The dress, when she finds it, is pink. Still pink. It smellsrichly of lavender, slightly of camphor, an uneasy mixture in the stifling heatof the attic. Ruth sits back on her heels and holds the thing out before herwonderingly. From the style, it would be from before she was married, when shewas still living with Aunt Min; the summer she was wild, going out to Coney onthe weekends with that girl from her office. She imagines herself in the dress,poised before a mirror.

A door slams downstairs. Peg, on her way out to God knowswhere. On the surface of the cloth Ruth sees the argument an hour before, herdaughter standing in the attic doorway shouting that she is old enough to runher own life. “I bring home my pay, don’t I? I’m entitled to a little fun. Youjust don’t know the way things are.” Sees herself, all the love andworry she feels turning into hard little words in her mouth when she tries tocaution her only child, her baby. The headache that began an hour ago danceshotly behind Ruth’s eyes. Her eyes and throat itch.

Ruth shakes the dress out brusquely. Why did I keep it, shewonders. There is yellowed lace at the collar; on one side there is a smallbrown stain, almost invisible. When she looks at the dress Ruth feels a frissonof fear and something she almost doesn’t recognize: a sudden unnerving sexualpang. That was the summer that… she begins, then cannot finish the thought. Memoriesof that summer are immediate, but something eludes her. Did something happen? Shetries hard, going beyond the heat and dust in the attic, beyond the pain thatmakes her vision jump with each pulse; Ruth knows the dress means something,but cannot recall what.

The summer when she was wild, she calls it in her memory.But what we thought was wicked then… I always went home with—what was her name?Leda McHale—back to Leda’s to sleep on the trundle in Leda’s own bedroom,chaste as a nun. I should go downstairs now, she thinks. But downstairswill be empty of Peg, gone off to a football party at the college with one ofthose boys. Downstairs will be full of Peg’s discarded stockings and teddies,the purple cloche hanging off the newel post, the scent of Peg’s too strong,too suggestive perfume. Peg doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what she’s doing,how dangerous it is to tempt those boys. She’s too young—what’s eighteen years?She doesn’t know how men can be. Ruth knows.

oOo

The dress, when she found it, was pink. It hung in thewindow of Hooley’s Dry Goods and Ladies’ Furnishings and cost Ruth almost aweek’s wage from her job as a type-writer. The bodice draped to a short waist,the sleeves teardrop-shaped with lace at the wrists; the collar was ivory laceand rose high, high on the throat, to just under her chin. In it Ruth, with hersoft, rounded chin and strawberry blonde hair, looked like an illustration fromthe Home Journal. The mirror and the salesgirl both told her so. Shebought it knowing that Aunt Min would purse her lips at the price.

On Saturday, early, she donned the dress, pinned her hair upunder a small, flirtatious hat, and told Aunt Min she was going on a picnicwith a friend from the 17^th Street Methodist Church choir. Then Ruthwas gone, gone to meet her best friend Leda, Leda’s brother Jonah, and Jonah’sfiancée Pearline, to catch the train to Coney.

Going to Coney. It was forbidden fruit; Aunt Min read the PoliceGazette with as much fervor as her Bible, and knew chapter and verse aboutthe vice and depravity practiced at Coney; men and women clinging to each otheron the great wheel, five-cent beers, freak shows. If Aunt Min had known whereRuth really intended to spend the day she would have locked her in her room andread temperance lectures to her through the keyhole.

The train ride felt endless. In the heat Ruth’s hair beganto come down in rosy wisps, sticking to her cheeks and neck. She dabbedineffectively at the beads of perspiration on upper lip and brow with ahandkerchief, stealing a glance at the other women in the car. All of them wereflushed and moist, languorous in the heat. Leda and Pearline giggled and pokedat each other and at Ruth; Jonah slept through their mirth with his boaterdrawn down over his eyes, the tips of his waxed mustache gleaming in thesunlight.

When they got off the train it was all spread before them. Steeplechaseand Dreamland, Luna Park, the grand old resort hotels down the coast, theBoardwalk. Revitalized by the freshening breeze from the water, Leda and Ruthimmediately wanted to run ahead. But Pearline wanted a lemonade, and to sit inthe shade with Jonah. So Ruth and Leda sipped lemonade and tried not to listenwhile Jonah and Pearline whispered to each other on their side of the table. Ruthwas astonished at their shamelessness, but no one else seemed to notice orcare. Leda caught a man staring at her, and when she frowned he tipped his hatand smiled, and Leda giggled nervously into Ruth’ shoulder. At last, withlemonade still sticky on their lips, they left the stand for the parks; Ruthlooked back over her shoulder to make sure the man had not followed them.

For hours they rode the rides, squealing at every bump andwhirl and breathtaking turn. Pearline nestled against Jonah, shrieking until hetightened the arm that circled her waist; Leda and Ruth clung to each other indelicious terror. Under the grinning supervision of Tilyou’s great clown theygorged themselves on up- and down- and sideways motion. Then they went downSurf Avenue to Luna Park to watch the Great Naval Spectacular, arguing whichpark was the best. Leda and Jonah liked Steeplechase; Pearline preferred Luna’suplifting spectacles. Then, at dusk, they came to Dreamland, and Ruth knewwhich park was her favorite.

oOo

The clock downstairs strikes five o’clock. Ruth starts,looks up, remembers that Peg is gone and that Peg’s father won’t be home fromthe lodge until late. She has the house to herself tonight, big and empty.

They have done well, they own the house outright, even havea broker and stocks. Peg went to a good school for young ladies, across town,and Ruth has a girl in three times a week to help with the house and do theheavy cleaning. It is more than she ever dreamed of, growing up in Brooklyn. Thehouse is big, the girl won’t come again until Monday, Peg has gone out againstRuth’s wishes, traveling with that fast crowd, college boys. Ruth can smell thedanger of them when they come to the house. Why can’t Peg understand? What isit that drives her out to parties, sends her home after midnight with ginbreath unsuccessfully disguised with peppermints? But even as Ruth things “Inever…” the dress in her hands belies the thought. She can remember the thrillof sneaking out, doing the forbidden, going to the forbidden place. More: whenshe looks at the collar she remembers the way it circled her throat so that herchin nestled in a ruffle of lace. Remembers tilting her head until it wascupped by the lace as if it were a firm, cool hand. Remembers the hand tracinga path from her ear down along her throat, slowly and caressingly. Abruptly shelooks away.

oOo

The dress, when she found it, was pink, jumbled in thecorner with half a dozen other garments, its soft fabric creased and dottedwith greasy spots, a clump of dust clinging to the fold of the bodice. On thehigh lace collar, so tiny one could miss it, a stain in the shape of a perfectdroplet, rusty red. Ruth shook her head, trying to remember what it meant. Itwas hot in her room, stifling, and the sunlight brought on a headache as shelooked at the dress. Something… Aunt Min bustled in to borrow a pair of glovesand saw Ruth’s headache written clearly across her face. Then it was a matterof cool compresses, Aunt Min’s assurances that the Almighty would excuse hermissing Sunday services this once. Min herself drew the shades and dabbed atRuth’s temples with lavender water until Ruth wanted to scream. Finally shewent off to church, the feather in her hat standing righteously erect.

The dress still hung over the back of her wicker armchair. Asshe stared at it a whisper threaded Ruth’s memory: rose pink lady. Whocalled her that? With each glance at the dress the sense that she shouldremember was fainter, less imperative. At last she got up and hung the dress inher clothes press and lay down to wait out the headache.

When she awoke it was dusk, and the week stretched beforeher like a quiet road at twilight.

The world went away when you entered Dreamland and there wasnothing but light and music and people everywhere. They went first to theVenetian Canals, where Pearline and Jonah rode the gondola, heads closetogether with the boatman’s uninterested chaperonage. Then Leda wanted to seethe midgets; Pearline wanted to see Creation. Ruth didn’t care; everything wasfine with her in Dreamland.

As they walked along they were hailed by the barker from theCongress of Living Wonders. Jonah shook his head and pulled Pearline after him.Leda followed. Behind them, Ruth looked over at the platform for a moment. Shewas about to turn away when she saw a man looking at her. She blinked and hetipped his had and smiled. He must mean some other girl, she thought. But shehung back, delighted and appalled to realize that he was looking at her.Of all the women in the crowd he chose her to smile on. In the swirl and eddyof the crowd Ruth stood rock still, looking at him. What does he want? She wondered,and answered herself: he wanted something. That was what Aunt Min wouldsay. Men always wanted some unimaginable something. For the first time in herlife Ruth wondered, seriously wondered, what the something was.

He stood a few feet behind the barker, near the curtain atthe back of the platform. He didn’t seem to have a part in the show; he wassimply observing. Ruth was so fascinated by the dark sparkle of the man and theflush of excitement that made her blush, that she didn’t see Leda and Jonah andPearline continuing on to the Creation pavilion, pushing through the crowd asoblivious to her loss as she was to their absence.

He was dark and polished, like an onyx pebble. His pearlgrey suit was fresh despite the heat, his tie and collar crisp at his throat. Hiseyes were dark as onyx and his smile had a cool, white light of its own. Fromthe platform the barker spoke insinuatingly, drawing the crowd in to see theBearded Lady, the Man with Two Mouths. As she pushed forward with them,searching for a coin in her pocketbook, a hand at her elbow stopped her. He wasthere beside her, the onyx dark man, saying, “Keep your money, darling. It willbe my pleasure.”

Blushing, Ruth let him guide her into the show. Light fromthe incandescents flooded the area unevenly, leaving dark pockets between theexhibits; they gave a low sizzling noise which blended into the calls and sighsand shrieks of the crowd and the performers. They paced leisurely from oneplatform to the next as the barker’s feverish baritone extolled the strangenessof his one, the awfulness of that. Ruth listened with half an ear, distractedby the presence of the onyx man at her side. His light touch on her elbow thather constantly aware of things she had never known existed: heat and scent andmale presence.

They strolled past the freaks and wonders and Ruth acceptedeach of them without question before they were dressed in his glamour. Hemurmured softly into her ear until she giggled nervously at his comments aboutthe fat lady’s beard and the sword-swallower’s wrinkled tights. His breath washot in her ear, moving the strands of her red hair against her cheek. When theycame to the show’s end and the barker exhorted the audience to Come Again, ComeAgain, Ladeees and Gennle-men, the stranger leaned close. “Rose-pink lady,” hemurmured. “Will you take a walk with me?”

Then they parted from the audience and left the hall by adoorway in the rear, their passage noted by the barker with a knowing glance. Heronyx-dark man led her through an alley and out into the main street, and theysauntered like any other summer beaux in the crowded lamplight. A sudden turnjust past the Hellgate, down an alley, and then he brought Ruth through a doorand into a dusty vaulted room. It was dim after the glare of the street; Ruthblinked owlishly. She could make out wooden struts and draped canvas. There wasa strong smell of paint and varnish and moldy sawdust. Ruth turned toward theman only to find him beside her, very close. He traced the bow of her upper lipwith one long finger, a gesture which shocked Ruth and moved her in a way shecould not understand. When she closed her eyes she could feel his breath on herear again. Inside her something like Aunt Min’s voice told her to run for herlife.

“Rose-pink lady,” he murmured again.

Ruth didn’t move, except to tilt her face up to his.

Leda was waiting for her at the Beacon Tower.

“Where’ve you been?” she fluttered. “Jo and Pearlie arelooking for you everywhere, we thought you were lost. Ruthie, are you allright?”

Ruth smiled and nodded and said she’d just lost them in thecrowd. “Did you see the midgets?” she asked.

Leda shook her head. They had been searching for Ruth. Jonahwas fit to be tied.

“We’ll have to come out again,” Ruth said softly. “There isso much to see yet.”

Then Jonah and Pearline found them. Ruth endured theirscolding all the way to the train station, and until they boarded the car backto Flatbush Avenue. She slept on the trip back, stumbled into Aunt Min’s flat,got herself to bed somehow. Already she was thinking of next Saturday.

The next time it was all familiar: the parks, the paths thatconnected from one to the other. The excitement that traced pathways along thenerves when you first stood there at dusk surrounded by the lights and thesmells and the sounds and the tastes and the people. When they reachedDreamland Jonah took Pearline and Leda off to the midget city and they agreedto meet at the tower at nine. Ruth had told them she was meeting a friend fromher church choir. Jonah may have believed her; Pearline and Leda winked broadlyand took him away before he could ask too many questions. Helping Ruth, eachgirl borrowed a little of her adventure, thrilled to their own illicit part inher drama.

From the gates of the park it took Ruth only a few minutesto find the Congress of Wonders. By the curtains at the back of the platformshe saw him, dark and polished. His smile gleamed in the dusk, and Ruth’s pulsebegan a slow, dramatic hammering. He knew she had come to find him, she knew heknew. Everything would move forward now from that knowledge.

He took her elbow and guided her forward, smilingsolicitously.

“I don’t know your name,” she heard herself say. His eyeswere very dark.

“Adam,” he said quietly.

This time he did not take her to the backstage of Hellgate. Insteadthey walked a thread through canvas tunnels, alleys, under the boardwalk andout onto the beach. The ocean, overshadowed by the parks, glistened in themoonlight. He held Ruth’s fingers in his own cool, dry hand. After a while theytook their shoes and socks off and walked with the sand between their toes. Theytalked, then were silent.

When she met the others at the Beacon Tower later she walkedslowly, as if her blood had taken on the rhythm of the sea. On the long trainback to Flatbush Avenue Ruth’s hand floated at her chin and caressed the lacecollar of her dress.

That night she slept at Leda’s. Her dreams were full ofdarkness and rhythm, the touch of his hand, of his lips.

oOo

What is it about the college, about those boys that Pegfinds so attractive? Ruth frowns in the dimness of the attic. I should turnthe electric on, she thinks, but doesn’t get up to flip the light switch. Thoseboys, most of them cheap, stupid. They have raccoon coats and cheap Ford autosand Peg thinks they’re exciting. She’ll waste herself on one of those boys,break her heart. None of them will stay with her, marry her, take care of her. Sheneeds a nice, safe man like her father. She doesn’t understand what I wantto spare her.

Under her hands, which clench and twist, the fabric of thedress tears slightly, releasing more lavender scent on the air. The summer Iwent to Coney, she thinks. Over and over, every Saturday all summerlong, with Aunt Min wondering and worrying and silent as a stone, just lookingdown her nose on Sunday mornings when I came home from Leda’s. She staresat the dress in her hands and slowly smoothes the creases away.

During the week Ruth was quiet and thoughtful. She did herwork quietly, didn’t spend much time talking to the other girls in the office. Shebrowsed the shops looking at dresses, but she had a superstitious feeling aboutwearing any other dress than the pink one out to Coney. She went to choirrehearsal on Tuesday nights and helped with Aunt Min’s Friday socials, pouringout weak tea for hours without protest. She carried her secret like an amuletagainst boredom and frustration; it took so little to recall the feelings ofConey, the looseness and languor, the hot urgent pressing of his lips againsther throat. On Saturday mornings she woke up, really awake, and dressed in thepink dress again and went to meet Leda and the others for the ride out toConey.

After a few weeks, Leda suggested they go somewhere else onSaturday. To the country for a picnic, to the city for a show. Ruth smiled andsaid perhaps, but each Saturday they went to Coney. Pearline saw her fill andmore of the miracle babies and Jonah watched the end of Pompeii until he wassick of it, but as long as they could sit in a gondola or on a wooden horse,pressed together, they were willing to go out to Coney again. Leda looked outfor young men looking at her, but none did, no matter how she giggled andflirted her eyebrows. As the summer went on Leda giggled less. Ruth didn’tshare her adventure with Leda, forgot to ask if Leda had any beaux orflirtations. Leda, who had always been the forward, kittenish one, began tolook confused and hurt. Ruth did not notice.

August turned chilly for a few days, Aunt Min took hermantle from the back of the closet to wear for church, and Ruth took tocarrying a shawl with her. On a Wednesday at the office, Leda told Ruth thatshe and Jonah had a christening to go to that weekend. “We’ll have to go toConey next week,” she said, not bothering to hide her satisfaction.

Ruth panicked.

She went through the day thinking, how can I go out there?For a moment she thought, maybe Pearlie will go with me. But Pearlinewould probably go to the christening. Even if she didn’t Pearline would neverallow herself to be abandoned at Dreamland while Ruth went off on her own. Asshe transcribed pages of manuscript on the typewriter, her mind was at Coneywith him. How could she get out to Coney? She even thought, perhaps Aunt Min?No, not until Hell froze over, maybe not even then. The more she thought, themore it seemed that she would really die if she couldn’t get out to Dreamlandon Saturday. Her thought was rattled by the pounding of the typewriter underher fingers. After a while even Saturday seemed too far off. What would hethink when she didn’t come? Would he forgive her? Would he smile on someoneelse? Ruth imagined his beautiful smile for someone else. She had to tell himshe wasn’t coming, that it wasn’t her fault or her idea. All afternoon the feelinggrew strong, so that fear fed more fear and she couldn’t stand it that shewouldn’t see him tonight, tell him everything, how Leda and Jonah andPearline and Aunt Min were trying to keep them apart.

At six o’clock she left the office with the other girls;Ruth turned left instead of right

“Ruthie, whereya going?”

Without turning Ruth called back, “You know where I’mgoing.”

oOo

What happened that summer?

The thought catches Ruth by surprise. What is happening toPeg right now, that’s more important than what happened twenty years ago on abeach miles away. The answers seem intertwined to her, they stand on eachother’s shoulders, if she can answer the one she’ll know the other. Why didI keep this dress? The answer comes: to remind me.

Of what?

The train wasn’t full, but there were still people, evenfamilies going out. Ruth felt they were looking at her, all alone with nofriend, no chaperone. She pulled her shawl tighter around her and clutched herpocketbook in her lap. What would she say to him? At the sight of him she knewher doubts would melt away. Everything would be all right when she saw him. Shetwirled a strand of hair around her finger and stared out the window toward thenearing glow of Coney’s lights.

When she got off the train it was all familiar butdifferent. Fewer people, fewer families. More young men lounging on thebenches, eyeing her, calling out Hello, Sweetheart and Looking for Me, Girlie? Eveninside the gates of Dreamland everything felt subtly wrong, the music to sharp,the lights too bright, the laughter too coarse and familiar. For the first timeDreamland was not an enchanted village but a playground, loud and vulgar. Shethought, it’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare.

He wasn’t at the Congress of Wonders. The barker saw her,all right: tipped his bowler and smirked, and then pursed his lips in asoundless whistle as if he knew something she didn’t. She began to push her waythrough the crowd into the freak show; the barker didn’t try to stop her, noone demanded money. She just pushed in and pushed through, ignoring the freaks,looking for a dark head, a white smile. When she came out the exit she pushedon to Hellgate. All the places he had taken her, the backstage areas, thecul-de-sacs between rides and exhibitions, even the shadowy path under theBoardwalk were hard to find, although she had thought she knew them.

When she reached the beach at last she was exhausted andbedraggled. The hem of her brown twill skirt was soggy and stained, and herwhite shirtwaist was creased and dirty. She held her hat in one hand; it hadcome off when she climbed under the stanchions of the Boardwalk. Where areyou? She prayed. Please find me, please.

In the moonlight the ocean looked like a flat, tranquilmirror. A hundred feet away she saw him, gray and silver in the moonlight, hisback to her, looking out at the ocean. Ruth gasped in relief and began to crossthe sand. He turned at the sound and she saw: there was a girl in his arms, paleand fair, her face turned up to his. What was worse, Adam’s face when he sawRuth was perfectly blank, as if he didn’t know her at all. No fear, noexplanation, no surprise. He was smooth and implacable as an onyx pebble.

Ruth turned and ran.

They found her at the Beacon Tower, waiting for them. WhenJonah put his coat around her shoulders and Leda took her hand to lead her outof Dreamland. Ruth smiled and cried, as if she was too grateful to them ever tostop smiling, and too miserable ever to stop crying. She cried like a child,and felt like a child, pathetic, small and weary. When they got her on thetrain she slept all the way back, waking fitfully to clutch at Leda and weepagain.

They brought Ruth home that night over her protests. AuntMin’s icy disapproval vanished when she saw her niece’s gray, miserable face. Ledaand Min put her to bed with a hot water bottle and a cool compress, and Ruthfell back into her restless sleep. Her dreams were full of darkness and rhythm,of pulses and heartbeat, the touch of Adam’s white hands on her, the weight ofhis body leaning in to her; she dreamt of his breath cool in her ear, looking ahot churning excitement in her belly and between her legs. Hips lips, tracing apath from her ear to her throat. His teeth, nipping gentle, then piercing. Theircries, together, as he took from her and she gave, yielding everything up tohim. His teeth at her throat, piercing neatly, releasing a flood of liquid heatthrough her arteries. It was everything she had heard of love: he told her itwould only hurt once and then only pleasure, only joy.

The same joy she had seen him giving another girl in theshadows cast by the lights of Dreamland, the blood a black smear across hislips.

She woke early the next morning. The sunlight was white onthe counterpane, unavoidable. Carefully folded on the chair by her wardrobe wasthe pink dress. For a moment on waking Ruth remembered it all, everything. Then,as if it were blood seeping from an unseen wound, the memory began to leach outof her. Finally her recollection of Coney, of the whole summer, was as whiteand stainless as a bone.

When fall came Aunt Min packed the summer clothes away withlavender, as if to pack it all away. She never asked Ruth about what hadhappened that night, but it took weeks for the grim, suspicious look to fadeentirely from her eyes. In the spring, sorting through the clothes, Ruth sawthe pink dress, shook her head, put it back in the trunk. Not a style that worewell.

That winter, in December of ’09, she met Peg’s father. Dreamlandburned down in ’11 and all that was left were the Coney Island waltzes shedanced to at her wedding. “It’ll see you somewhere in Dreamland, somewhere inDreamland tonight…” Ruth became a wife, then a mother. The Great War came andwent. She had a home, a family, a good life. If it was not an exciting lifethat was all right. The past shimmered in her mind as elusively as the lightsof Coney Island and were lost in the safe, sunlit now.

oOo

A crash from downstairs. Startled from her reverie, alarmedby the series of thuds and crashes that are Peg making her way up the stairs,crying out wordlessly for her mother’s attention, Ruth hurriedly bundles thedress up and shoves it back in the chest. She blinks in the light of theupstairs hall and closes the attic door behind her.

“Peggy?” she calls down urgently. A slurring voice answers,tells her to go away. Ruth follows the voice to the bathroom, where Peg isangrily scrubbing at her collar.

“Don’t start with me, Ma.” Peg refuses to meet her eye,stares resolutely at the mirror as she pokes angrily at a red stain on hercollar.

Ruth stands for a moment transfixed, the bottom dropping outof the world, everything, everything coming back to her in a flooding rush ofmemory. “What happened, baby?” she asks like a prayer. Trembling, she brushesPeg’s hair back, away from her face and away from her throat; sees the white,unmarred flesh. Rush does not pursue the memory but gathers her daughter intoher arms, rocking silently.

Peg resists briefly. “Don’t start with me, Ma! You wereright, all right? He got drunk, he started grabbing at me. I hate him, allright? Isn’t that what you want me to say?”

“No, baby, no,” she says. “Hush, hush, it’s all right now.” Everyhard thing Peg says is forgiven. Ruth thinks, You don’t understand. Youcan’t understand. You don’t know how men can be.

Ruth knows.

The End

Copyright © 1994 by Madeleine Robins

Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction.