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Sarah E. Smith
Why I Am Not Famous
Being that the shortcut to the only grocery store in town is smeared with bluebottle flies and small dogs, I am forced to walk on Main Street.
The dressmaker knows my name because I commissioned a gown that I never bought. I wanted bluebottle flies for the bodice and many stitches, and it was expensive work.
My ship was coming in, I thought. This was the idea, to watch the ship coming in while wearing the gown, to watch the wrestle of the sea in it.
The ship I saw coming in was not mine. It belonged to my sister—we bear the same coat of arms. The next day, she was famous. She came to my hut by limousine. “Let’s buy the dress together,” she said. “We can go Dutch.” I told her I would never go Dutch with her on anything. “I’ll buy it myself,” she said. I could do nothing to stop her as she was already famous at this point.
So my sister bought the gown. She wore it on television the next day. It looked so fabulous, they put her at the end of the parade in place of the mayor’s ironweed float. I watched my sister through dark glasses. I, too, had been practicing for fame.
She returned it the next day. Like brides in muslin fanny sacks, she couldn’t wear it again. I tried to buy it back, but the dressmaker said such a thing was impossible. She put on her earphones and embroidered lambs on a set of linen napkins. No one has spoken to me since.