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The Little Black Dress

Anne Turner Taub

    “Please, please, before I go, please let me have my little black dress.” said Josephine Wyatt as she lay dying in bed, three days before she would be gone forever.
    “What is she talking about,” said her home aide, “she doesn’t have a little black dress. I have helped her get dressed for years. I know everything she has in her closets, and believe me; she has no little black dress.” Sonia was really perplexed.
    “A little black dress? That’s weird. They have been out of style for years. Could it be tucked away somewhere? In some little nook or something?” asked Josephine’s next-door neighbor, Blanche.
    “Look, I know that house inside out and backwards, ever since she first became incapacitated with her heart. If there were something hidden, believe me, I would know it. Anyway, why would anyone who is dying want a little black dress?” Where could she go with it? The only thing she is going to wear from now on is a hospital gown.
    “Well, she certainly seems to want that little black dress. She has been talking about it for a couple of days now. Are you sure she doesn’t have one somewhere?” It would be nice to grant her this one last request. She doesn’t have anything else—no family, no real friends, even though to me she has always seemed one of the happiest people I know.”
    “You know, you’re right. She has always been so upbeat; that’s why I enjoyed working for her. I mean, for a woman who never left the house, never had friends or family—she just was such a happy person.” Sonia smiled, “I wish I knew her secret. I will surely miss her. She mused a bit sadly. “Come to think of it, you know, there is one box she would never let me touch.”
    “Really? That may be the answer.”
    “Not likely. It is just an old wooden box, about two feet square, all warped and stained with age. She called it her “jewelry box.”
    “Well, then, obviously, that’s where she kept her jewels.”
    “No, it couldn’t have been. She had a regular jewelry box where she kept her jewels, the few that she had. And she kept all her personal papers there—you know, birth certificate, insurance, that kind of thing.”
    “That may be the answer, then,” said Blanche.
    “Well, I feel kind of funny going into her private box. She has never let me look in it before. Do you think it would be all right now?”
    “I give you permission,” Blanche smiled. “I’ll take responsibility for any consequences. I tell you what, if you don’t feel right opening it, I will do so myself.”
    “I would feel much better. After all, I am an employee, and you have been her next-door neighbor and closest thing to a friend that she has ever had.”
    That afternoon, Blanche and Sonia went to Josephine’s apartment and carefully opened the wooden “jewelry” box. True enough, there was no jewelry in it. But there was, carefully folded in one corner, a little black dress.
    Along with the dress, out came a Pandora’s Box of pictures, letters, articles—all about the little black dress. Near the dress was a note which said “Thank you for your lovely letter about the little black dress I wore in the picture. Your comments lifted my spirits for the whole day. Sincerely, Marilyn.”
    “Wow,” said Sonia, “that could have been from Marilyn Monroe.”
    Pictures of celebrities from years past fell in a cascade of motion out of the box—Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Maria Callas—often with warm letters of thanks to Josephine for her appreciation of “my little black dress’.
    Articles that were a history of the fashion world tumbled out of the box. Blanche was amazed. Josephine had saved an article, yellowed now with age but still readable, about Coco Chanel who, in 1926, had brought the little black dress into the fashion world —had brought it chic and elegant into high fashion from the nether world where it had been sad and dreary as the color for mourning at funerals. Jackie Kennedy had a three-hole black dress that had apparently warranted pages of appreciation from Josephine. In l954, Christian Dior had written, “You can wear black at any hour of day or night, at any age and for any occasion. A little black dress is the most essential thing in any woman’s wardrobe. I could write a book about black.”
    Josephine had written to all these famous people and they had all written back to her in glowing letters of appreciation for her interest in their photos. Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent—letters apparently in response to Josephine’s communications spilled out in a mountain of “thank-you notes.”
    “She had a life, didn’t she?” said Blanche. “It wasn’t the kind of life we usually think of, but apparently for her, it was a rich, fulfilling life, and she seems to have loved every minute of it.”
    Sonia didn’t see it. “A big waste of time—and stamps.. She didn’t know any of these people. It was all in her head.”
    True, Blanche thought, it was all in her head, but apparently it was a life that was so rich and fulfilling for her that it made her a happy person.
    When they came back to the hospital, they were still discussing the mystery of the little black dress. Josephine lay there listening to them, smiling quietly as the visions of her own little black dress cavorted about in her memory. Her mind went back to the day she had gotten married.
    Ray had insisted that she wear the little black dress for the ceremony. It was a small civil ceremony with just a few friends attending. He was going into the air force in a week and he wanted her as his wife before he went. The minister had been a little—not disturbed exactly but certainly nonplussed- to see her outfit. No bride in his experience had ever worn a black dress to a wedding ceremony. He shook his head. Josephine felt she knew what he was thinking—that this black dress could be a bad sign, an unlucky omen for the future. Josephine had never given much credence to the irrational, but she began to wonder as the years went by. Perhaps the minister may have had a point. Six months after the wedding, Ray’s plane had been shot down over Vietnam. She really did not consider herself superstitious, but she couldn’t help it—she would always wonder if he would have lived if she had worn a white dress. Silly thought—how could it have made a difference? Still, to make herself feel better, her mind went back to their first date.
    She had worn her little black dress. It had been a blind date and she had felt the little black could survive whatever tastes in dress the new person would have. As it happened, Ray had loved it. Later in their relationship, he told her he liked it because it was so quiet but so sexy and sophisticated that he couldn’t resist it. She smiled as she remembered one of his first questions, “Why do they call it a “little” black dress? She laughed, she didn’t know why, she had never thought about it. She only knew that they didn’t use that adjective with any other color. In that little moment they had begun to like each other. Anyway, after that, Ray asked her to wear the little black dress every time they dated, but sometimes she refused. She had told him, “I can’t wear a black dress to a football game or to a swimming pool party. Besides I have other nice things I would like to wear for you.” He accepted that, but she knew he didn’t really understand.
    In her memory now, the little black dress and all the famous women who had worn it, and loved it for its adaptability, were part of her way of continuing her love for a person who had died years ago in reality but not in her heart.
    Blanche glanced down at the little black dress she had brought from Josephine’s “jewelry” box. The two women watched as Josephine put the little black dress under the covers and clutched it to her heart.
    “Well, look at that,” said Sonia, “she really does love that dress. Isn’t it a little nutty to put it under the covers like that?” A memory rising from Sonia’s past experience came to her mind as a way of justifying this unusual behavior, and gave her a reason, which she seemed to need, for accepting it, “That must be the sickness. I guess they all get a little loco when they get that near the end.”
    “But she had a life, didn’t she?” said Blanche. It wasn’t the kind of life we usually think of, but apparently for her, it was a rich fulfilling life, and she seems to have loved every minute of it.”
    Though not aware of Josephine’s early romance, Blanche started to compare her own life—children grown up now, with all the ups and downs of raising them, husband loved but now long gone, housework, money cares, illnesses in the family. Josephine had had none of these. Was Josephine’s “fantasy” life any less valid than her own?
    Blanche decided it would be better for her sanity not to try to compare them. Besides, to top it all off, she had just read an article that, after years of being ignored, the “little black dress” was now coming back into style. But, fantasy life or not, Blanche felt she would make sure that Josephine had a little black dress with her to the very last moment of her days on earth.
    When Josephine passed on, Blanche took care of all the arrangements for her funeral and burial, making sure that the little black dress was carefully placed close to Josephine’s chest. her arms gently folded across it.
    Ten years went by, but each time the anniversary of Josephine’s death arrived, Blanche would find herself remembering not only Josephine and the years she herself had spent knowing her even if, she had to admit, superficially. But what nagged at Blanche’s mind was the same question. Josephine had really seemed to be a happy person—but how could she have been? She had had no close ties to anyone else—family, friends, even solace in religion—all the things that were reputed to make life be worthwhile, providing, one hoped, a path to happiness. Why hadn’t she sought comfort in these areas? Areas that Blanche herself and others she knew could not live without.
    But, Blanche had to admit, all of these had been fraught with the hills and valleys of human encounters. Josephine had had none of these. She had created a world, a world of fantasy figures, not even based on real relationships, a world where nothing could go wrong. Was this really enough for her? Or was it all a façade she had put on? Each year on the anniversary of Josephine’s death, she wondered, what did she have in her own life equivalent to that little black dress, that thing that had kept hope and happiness alive for Josephine. Blanche thought and thought about it but had no answer and still she was forced to admit she had never seen Josephine unhappy.
    Today, lost in her thoughts about this unanswerable question, Blanche stepped off the curb, heedless of traffic and anguished by her doubts, and right into the path of a moving van.
    She survived and spent months of rehabilitation—months where she was told she might never be able to walk again. She had to face the fact that she might have to spend her whole future dependent on others for the simplest needs of daily living—a difficult thought for someone who had been so independent all her life. In a way, she felt, she could now allow herself to envy Josephine.
    So she spent her months in quiet self-pity. And then one day in physical therapy, her legs quietly began to move themselves. Not far, not for more than a minute, but in that moment she had her answer—all the little black dresses in the world, or whatever it was that represented them in her life, was not for one second the equivalent of just living her life as a fully recovered human being. She would walk again, she would be happy again, she would suffer again, but most important she would live life in the real world again. She called the physical therapist and begged her to come see her as soon as she could. She wanted to be really alive again.

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