Reds
By Joey Porcelli
The laundry basket overflows with Gerber-stained Bluey bibs and muddy toddler overalls. Her husband’s t-shirts anchor the dirty clothes in a sweaty post-Peloton stench. Smelly socks battle for space in the mountainous pile. Hiding beneath a once-white washcloth, a touch of red lace peeks out. She looks around the basement as if caught on a surveillance camera.
Silly me. It’s Monday night, same as every Monday night. Kids are asleep; he’s playing cards at Shawn’s and won’t be home until after midnight.
She digs the forbidden lace thong out of the pile and holds this piece of passion up to the light fixture overhead. Totally transparent. A shiver travels down her body. Her trip to Victoria’s Secret would remain just that, a secret. She didn’t tell her best friend Judy, she didn’t confide in her sister Dawn. She paid with cash.
For a moment, she allows herself to mourn her pre-childbirth body. Sexy silk lingerie gave way to nursing bras and cotton Granny panties. Romantic wine carafes and candlelight dinners morphed into frozen pizza and boxed mac-and-cheese. Bedtime foreplay now meant warm baby bottles followed by peek-a-boo books and lullabies. And Walt Disney, damn him and all his Mickeys, had co-opted their once salty beach vacations.
She pulls out the matching red push-up bra and carries it and the thong to the utility sink. After she cuts off the tags and tosses them into the trashcan, she handwashes the lingerie in lavender-scented bubbles. Her mother always told her to rinse her dainties before wearing.
Last Tuesday morning, she found something else red stuffed at the bottom of the
laundry basket, her husband’s white cotton briefs dotted with what looked like dried blood on the crotch. In a panic, she raced upstairs to show him and urged him to see a doctor. Colon cancer ran in his family. But why was the stain in front?
When she asked, he turned his own shade of crimson. “Must be some spilled varnish that soaked through my pants. We worked on Shawn’s canoe last night,” he said.
She called Shawn’s wife after he left for work. He doesn’t own a canoe.
He never touched me when I had my period. Too squeamish. Guess he got over that.
She threw the briefs in the trash and went shopping that same afternoon.
Victoria’s Secret carried mostly black lingerie and a palette of pastels named after flowers like Daisy Yellow and Baby Bluebell, but she wanted something bold, sexy, wild. She chose a hue called Scarlet Sensation.
Tomorrow, after school lets out, she will wear her new bra and thong underneath her “Be Kind” sweatshirt and Mom jeans to the park and wait by the jungle gym for the tall, sweet man, a Clark Kent doppelganger, to show up; the one in sensible sweats who pushes a stroller with identical twins bundled inside, the one with the fanny pack full of nutritional veggie pouches, the one with the soft voice and piano hands who talks to her like she matters.
He doesn’t have X-ray vision, but she hopes he notices.
Bio: Joey Porcelli is a freelance writer who lives in Golden, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Sixfold magazine, the Denver Post, and the University of Michigan’s Alum magazine. She is the author of two published restaurant guides and co-author of a book about the history of the Denver Film Festival. Porcelli teaches memoir writing and has a journalism degree from the University of Michigan. Go Blue!
Author’s Note: I got the idea for this story while doing laundry. I wondered, would a young woman’s discovery of a dark secret in the dirty clothes hamper make her want to have a secret of her own?
