria said, though she hadn’t been Victoria then. She’d been someone else, she knew, but the memories were fading, fraying, disappearing with the threads she couldn’t catch. “Only touch the next dress to wear.”

  Papa smiled. Papa always smiled. Then he turned back to the loom. “When the dress begins to fade?”

  “Touch wrong and kill the love so dear.”

  “When the dress begins to fray?”

  “Forget the memories with every tear,” she said.

  “When the dress begins to fade?” he asked, stopping his work long enough to look at her, the smile forgotten.

  “Lose the dress and disappear.”

  Time and sunlight had bleached the fabric, threadbare at the elbows and knees. It hadn’t faded for years, at least not before Mama died. Or did Papa die first? The memories were hazy, the details lost.

  She remembered being able to remember. When the dress was new. At least she thought she remembered the dress being new, learning the rules. She remembered the rules. But even they were fading.

  Victoria took a deep breath, trying to remember who’d taught them to her. Was it Papa? Someone taller? Shorter? Was Papa short? Papa was tall, taller than her. Wasn’t he?

  Didn’t matter any longer. The dress was the dress; it was the only one she owned, though she couldn’t remember buying it. A gift, perhaps. Was it ever new? Was she ever new? Papa would know. Wouldn’t he?

  “When the dress begins to fray,” Victoria said, watching another thread fly away. The first hint of the sun fell across her face and she knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” a young man said, swinging the door open and then heading back inside. He was older than her, at least a year or two, she liked to believe.

  “I’m bored,” she said, walking behind him.

  “You’re always bored.”

  She pulled at the lace, at the curling edges, hard enough to fray the fabric even more. A strand pulled free, drifted to the ground, and she tried to catch it before it dissolved.

  When the dress begins to fray

  Only touch the next dress to wear

  When the dress begins to fade

  Touch wrong and kill the love so dear

  When the dress begins to fray

  Forget the memories with every tear

  When the dress begins to fade

  Lose the dress and disappear

  The rules. She remembered them. Didn’t she? Those were right; they had to be right. Papa had said, Papa had sewn, Papa had taught her the rules before he died. Each dress forever more, he’d said, would one day fade and fray and disappear. This was the fourth dress. The fifth dress? There’d been the button one and the mistaken one and the first one that Papa had made for her when everyone was afraid to touch her. So many dresses, so many papas.

  Another thread drifted away as she walked through the house. “William,” she said, the memory of him coming back from wherever it had momentarily disappeared.

  “That’s me.” He never mocked her in her poverty, for having to wear the same dress every day or for forgetting his name every so often.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is.” And smiled, for his understanding and the times he’d tried to touch her and she’d run away despite wanting to be touched. Needing him to touch her. But the rules were the rules; she still remembered those, even when everything else was fading away to nothing.

  “Where to, today?” William asked.

  Victoria shrugged, lost in trying to remember the rules, the dresses, the papas.

  “Follow me, then,” he said, reaching out to take her hand.

  She pulled back far too quickly, shocked out of her thoughts. Not wanting to touch him. Not now. It was the rule, the only rule she lived by. No touching. Not him. Not yet.

  William shrugged and started walking. Down the gravel driveway, oak trees shaded them until they reached the main road. He led her across the street, past a number of houses abandoned after the plant closed, leaving the town to fade away and fray at the edges. Too many had been boarded up, hidden away behind industrial-strength fences.

  They took a shortcut through a private garden they’d discovered one quiet afternoon, partially overgrown yet oddly tended in parts; if anyone owned it, they didn’t seem to care when it was invaded by curious teenagers. Finally, at the corner, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, shining down on a house with people scrambling all over it.

  “What’s going on?” Victoria asked.

  “I think someone’s actually moving in.”

  “Why?”

  He pointed to a car sitting in the driveway. “Ask them.”

  They watched as a man pulled open the door to help a woman out. She moved slowly, hands cradling her stomach.

  “I’m not fat,” she said loud enough to be heard over the men unloading the moving van. “Just pregnant.”

  Whatever the man said in return couldn’t be heard as the back door opened.

  A teenage girl got out, her blonde hair catching the sun. Victoria shifted behind the tree, hiding from view. Her dress snagged a branch and the thin fabric tore, exposing skin that hadn’t seen the light of the sun in far too long.

  Her heart stopped. She held the two pieces together, fingers tightening as she looked at the strands flapping in the breeze, trying to hold the tear together. When the dress begins to fray . . . when the dress begins to fray . . . She held tighter, trying to remember the next line, on the tip of her ton
gue, slipping away, and then she found it. Only touch the next dress to wear.

  “What?” William asked, turning to her. “Did you say something?”

  Victoria shook her head, staring back at the girl where she laughed before running around her parents and disappearing inside the house.

  William turned to Victoria. “See, something not boring.”

  “Fine,” she said, trying to pretend she hadn’t torn the dress, that she hadn’t forgotten the rules. “I’m not quite as bored. Now what?”

  He shrugged. “That’s all I had to show you.”

  They watched the father help the mother walk inside the house, Victoria staring hard enough to burn the image into memory so she’d never forget. Even though she would. She always did. With every mama and papa. With every dress. “I have to go home,” William said after his stomach growled for the third time.

  “Go eat.” She watched him walk away, and then watched the empty place where he’d just been, reaching out her hand to touch the air that had touched him.

  Victoria walked around the house until she stood in the shadows with the new family. The mother sat outside beneath an umbrella stuck in the ground to give her shade. A glass of something pink sat on her stomach, balanced on the baby.

  Boy, Victoria thought, not knowing why.

  “Never touch a baby,” Papa said bent over the loom in the middle of the night, candles flickering to cast away the darkness.

  “Why?” she asked. Tiny fingers and toes newborn soft. So touchable.

  He slammed his hand down so hard the ratchet wheel broke off and rolled across the room, his face red and splotchy. “Never touch a baby,” he said over and over again as he put the loom back together and continued making her dress.

  Papa was angry. Papa was sad, raising her on his own after Mama died. That was the first papa. She remembered him. But the memory was faint and fading. Papa with the brown hair. Papa with the gold hair. Papa with no hair. Papa with the gray hair. Papa with the black hair. Papa with a little hair he combed over in thin rivers. So many memories, so many papas.

  The teenage girl came out of her house, all blonde and happy. Her shirt pink and shiny as the sun.

  Victoria smoothed her dress out, wrinkles returning as soon as she let go, a few more threads gone with the wind, and watched the girl and the mama and the soon-to-be boy, trying to remember the rules.

  When the dress begins to fray

  Only touch the next dress

  When the dress begins to fade

  Touch wrong and kill the love

  When the dress begins to fray

  Forget the memories

  When the dress begins to fade

  Lose the dress and disappear

  She kept touching her dress, trying to catch the strands before they vanished, holding tighter, the words fading. The rules fading. The dress, the next dress. There had to be a next dress. Always. Papa had taught her the rules. Or was it Mama sewing at her loom? The wind picked up, tearing loose a handful of threads and blowing them away.

  William and Victoria sat in a tree, hidden by leaves, and learned the girl’s name the next day, when her mother called her in.

  “Chloe!”

  And Chloe dropped what she was doing, straightened out another pink shirt that didn’t need straightening, and ran inside.

  “She seems nice,” Victoria said.

  William nodded, his cheeks flushing red.

  “Talk to her,” she said.

  He scrambled down the tree and ran back home. She stayed behind, watching Chloe until watching wasn’t enough.

  Victoria tried to smooth out the wrinkles. It didn’t help. More threads disappeared.

  She knocked, and then clasped her hands behind her back.

  “I’m Victoria,” she said to the man who answered the door. “I live up the street.”

  “Looking for Chloe?”

  Victoria nodded.

  He yelled up the stairs then turned back, stretching his hand out to shake. “I’m Mr. Crowe,” he said. “She should be right down.”

  Victoria held her hands up, showing him the nails. “Just painted, nice to meet you, though.”

  “Teenage girls.” He laughed while shaking his head. “You and Chloe will get along great.” He turned around when she came bouncing down the stairs in blue jeans and a bright pink T-shirt. “This is Victoria.”

  “Hi, I’m—”

  “Chloe,” Victoria said. “I heard.”

  “Want to come in?”

  “I was going to see if you wanted to come out, but in is good.”

  Chloe turned to her father.

  “Go,” he said. “Be back for dinner. You start school tomorrow.”

  Victoria straightened her dress out. The plain colors stood out in such stark contrast to the vibrant pinks of Chloe’s shirt.

  “I’ve seen you around,” Chloe said, “hanging out with some guy. Figured that was your boyfriend.”

  Victoria turned away, staring at the sun through the leaves. “Just a friend,” she said. “Want to meet him?”

  Chloe smiled. “Sure.”

  The sun was high overhead as they walked, passing one deserted house after another.

  “This is it.” Victoria stopped in front of one of the few houses that looked lived in.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “William’s a little shy.”

  “Will two girls standing outside his house help?” Chloe asked, laughing as she leaned her shoulder into Victoria. Victoria pushed back and the two of them ended up swaying together.

  “He’ll think we’re dancing for him.” Victoria stepped away, smoothing out her dress. The collar was fraying and another string fell off, disappearing into the wind. It had been new once. Bright too. Not pink-Chloe bright, but colorful. And clean. And fresh, unworn. Each stitch tight, as though it would last forever.

  Victoria reached for Chloe’s hand. Rules were rules, after all. And she needed a next dress.

  “He’s shy,” Victoria said. “But you’re going to love him, I just know it.”

  Chloe followed along as Victoria tugged her up the porch steps. “Does he know you like him?” she asked, her voice a false whisper, like a spy in a bad movie.

  Victoria shook her head so hard another string fell from her dress. She tried to catch it but it was gone too quickly. “Just a friend,” she said. “You’re his type, not me.”

  “Hi,” William said when he opened the door.

  “This is Chloe,” Victoria said, pushing the other girl forward.

  Victoria tried to smooth her dress as Chloe stretched her hand out. They shook.

  Victoria sighed.

  It was a silent sound, almost a gasp but not quite. She blinked a tear away. How long since she’d cried? Hard to keep track of all the tears after so long without them. Was it Mama who told her “never let him see you cry”? Something about giving away her soul, about letting Papa know he’d caused pain. Better to hide the hurt behind a veil of laughter. Or, better yet, just to hide.

  Tears will kill as easily as words. As a knife or gun or rock, if nothing else is close at hand. Tears wound. Sticks and stones and all that.

  Another string fell free, the dress one thread lighter now. Victoria bent down, looking along the old wood planks of the porch for the string, but it must have fallen through the cracks.

  “School starts tomorrow,” William said. “You going to McKinley?”

  Chloe nodded. “How is it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s high school. Physics teacher is pretty cool, if you’re into that kind of stuff.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. Blonde hair went flying every which way and she pulled it off her face. “I was thinking more like English, maybe drama.”

  Victoria remembered school. There were more rul
es, Papa said. To keep her safe. To keep everyone safe.

  The first classroom might have been plain wooden boards, rough, giving splinters every time she brushed against them. There were cinder blocks at one school, gray rectangles towering over her. She’d count them to stave off boredom. In the corners, the blocks were poorly cut to fit and light would filter through. Or was that in the one-room schoolhouse? Each teacher looked like all the rest, the same starched dress that smelled of mothballs and breath that smelled of moths. Dead moths, leaning over her, spraying her name when she dawdled or failed to pay proper attention.

  “Yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” and the ruler on her knuckles leaving red marks brighter than the sun. The principal so kindly and grasping as his own hand left marks on her bare skin in the quiet of his office, even when she was proper in her appearance and her attitude and her “yes, ma’ams” were all in order. So many principals leaving their marks on her.

  Papa would be mad. Papa would be jealous.

  So many papas leaving so many marks.

  High school was different from those drafty rooms with starched teachers and mouth-breathing principals. No more rulers now. She remembered rulers. But like her dress, those memories were fading. It had been too long since she’d been a child. Too many memories had been written and rewritten on the wrinkles of her dress.

  Victoria pulled at the hem, stretching the fabric enough she could almost see her legs through the thinnest spots. Pale skin, shadows barely hidden by fabric as more strings fell to the porch, carried away by the wind before she could snatch them out of the air.

  “I should really be getting home,” Chloe said, resting her hand on William’s arm for a brief moment.

  Both Victoria and William stared at the contact, William turning red in the late afternoon sun. Victoria sighed again.

  “We could walk you home.”

  “That’s okay,” Chloe said. “I need to learn my way around.”

  “You should ask her out,” Victoria said as they watched her walk away.

  “What? No.”

  “Seriously. Now, tonight. Don’t let her get to school tomorrow and meet someone else.” She bit her lip, then shook her head. “You’ll only get this one chance, William. Go for it.”