It was an A-line dress, the same shade of yellow as a taxicab with no pattern or print. It was cinched at the waist, with spaghetti straps, pleated along the bottom and reached down to the knees, more or less. The vintage clothing and antiques store on the city’s ever-evolving, artsy West End was proud to display the piece prominently upon its purchase from a family estate sale. The ruffled cotton gave it a weathered appearance, and its overall style traced its origin to some time during the 1960s. They slipped it over the torso of a curvy mannequin, propped it on a stand and showcased it for all to see in the street-facing window of the storefront. It dominated the scene among random trinkets, a few hats and a waist-high garden statue of a lion. All day long, passersby would stop to admire the unique piece along Providence’s Westminster Street. It drew the eye and invited the admirer to linger, with its stark simplicity yet vivid vibrancy. It had also been the height of summer; perhaps its sunlight-like aura attracted more attention than expected. Whatever the case, shop owner Courtney could not help but notice one elderly woman’s particular interest in the item. She had stopped several times throughout the course of a week, pausing in each instance to admire the dress lovingly for long periods. The dress was tagged at one hundred and seventy five dollars, no small quantity considering the local, working class clientele, but deemed worthy given its one-of-a-kind nature. By the end of the week, however, the old woman had managed to gather enough money, and confidence, to march in and purchase the product on sight, without ever even trying it on. She had only one odd stipulation: though paid for, the dress was to remain posted prominently in the window, despite her being in implicit possession of the item. Courtney was curious, to say the least and thought to call her contact in the press.
It was supposed to have been nothing more than a simple human interest piece for Felix, on behalf of Motif, a local pulp magazine keen on chronicling anything Providence-based. He was honored to cover it, eight hundred words on a local woman and her odd fascination with a vintage store dress; it was light work that he could bang out in a day or two. He agreed to meet Xiomara at the elderly high-rise where she resided off of Cranston Street. Courtney had coordinated the sit-down in the common area of the high-rise day room. Felix had been chosen for his prowess in multiple languages; Xiomara only spoke Spanish, and asked that her interviewer do the same.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” Felix began while laying out his notepad and Parker pen sideby-side. She clocked in at seventy years old easy, but was still spry and sharp-minded, despite her frown lines and weathered face. Her Spanish was laced with a certain causal elegance unique to her generation.
“Duplicity is what sets us Dominicans apart,” she opened with bluntly, “The ability to play a role even when we’d rather not.”
Felix took it as a hint. “Very well, then. I’ll get right to the point.” “Are you Dominican?” she interjected.
“I am afraid not,” Felix admitted. “Portuguese by design,” he offered half jokingly. “Your Spanish is impeccable,” she offered. “Now what is it you wish to know?”
Felix was polite, apprehensive and admittedly a bit intimidated. “For starters, why that dress? You paid a considerable amount only to have it advertised as ‘sold’ and unavailable for purchase. Why?”
Her answer was plain and delivered simply. “Why, I made that dress, young man, with my own bare hands. I’d sewn every stitch and hemmed every seam on it. I remember it vividly.”
He listened to her explain, taking notes feverishly along the way while documenting every nuance of the moment in exact detail. Xiomara was from the largely rural town of Nagua in the Dominican Republic. She was one of ten siblings, born somewhere in the middle of the muddle to campesino-class parents. Formal schooling, and even education as a whole, would take a backseat to the family’s collective need for essentials. By nine or ten, Xiomara was expected to quit school, like her siblings, and devote her time to something that would help support the household financially. Each child found their niche, something they excelled at. Patricio was good at soiling and tilling; he was an inexhaustible work horse. Magdelena was a near-expert cook by fourteen and would even sell her sancocho stew to neighbors. Xiomara was drawn to the family’s beat-up sewing machine from early on, and her talent at it was undeniable. She found solace at its altar, in a corner of their cramped, shared shack. For that time span she was no longer a semi-literate farmgirl, but an artist alone with her canvas. Her passion proved profitable for the family, as well, as her expanding line of dresses were hawked doorto-door throughout town by the family collectively. Her unique eye and precise tailoring was the talk of tiny Nagua; local women clamored to collect her handmade creations.
She did that through her twenties, helping support the family along the way. And when their parents died, the siblings would drift off in different directions, each seeking their own path. Most would stay, marry and build lives without ever leaving Nagua. Xiomara, however, sought her destiny on the shores of the United States, ultimately settling down in Providence, Rhode Island. Finding a job in a textile mill was no problem and it paid well. She worked the same machine for over thirty years, remaining the factory’s top performer for the duration.
Rewinding back to her departure from the Dominican Republic is where the origin of the distinctive yellow dress begins, though. At twentythree, Xiomara would find herself pregnant by a man ten years her senior; it was a frivolous decision made after too many shots of Brugal rum. Mere weeks into their one-sided “relationship,” she would learn that not only was he married, but that he also kept two other mistresses. She sat with the decision that followed for days. At the time, abortion was, and surprisingly still remains, illegal in the Dominican Republic. Xiomara sought a local cacique, a shaman and healer who treated townsfolk with herbal remedies and potions. For the equivalent of ten dollars in pesos, he supplied her with a bitter tea that would induce an excruciating miscarriage within fortyeight hours. The bright yellow dress was a private project, for her own personal wardrobe. She’d worn it on the day she visited the shaman, then again a month later on her flight out of the country, never to return to Nagua. Providence would greet her with snowfall, an entirely new experience in itself. She decided upon arrival that it would be the beginning of a new chapter in her life, in every sense. She went on to donate the dress to a neighborhood church, along with all of her remaining, Caribbean-weather clothing.
How the distinctive piece would find its way to the window of an antiques store some fifty years later would remain shrouded in mystery, and rightfully so, Xiomara would declare. To her, it was more about why it had reappeared in her life. She saw it as a testament, to her resilience, and to her ability to reinvent when things seemed grim. This is why she wanted it prominently displayed, with the pride of an artist who wanted to share her victory with the world for as long as time permitted. •
For M.P.