The dress and the card

I dropped a wedding dress on the floor today. Not metaphor. Not "I had a hard day, I let something slip." I dropped an actual custom wedding dress out of a garment bag because the hanger clasp slid off the cut on my knuckle and the whole thing puddled on the bedroom floor in front of three people and the hostess said, "careful, darling, that's more than your week," and I picked it up without answering her because the answer would have cost me the booking.

I keep replaying her voice. It is not the words. It is the warmth she did not put in the smile while she said them. She paid me more than my week to be in her bedroom and the dress cost more than I will ever know, and she still watched it fall and said that. I would have said sorry first. I would have pretended.

Then the husband at 10:30 standing in the doorway asking if I needed help with a zipper he could not reach. His eyes were not on the zipper. I did not step around him. I waited. He stepped back. Small win. Filing it under wins for the week because I do not have many.

The card. I keep picking it up and putting it down. She is not the hostess you were sent for. The handwriting was not the hostess's. The maid looked at me when I found it and I did not look back. I pocketed it without photographing it because I do not know yet whose phone is whose in that apartment.