dry cleaning
by Amy Barnes
I do my job well. Whatever stain I find, I clean the clothes like my mama cleans other peoples’ houses. Cold water. Warm water. Chemicals. Soap. Elbow grease. Once the garments are spotless, I move on to the hot press. I often burn my arms and hands and always leave new stains on my muslin apron, small badges of doing my job well.
It hasn’t been my best morning. My best friend Tallulah Belle has been missing since Sunday after the church potluck.
“He’s so handsome.”
She tells me after her last bite of lemon cake, giggling as she showed me a glimpse of the frilly undergarments he had bought her. Black undergarments with red roses. I hug her good-bye so she won’t see me blushing.
“He gave me this rose. Told me to keep it forever.”
She shows me the blood-red rose hidden away in her church-dress pocket.
***
The brass bell above the door rings. I know his footsteps before I look up and see a faded Duke Cleaners logo across the full fabric bag. He drops the bag on the counter and exits like he always does without a word or eye contact.
I immediately catch a faint smell of smoke and it makes me cough. I open the bag and find the usual laundry. Basic things. T-shirts. Button-down shirts labelled with perfume and lipstick next to blue-seersucker-summer-church suits. A crumpled, cheap tuxedo. Dickies coveralls. Bits of rotten fruit. Cigarette ash. Hard candy wrappers. Limp white dress shirts with limp arms missing any form of man except for the sweaty-yellow pit stains. And then, cheap black lingerie. Shoved in the bottom of the bag like an afterthought huddled next to the last items: a triangular-shaped white linen hat and robe. Rough white fabric that tears at my hands. Mysterious symbols sewn to the front of the robe. I know the robe. I sewed on those patch symbols the last time I cleaned it.
It’s white so I use different cleaning methods. I find blood and pull out cleaning liquids, scrubbing at the smoke smell, the black soot, rust-red blood stains. When the whiteness has returned completely, I do a final soak and turn to the black lingerie. It falls apart in my hands, nearly shredded across the delicate front, ribbons and tiny red rosebuds dropping to the ground.
Before I can try to clean what is left, my sister runs into the store, the bell announcing her arrival as if she is a customer.
“They found Tallulah.”
I don’t even have to ask. I know what that means. It isn’t the first time a Tallulah has gone missing, been found discarded like socks on the side of the interstate, blown out of a suitcase.
“You have to go.” I tell her.
She leaves just in time. He swings open the door moments later.
I lower my head but it is too late. He grips my wrist, his hand stark against my skin like a shackle.
“I’m almost done.”
“Hurry up.”
He loosens his grasp and I return to the folded stack of clothes. I put everything into a fresh bag and hand it to him.
“Here you go, Mr. Duke.”
He grabs the bag and starts toward the door.
“Keep the rose, Mary.”
The bell announces his departure. I return to the bag to clean it for the next customer. As I turn it inside out, a single rose drops petals to the floor.
I turn to the stack of ironing that needs to be done.
“Good-bye, Tallulah.”
I whisper through tears, careful not to stain the silk blouse in my hands.
Amy Barnes has words at sites including: FlashBack Fiction, Popshot Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, X-RAY Lit, Stymie Lit, No Contact Mag, Streetcake Magazine, JMMW, The Molotov Cocktail, Lucent Dreaming, TunaFish Journal, Reckon Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Flash Frog, Janus Literary, Leon Review, Perhappened, Cabinet of Heed, Spartan Lit and others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction. She’s a Fractured Lit Associate Editor and reads for CRAFT, Taco Bell Quarterly, Retreat West, The MacGuffin, and Narratively. Her flash collection “Mother Figures” is forthcoming at ELJ Editions, Ltd. in May, 2021.