A Dramatic Entrance, a Velcro Bracelet and the Entire Curtain

Mara had watched enough dramatic entrances to know the important part was committing. You didn't hover in the doorway asking whether the lighting was all right. You arrived.

At thirty-four, she considered herself broadly competent at arriving. Work meetings, weddings, the mechanic. This particular arrival was intended for her girlfriend, Ellis, who was waiting in their bedroom after an anniversary dinner in Hobart.

Mara had prepared an outfit. Nothing requiring an engineering qualification, just a soft dark dress, a sheer wrap and a broad decorative bracelet she'd bought at a market. The bracelet fastened with Velcro. Practicality, she believed, could coexist with glamour.

Dinner had been at the little place Ellis liked near the waterfront. They'd shared dessert because both claimed to want only a taste, then divided the final spoonful with the careful diplomacy usually reserved for inherited property.

On the walk home, Ellis had tucked her hand into Mara's coat pocket. It was an ordinary gesture, but Mara had felt a small bright jolt of affection. Four years together and she could still be caught off guard by how much she liked this woman beside her.

'You're quiet,' Ellis said.

'Planning.'

'That explains the expression.'

'What expression?'

'The one you had before you reorganised the pantry and discovered six jars of capers.'

The plan, this time, had nothing to do with capers. Mara had bought the dress a fortnight earlier and kept finding reasons not to wear it. Too much effort for a normal evening. Not quite the right occasion. The weather doing something unhelpful. Tonight she had decided the occasion was simply that she wanted Ellis to look at her.

At home she sent Ellis to the bedroom with instructions to choose something pleasant to listen to. Ellis asked whether pleasant meant music or the reassuring sound of the dishwasher completing its cycle.

'Music.'

'High expectations tonight.'

Mara changed in the spare room, where the light made everything look as though it was being assessed for resale. She ignored it and adjusted the wrap. The bracelet caught briefly on a sleeve. She freed it, smoothed the fabric and thought nothing further of the incident. In retrospect, the bracelet had submitted its intentions in writing.

She took one practice step, turned, and immediately felt a bit daft. Then she imagined Ellis's face and decided a bit daft was a price she could afford.

From the bedroom came a soft song and the sound of Ellis telling the cat he had no appointment. Mara smiled at herself. She didn't need to be transformed into somebody else. She only wanted to arrive as herself with slightly better presentation and fewer remarks about the weather.

She checked herself in the hallway mirror. Good. Confident. A woman with a plan and matching earrings.

Inside the room, Ellis called, 'Everything okay?'

'Yes. Build anticipation.'

'I'm trying, but the cat wants dinner.'

'The cat had dinner.'

'He says differently.'

Mara breathed in, pushed the door wider and stepped through.

The first two seconds went beautifully. Ellis looked up. Her face changed in precisely the way Mara had hoped. There was a smile, then a quiet 'Oh.'

The third second introduced the curtain.

Their bedroom curtain was a lightweight panel that hung beside the doorway because the room had once been arranged differently and neither of them had dealt with it. Its loose edge brushed Mara's bracelet. The Velcro accepted the introduction with enthusiasm.

Mara felt a small tug at her wrist. She paused. Ellis continued smiling.

This could be solved discreetly. Mara kept her eyes on Ellis and moved her wrist backwards. The curtain followed.

She moved forwards. The curtain followed again.

Now it appeared she had entered carrying a very large, pale accessory.

Ellis tilted her head. 'Is that part of it?'

'Potentially.'

Mara tried to turn the movement into a pose. One hand on her hip. One arm extended with an entire section of window dressing attached. She had seen fashion photographs with stranger arrangements. Usually there was a team outside the frame.

'It's lovely,' Ellis said carefully.

The kindness was worse than laughter would have been. Mara could hear Ellis trying to determine whether this was intentional and deserved enthusiastic support.

'Thank you.'

She lowered her arm. The curtain settled around her elbow. She took a tiny sideways step, hoping to create enough slack to detach it with her other hand. Instead the sheer wrap slipped off one shoulder and landed over the curtain, making the combined ensemble look increasingly deliberate.

Ellis's mouth twitched.

Mara pointed at her. Unfortunately, pointing also presented the curtain.

'You may laugh in a moment.'

'I'm not laughing.'

'Your face is rehearsing.'

That finished them. Ellis bent forward, laughing into her hands. Mara stood in the doorway with the full dignity of someone who had tried to seduce a person while attached to the soft furnishings.

'Please help,' she said.

Ellis got up immediately. She checked the bracelet, found the tiny patch of fabric caught in the fastening and peeled it free without pulling. Nothing broke. Nobody fell. The curtain returned to its post, where it had presumably wanted to remain all evening.

Mara examined the bracelet.

'You're meant to be decorative.'

'It is,' Ellis said. 'It decorated you with more room.'

Mara considered retreating and attempting a clean second entrance. She could close the door, remove the bracelet, restore the wrap and pretend the last minute had been technical rehearsal.

But Ellis was still grinning, and Mara realised she was grinning too. The embarrassment had already become shared property.

'All right,' Mara said. 'New concept.'

She took the curtain's loose edge in her hand, carefully this time, and draped it over her shoulder. She turned sideways and looked back with the expression of a person waiting for a photographer who had been paid too much.

Ellis sat on the bed and clapped once.

'Collection title?'

'Domestic Evening.'

'Inspiration?'

'A woman trying her best in a rental.'

'Powerful.'

The fashion show developed quickly. Mara used the wrap as an enormous scarf. Ellis offered the clean dressing-gown belt, which became a sash. Neither touched the curtain rail. They had achieved spontaneity, not lost all judgment.

Before Ellis's turn, they established a runway. It began beside the wardrobe, continued past the end of the bed and finished safely short of the door. Mara checked the floor for shoes while Ellis announced that the venue was regrettably unavailable to international press.

'Budget?' Mara asked.

'We have a biscuit in the kitchen.'

'One?'

'I ate the other during your preparations.'

Mara accepted the commercial realities. She stood at the wardrobe with the wrap hanging from her shoulders and waited while Ellis invented an introduction.

'Our designer asks a difficult question tonight,' Ellis said in a voice of grave importance. 'What if the room also came with you?'

Mara managed three slow steps before laughing. She returned to the start.

'Professionalism, please,' Ellis said.

'You're describing an upholstery incident as a collection.'

'And you're interrupting the arts.'

On the second attempt, Mara completed the route. She paused at the end, turned her chin and looked towards an imaginary distant critic. Ellis made a thoughtful humming sound.

'What does it mean?' Mara asked.

'I'm deciding whether I can afford it.'

'You live with the designer.'

'Yes, but she charges extra for alterations.'

Mara handed over the wrap. Ellis draped it around herself, then rejected the first arrangement and tried another with the seriousness of someone choosing a cabinet finish. She added her own spectacles and immediately became a woman who had come to inspect the venue for violations.

Mara found an old notebook on the bedside table and took a seat. On a clean page she wrote Domestic Evening in large letters, followed by Notes From The Front Row.

Ellis peered over her shoulder. 'Are you reviewing me?'

'Only your work.'

'We're very sensitive in this industry.'

Mara wrote excellent shoulders, questionable punctuality. Ellis read it upside down and nodded. Fair criticism, apparently. She had been late to dinner because she'd changed shirts twice and then pretended she'd been looking for her keys.

The admission pleased Mara more than she expected. They had both made an effort. Neither had been as effortlessly composed as the other imagined, even before the curtain entered negotiations.

For the second look, Ellis walked from the wardrobe wearing a pillowcase over one arm as a clutch bag. Her expression was so stern that Mara had to sit down.

'This piece is called I Have Somewhere More Important to Be,' Ellis said.

'What does she keep in the bag?'

'Expectations. A receipt. One loose almond.'

Mara announced the final look while Ellis wrapped the sheer fabric around her shoulders and crossed the room with magnificent slowness. Halfway across, the cat entered and sat directly in her path.

Ellis stopped, considered him and took a dignified detour.

'Bold runway obstacle,' Mara said.

'Industry veteran. Difficult temperament.'

Ellis insisted on an interview with the designer before the finale. Mara explained that the collection explored the relationship between ambition and available floor space. Asked about future work, she said she was considering a lampshade, but would need to consult the electrician.

The cat's detour prompted a final category: things that believed they owned the room. Ellis nominated the cat, the curtain and Mara's old reading lamp, which required a particular tilt before it would turn on.

'We are not putting the lamp on anyone,' Mara said.

'I was proposing a tribute.'

They settled for standing beside it with matching stern expressions. Then Ellis dropped the pose and asked whether Mara wanted a photograph of the outfit, just the dress, before they put everything away.

Mara considered it. A photograph had been part of her original vague plan, but she no longer felt a need to preserve proof that she had looked a certain way.

'Not tonight,' she said.

'Good. My phone's in the kitchen anyway.'

Ellis reached for her hand. Mara noticed that her own earlier embarrassment had become something much softer. She wasn't being reassured out of a disaster. They were simply having a better evening than the one she'd rehearsed, with a significantly less disciplined wardrobe department.

They ended on the bed, laughing, the accessories piled safely on a chair. Mara took off the bracelet and placed it inside a drawer. Ellis watched with exaggerated solemnity.

'Retired?'

'Under review.'

For a moment Mara looked down at the dress she'd chosen so carefully. 'I did want to look good for you.'

Ellis touched her chin gently. 'You did. You do. The curtain was additional information.'

That was the thing about Ellis. She could let Mara be ridiculous without making her feel ridiculous. It had taken Mara a while to recognise the difference. Now it was one of the reasons she'd stayed.

They kissed. There was no audience except a cat who had lost interest as soon as he realised the curtain wasn't being replaced with food.

A week later, Mara found a small envelope on her pillow. Inside was a sketch Ellis had drawn of the dramatic entrance, with the curtain rendered in far too flattering a sweep.

Underneath she'd written: Domestic Evening. Private collection. Not available in stores.

Mara framed it for the hallway. Beside the mirror, naturally.

If you were going to make an entrance, she thought, you might as well leave a record.