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“i thought you weren’t going to buy anything.”
Vic greeted her at her apartment door when she got home. He looked bemused. Handsome and dashing, as usual, but definitely bemused, one dark eyebrow arched over deep green eyes. He was handsome even when he was mocking her, she decided.
“I didn’t buy anything.” Lacey arms were overflowing with the red dress. The thing was even heavier than it looked.
“Did you steal it?” Vic took it off her hands and lifted it up to look at it. “This is a lot of dress, Lacey. It’s red. Really red. Must have been hard to steal.”
“Tell me about it. I’m storing it for LaToya Crawford. Temporarily.”
Lacey spread the costume out on her blue velvet sofa, its skirts reaching from arm to arm. It was a crazy confection of a dress, a deliciously mad swirl of blood red with multiple layers in various fabrics, shades, and textures. It was hard to even take in all at once, without someone inside it.
“You’re not generally so generous with your closet space.”
“And I’m not feeling generous. My closets are so small I can barely hang up what I have.”
“How did this happen, then?” He was a little too amused.
Lacey pulled up a chair opposite the dress occupying her sofa. “Thumbnail version. LaToya bought it and was walking off with it when a woman from the theatre came running up and said it wasn’t for sale.”
“And yet, here it is.”
“There were words. I couldn’t hear all of them. ‘Bee-yatch’ was one of them. LaToya Crawford wasn’t about to part with it. You’ve never really seen her in action.”
“Formidable, I’d guess.”
“She sets a high bar. And she was bigger that the other woman. But after that scene, LaToya decided she didn’t want it at her place for a while.”
“And why is that?” Vic moved the dress over and sat down in his accustomed place on the sofa. He stretched out and placed his hands behind his head, his mouth turning up at the corners.
He thinks this is funny? He should have been there.
“Um, it might have a history. She thinks we should, um, research the dress.” Lacey cast a nervous glance at the gown.
“Research? Lacey, what aren’t you telling me?”
“There is the slightest possibility this ruby-red gown here might be connected to a dead actress named, I’m told, Saige Russell. She allegedly wore it onstage for one last performance before she died. She played Death. That’s the story. What I know of it.”
“Here we go again.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Come here.”
Vic stood and pulled Lacey into a hug. “Let me see if I’ve got this. You have a friend with a dress she’s afraid to have in her own home? So she handed it off to you? And you took it?”
Lacey avoided his eye by snuggling under his chin. He was warm and comfortable and strong and she was exhausted.
“When you put it like that, it sounds funny. Anyway, it’s only because Broadway Lamont’s got her all excited about my alleged ‘fashion voodoo.’ As if.”
“As if it really exists, which it seems to, sweetheart. Your infamous ExtraFashionary Perception.”
“Not you too.”
“Me too.”
“Can we find something different to call it?”
Something about the dress made her pause. There was a mystique about it. While Lacey admired the effort and imagination that went into the gown, it was a costume, not clothing she could imagine herself, or anyone, actually wearing. It was the difference between life and the theatre, again. And the difference between daily life and, say, the annual Helen Hayes Awards, where many actresses had worn it.
She turned in Vic’s arms to look at it. The red dress almost seemed to have a life of its own. The waning evening light hit the dress and it seemed to glow from within. As if it knew it was the topic of conversation.
“What else do you know about it?”
“Not much, and this is hearsay. It was made for a production of The Masque of the Red Death at the Kinetic Theatre in the District. A dozen years ago.”
“The Poe story?”
“Adapted for the stage. According to our friend Tamsin, the leading lady took a header off the scaffold or the set after the last show. Something like that.”
“She died at the theatre?”
She peeked up at him. “Supposedly. I can’t verify it, darling. I don’t know, in fact, whether Saige Russell was wearing the dress at the time. Or whether she really is dead. I don’t know what the real story is. It’s the theatre. Tamsin says it might be just—a story. A theatre legend.”
“But it spooked LaToya and you want to find out why, don’t you?”
“I might have a slight curiosity. Maybe if I wasn’t on the fashion beat—”
“God only knows what disaster would befall you on another beat.”
“I wonder myself. This is probably nothing. A theatrical tall tale. Smoke and mirrors.”
“And someone died.”
“Just a rumor.”
“So far.”
Lacey recounted Tamsin’s hearsay about theatre people and their belief the dress could bring good luck or bad luck. And they lined up for the opportunity to dare to wear it.
“Is there no end to these fashion conundrums?” Vic smirked. “And you brought that bad-luck dress home with you?”
She picked up the dress up and shook out its complicated folds and layers. It looked unscathed by its adventure at the theatre yard sale. “You don’t believe in bad luck, Vic.”
“I didn’t use to.” He stared at the dress as she hung it in a protective garment bag and zipped it up. “I think it’s mocking us.”
“Now you’re playing with me.” She hung it in the front closet and closed the door. “Don’t worry, it won’t be here long. I promise.”
“You’re still running off to Baltimore for HonFest tomorrow?”
“I promised Stella. I forgot all about it, but she’s all abuzz.”
“You don’t seem too excited.”
“You’re not coming. And she’s threatening me with a beehive hairdo.”
He laughed and teased her with a kiss. “Take photos.”
“Not on your life.”
“At least a beehive wouldn’t go with a killer dress straight out of Edgar Allan Poe.”
“Thank goodness for small favors.” Lacey held on to him, trying to forget all about the red dress.
“I can think of more fun things to do than talk about costumes or dresses or beehive hairdos.” He drew her closer to him.
“So can I. Let’s compare notes.”
