I had this short story published in the local newsletter. I would like to put it up here as well.
The Yellow Dress
By Wendy Lodwick Lowdon
He preferred this venue on Flinders Street because it clung to the formalities of ballroom dancing. This was the third Saturday he had propped himself against the wall a few yards from the entrance. Unlike most of the other attendees he came alone. He liked a beer after work but the yarn, yak and yawn of his colleagues sporting conversation bored him. This place of music, swing and colour proposed different possibilities.
He lit another cigarette and watched the smoke spiral into the cloud hanging below the gold-starred, blue ceiling. Although the year had scarcely fare welled winter, it was a warm September night. The slick men and the bouffant women, heated from a fast foxtrot after a quick step, churned out gusts of perfume. He felt slightly sick and wondered if he would leave. He had already essayed a couple of invitations to dance and had weathered one refusal and endured the acceptance, with whom he had lumbered through the dance steps while she gabbled incessantly.
Dresses, with cinched waists and adorned bodices, flowed past encircled by monochrome arms in a cycle around the huge ballroom. He could feel the flex of the sprung boards of the dance floor and the rhythm set by the drummer tapped urgently. He surveyed the gaggle of giggles propped in bunches along the walls and his eye was snagged by the swirl of a yellow dress. It was the yellow of the eye of a daisy, of wattle, of a gold ring and he liked the face above the sweetheart neckline: an open face; quick and expressive.
The yellow dress gave him a soft welcome, such a relief from the brittle diamond reactions he’d learnt to dread. She was like feather in his arms and they swung smoothly and in lovely synchronicity through steps of three dances until she was panting for breath.
While they rested, they conversed; they asked each other questions and listened intently to answers. In time the music swept them out of their seats and into the long glide of a waltz.