In the Mexican city of Chihuahua, there is a bridal shop with a window displaying an eerily beautiful and lifelike mannequin. Local legend identifies the mannequin as the skillfully embalmed daughter of the shop’s first owner. Neighborhood stories claim that she is not quite dead, often moving about in the store overnight, changing dresses, or weeping at certain times of the year. There is even a story that the mannequin was once courted by a French magician, who fell in love with her and who would bring her to life so that he could take her out on the town.
It was three minutes past closing time in the bridal shop on Tiempo Avenue. Pascuala, the shop owner, buttoned up her coat as she eyed her mannequin. Was it just her, or was the mannequin’s smile extra-wide these days? “Don’t make any trouble for me tonight,” she teased while adjusting her hat, and locked the door behind her before stepping into the street.
Two hours after Pascuala had walked away and the sunlight had given way to shadows, a black convertible pulled up next to the curb. The driver, a young dark-haired man in a tuxedo, had come straight from his work at the hotel entertaining tourists by pulling rabbits out of hats and turning wine into water. He exited the car quickly and stood before the window of the dark building.
“Amaranta,” he called. “Amaranta! Don’t break my heart! Come out!”
A silence ensued: A moment, a minute, an hour… Terrified that she would not respond to his voice, he never knew how long the silence lasted. He was too frozen with listening to realize that his heart had suspended its beating.
But finally there was a soft, stealthy movement in the store, a rustle of silk and a fragrance of orange blossoms, the tap of a heeled shoe—and she was there, her eyes luminous and white flowers in her hair, allowing his heart to resume beating again.
“I am here, Jean-Luc,” Amaranta whispered. “I got away as soon as I could.”
Jean-Luc helped her into the car. “You are beautiful,” he told her, lifting her hand and pressing it to his lips.
“You tell me that every night,” she said, flushing with pleasure nonetheless.
“And I mean it every night,” he replied, starting the car. He glanced at her admiringly. “Is that a new dress you’re wearing?”
“I chose it to please you,” Amaranta informed him, smoothing the figured white silk. “Do you like it?”
“It is very becoming,” he assured her, steering through the city streets. “But it wouldn’t be fair for me alone to have the pleasure of seeing you in it. Shall I take you dancing again?”
“Yes, please,” Amaranta answered with a laugh, several tendrils of her hair coaxed free from her careful coiffure by the night wind. “You know how I love to dance.”
Jean-Luc smiled. “Yes, I know.”
He took her to a restaurant he knew, where a string quartet and pianist performed nightly. Amaranta glowed as Jean-Luc swept her gracefully around and across the dancing area.
They were moving like two entwined lilies swaying in a summer wind when the city’s great tower clock chimed midnight. Amaranta paled and stumbled, almost falling but for Jean-Luc’s supporting hands.
“How clumsy of me,” she murmured, trying to laugh it away. “I am so dizzy all of a sudden. Could we rest for a moment?”
Brow knitted with anxiety, Jean-Luc helped her to a chair. It was like this every night; she was vibrant and vivacious when he picked her up, but after dancing for a few hours she abruptly became wan and withdrawn, leached of all strength and color. Was she ill?
“Shall I order you something to eat or drink?” he offered, but with little hope, knowing that she would refuse, just as she did every other night.
She shook her head with visible effort. “Thank you, but no. I am not hungry, only dizzy. Would you please take me home?”
“Of course,” Jean-Luc said gently. He patted her hand and felt how cold and stiff it had become, when seconds earlier it had been warm and soft. “Perhaps you need to rest.”
She smiled up at him gratefully. “You are so kind. Yes, I think that is just what I need.”
Limping to the car with Jean-Luc’s strong arm supporting her, Amaranta sighed. The magic always faded fast after the city’s tower clock struck twelve, with an icy cold starting in her feet to warn her that she would soon return to her usual immobile state. If she was not home soon—Amaranta shuddered to think. Would Jean-Luc still care for her if he saw her as brittle and frozen as marble?
The second drive was much quieter than the first, until Jean-Luc felt a faint pressure—Amaranta’s slender hand—upon his arm.
“Tell me again of when you first saw me,” she asked.
“I had just bought this car with half my savings,” Jean-Luc began with a shadowed smile. “And I was driving through the city when suddenly I saw an angel in white in a store window.”
“You’re exaggerating,” she accused, but her eyes regained some of their earlier sparkle.
“Just who is telling this story, anyway?” he said with mock aggravation.
Despite the cold seizing her legs, Amaranta could not suppress a giggle.
Jean-Luc looked at her fondly. “Anyway, I was driving through the city when suddenly I saw you working in your mother’s store, modeling the bridal dresses. I waved to you, but you wouldn’t even look at me, let alone wave back. You were a true model of proper deportment.”
“But that didn’t stop you, did it?” she whispered, feeling the cold start in her fingertips.
“No,” he agreed. “I knew there had to be a flesh-and-blood girl under that pretty white dress somewhere. So I returned to your mother’s store after work that night, and after working up my courage, I called to you.”
“And this time I answered,” she murmured, marveling to herself. After years of watching the world outside the store window, how was it that she had been given the ability to go outside the shop and taste life for herself? Was it because a kind spirit had heard her wish? Was it because Jean-Luc was a magician?
“Yes, that time you answered. It was the most magical thing that ever happened to me.” Smiling sadly, he cleared his throat. “Look, we are back at your mother’s.” Parking at the curb, he exited and walked around to open the passenger door, and did not let go of Amaranta’s hands after helping her out of the car.
She looked up at him, sensing he had something on his mind.
“There is something I need to tell you,” Jean-Luc said quietly. “I must go away, and it will be some time before I can return. But I will come back. Will you wait for me?”
Amaranta blinked. “Yes, but why must you go away?”
“There is a border dispute at home which I must help to straighten out,” he explained. “But I will return for you, as soon as I can, I promise you. Do you promise to wait for me?”
“Yes, I do,” she pledged, feeling apprehensive but unsure why. “I will wait for you forever, if I have to,” she added firmly.
“Dear Amaranta,” Jean-Luc sighed, stepping forward to embrace her and inhale her scent of orange blossoms. “You are the only one who makes me feel real in this crazed world.”
If you only knew, she thought ruefully, and hugged him back tightly.
“How cold you are,” Jean-Luc exclaimed. “I have kept you out too long. Go inside and stay warm, Amaranta.”
Feeling the coldness inch up her throat, Amaranta nodded.
“Oh, but wait!” From his breast pocket he removed a red silk handkerchief, flourished it, and somehow extracted from it a longstem rose, the scarlet petals wet with water droplets. “For you. To help you remember that I’ll return.” Jean-Luc smiled. “Good-bye until we meet again.”
Amaranta accepted it, the red rose appearing almost black in her thin white fingers. “Until we meet again,” she echoed, smiling back at him before disappearing into the gloom of the building.
He waited on the pavement until she was safely inside and smiling out at him from the window, then drove away, his hastily replaced red handkerchief fluttering down his chest.
The next morning, Pascuala grinned. It was the fifteenth time that this had happened, that some trickster had taken it upon herself to change the mannequin’s dress and pose it so that it was looking into the street rather than into the distance, and mussing the elaborately dressed hair in the process. This time the joker had even replaced the mannequin’s usual bouquet with a single scarlet rose, the petals glistening with beads of water.
“Did you have fun last night?” Pascuala whispered to the mannequin with a wink.
The mannequin’s answering smile seemed only half-hearted.
Humming a bittersweet mariachi tune under her breath, Pascuala rearranged the mannequin’s hair and half-listened to her salesgirls chattering while they unpacked the latest shipment of satin gloves.
“Did you hear about the French magician who worked at the Royal Hotel?” one of the salesgirls said to the others.
“Ah, yes, Manuel took me to see his show once,” another replied. “He is marvelous! And so young and handsome besides.”
“Well, you won’t soon be seeing his show again,” the first girl said. “The French government is conscripting men for the war in Europe, so he is returning to Europe today.”
“Too bad!” the third girl sighed. “I had heard that he pulls roses out of handkerchiefs.”
Her fussing done, Pascuala turned upon the salesgirls and planted her hands on her hips. “All right, time to confess,” she said. “Who keeps touching the mannequin?”
The three salesgirls exchanged glances before mutely shaking their heads.
“And who put this flower in her hands?” Pascuala asked, pulling the rose out of the cool stiff fingers so quickly that water droplets scattered all over the mannequin. She put a bouquet of silk orange blossoms into the mannequin’s hands. “If you’re going to play with my mannequin, at least make sure you put things back the way they are supposed to be. That is fair, yes?”
Busy as she was, Pascuala was already turning away from the shop window and did not see the single drop of water that coursed down the mannequin’s face.
