“It’s what I want,” Gilda said to MAXine, her last words before putting her two lips back together when the window dresser returned with some clothes before the store opened for the day. MAXine was glad to see Gilda again. They hadn’t been together in a window for some time. She had something important to tell Gilda. She could hardly wait until the store closed and they could talk again in the night. They were best friends. Doreen and FREDerique would have to wait.

        The four mannequins who were manufactured in Paris had been excited when they learned that they were being sent to Philadelphia, but they weren’t put on display. They were “copies,” which translated means “extras,” which translated means they would take the place of any injured mannequins, which never happened. They had spent a whole year in storage in the Philadelphia store until a window dresser from upstate New York called corporate headquarters and asked for some replacements.

        The creative director hesitated. The mannequins in storage were fashionably androgynous reflecting a gender-blurring trend in big city window displays. “These mannequins will get noticed, but not in a good way,” she warned the window dresser. “You’re already having problems with sales, and the store is in danger of closing.”

        It was true that this little city had lost half its population in the aftermath of one manufacturing demise after another. “We’re desperate,” the window dresser said. The store’s aging generic mannequins had fallen apart and couldn’t be put back together again. The director finally agreed to send four. “They’re all yours,” she said. “You can’t return them.”

        At first, the mannequins were glad to move. At least they could look out a window, they all agreed. But over time their views changed. Looking out a window was not enough when no one stopped to admire. Doreen (brunette) resigned herself to circumstances beyond her control. FREDerique (redhead) ignored how she was dressed for the day and stood in the window frame as if she had just walked to the end of the runway in a fashion show in Paris. MAXine (blonde) worked hard to make the best of the situation.

        Gilda (black bob) had grown despondent, however. She hadn’t wanted to be exported to the USA, become an immigrant worker, though the mannequins were considered “documented” from a trade deal. She wanted to go back home to Paris. She imagined posing in the window of a boutique on the rue du Bac, wearing a white, satin gown with a stylish crisscross top, one elbow bent, her hand folded elegantly under her chin. But she wasn’t going to be boxed up and sent anywhere.

        Admittedly, the mannequins looked as if they belonged in “The Twilight Zone” created by Rod Serling, who had grown up in this town. And while the clothes were not fashionable, the window dresser did the best she could. She tried to draw customers in with signage, which she hoped the new store manager would appreciate, but he clearly thought they were hurting business. He shook his head and asked her how they came to be in the store. When she told him, he raised his eyebrows and sighed.

        Gilda wondered what they were “in” for today. The window dresser turned Gilda and MAXine around to face the department store. She took some clothes off the rack she had wheeled in. Gilda would wear a red, green, and gold paisley dress with a red sweater, buttoned halfway so the upper half formed a V-shape. She dressed MAXine in a darker paisley scoop-necked top with ¾ sleeves and black jeans. Then she turned them around to face the window. She removed MAXine’s right arm that hung by her side and replaced it with an arm with a bent elbow and an index finger pointing at Gilda. She liked putting them together as if they were in conversation.

        “Comfort—it’s what I want” Gilda told MAXine when they were alone together after the store closed.

        MAXine laughed. “It’s one of her season-related themes.”

        “Remember when we were placed in windows next to each other with the question ‘ARE WE THERE YET? repeated like impatient kids on a family road trip?” Gilda asked. “I wore a bright blue sweat jacket unzipped to sport a blue-and-white striped cotton jersey, my head turned to the right as if I were looking out to sea. To my left below the sign was a picture of a cruise ship. I remember thinking as I stared out the window that I wasn’t going anywhere.

        “How about FRED’s costume?” MAXine chuckled.

        “Yeah, aqua sweatpants and a pink t-shirt with an image of a girly fairy with enormous wings asking ‘Going my way?’ Hilarious, given how androgynous FRED looks.”

        “And the window dresser couldn’t do anything about the feet molded like high heels that looked so funny sticking out of wide-legged sweatpants.”

        Gilda laughed.

        “Gilda, I—“ MAXine said cautiously, then stopped as if she didn’t know how to line the words up.

        “What? What is it?” Gilda asked hesitantly.

        “I heard the new store manager tell the window dresser that he ordered some new mannequins.”

        “He hates us,” Gilda said, raising her permanently rouged eyelids.

        “He told her that he knows she’s done the best she could, and her job wasn’t in jeopardy.”

        Gilda pressed her lips together.

        “I’ve been wanting to tell you,” MAXine said. “I was hoping she would put us together again in a window before anything happened.”

        “What do you mean? Will we be sent somewhere else? We’re not going back to storage, are we?”

        “I heard a salesperson ask the window dresser what would happen to us.”

        “And?” Gilda raised her rouged eyelids again.

        “The window dresser pointed to the big green dumpster parked outside the door next to the garage.”

        “What? Are you sure?”

        “Yes,” MAXine replied.

        “How much time do we have?”

        “A few weeks.”

        MAXine and Gilda talked through the night. They hoped they could stay together another day, but the next morning the window dresser moved MAXine to the window near the office. She put Gilda in the center of the display and dressed her in a bright red-and-orange flowered dress with cap sleeves that showed off her slender arms. Then she went outside to have a look, no doubt to see where best to place the sign Gilda had seen on the platform—LAST CHANCE TO ENJOY SUMMER!—that sounded to Gilda like the pop tune “No, no, no, summer’s not over…”

        When the window dresser came back inside, the new manager showed up. “I can’t wait until the new mannequins arrive,” he said, frowning as he looked at the mannequin on display. He suggested she add another—“Not the strange red head or the blonde. Maybe the brunette,” he said as he walked away. The window dresser moved Doreen onto the platform and dressed her in a beige cotton blouse with short, puffed sleeves over a pair of jeans. Hands on hips, staring straight ahead, she seemed to say to passers-by who looked and frowned, “I didn’t choose to wear this.”

        Gilda, her head uplifted, stared across the street at a handsome, historic brick building, ignoring Doreen next to her—and no, she wouldn’t tell her about their dumpster demise. She would use the building to rid her mind of any thoughts of being crushed to death. All morning Gilda focused on the building: arched windows within an indented arch in the brick façade. Looking carefully, she noticed that the window frames were painted aqua to match the trim. Gradually Gilda let go of the need to see details. She stared into oblivion. Something clicked in Gilda’s now liminal mind in the crepuscular space between life and death. In this altered state, she imagined rising above the fluorescent-lit department store into the clear blue sky.

        Then she centered her gaze, allowing herself to see everything in her peripheral vision. That’s when she noticed a photographer standing in front of the building across the street with her camera focused on Gilda, or so it seemed.

        The next morning the window dresser moved Doreen to another window and moved MAXine back next to Gilda. She selected a red cotton jersey with rhinestones glued around a scoop neckline for Gilda to wear with some white straight-legged pants, and an indigo blue frock with off-the-shoulder sleeves for MAXine. Gilda wondered if MAXine had heard anything more about plans to dispose of them like trash, but she would have to wait until the store closed.

        “I have good news, Gilda!” MAXine said as soon as they were alone that night. “We’re not going to the dumpster. We’re being saved by a photographer.”

        “A photographer?”

        “Yes, when I was in the window near the office yesterday, a photographer came into the store late in the afternoon and—”

        “I saw a photographer across the street yesterday.”

        “That’s the one. She’s been taking photographs of us. I heard her ask the window dresser where we were from. When she learned that we were made in Paris, she was intrigued and said that explained our androgynous look, which she really liked.”

        “But how will she save us?”

        “She wants to borrow us for the opening of her exhibit on the First Friday Art Walk in a few weeks.”

        “But we’ll be reduced to ashes by then, MAXine. Crushed to death and buried in the city dump. The photography exhibit would be a memorial.”

        “The window dresser told me the manager was replacing us with some new generic mannequins.”

        “Yeah,” Gilda said. “White, skinny, with smooth oval heads and no defined facial features—probably manufactured in New Jersey—or China.”

        “She told the photographer we were going to be destroyed as soon as the new mannequins arrive. ‘Destroyed?’ she asked as if to be sure she’d heard right. The window dresser said ‘Follow me’ and walked to the door and pointed to the dumpster outside. ‘That’s where they’re headed,’ she said. “The photographer was speechless.”

        Gilda’s rouged brows rose into an arch.

        “Then the window dresser told her she had an idea. ‘What if I give them to you?’”

        “What did the photographer say?”

        “She said, ‘Yes! Yes! I’d love to have them.’”

        “What about after the show?”

        “We’d stay with her. She has a big studio over the gallery.”

        “But how will we escape? Gilda persisted.

        “After the new mannequins arrive, the window dresser will put us in storage briefly and one night after the store has closed and the manager has gone home, they will take the four of us in a van to the photographer’s studio.”

        “You don’t think the manager will be suspicious?” Gilda asked.

        “No, I don’t think so,” MAXine said. “The window dresser has been careful not to let him know how she feels. He’ll focus on the new mannequins and the new window displays, and if at some point he asks the window dresser if she got rid of us, she can reply ‘Yes.’”

        “Brilliant,” Gilda said.

        “One more thing,” MAXine said, suddenly remembering the photographer’s request that she had overheard.

        “What?” Gilda asked, her eyes squeezed tight as if expecting something unpleasant.

        “The photographer asked the window dresser if she could put the two of us together in a window again tomorrow before the store opens. She wants to take one more photograph—headshots of the two of us, this time using a filter so there won’t be any reflections on the window from across the street.

        “Oh!” Gilda said, relieved.

        The next morning the window dresser arrived early to get the mannequins ready. She dressed them both in black straight-leg pants and put a black scoop-necked jersey on MAXine and a black-and-gold striped blouse on Gilda. When the photographer arrived, she positioned them so MAXine was turned toward Gilda but not looking directly at her and Gilda was staring straight ahead as if frozen in thought. Then she went outside and crossed the street and zoomed in for some close-up shots. She gave the window dresser a thumbs up. When she came back inside, they scrolled through the photos she had taken.

        “I really like this one of Gilda and MAXine,” the window dresser said.

        “You named them,” the photographer said with a smile, clearly pleased.

        “Yes. The redhead I call FREDerique and the brunette I call Doreen.”

        “The series, of course, will include all four mannequins in various window displays, but this one of Gilda and MAX will lead. And I’m going to end with the one I took of Gilda yesterday. She looks like Princess Leia from Star Wars about to rise out of the store window into the blue sky. I’ll call it ‘Gilda Rising.’”

        “Perfect!” the window dresser said, obviously thrilled with this unexpected turn.

        Gilda and MAXine were speechless.

        “How strange, as if the photographer caught my drift,” Gilda said, gazing into the night sky now.

        Gilda and MAXine were stunned by the window dresser’s kindness and the luck of the photographer showing up.

        “I just hope our luck doesn’t run out, MAX. What if we get caught trying to escape? I wouldn’t want our window dresser friend to get in trouble.”

        “Don’t worry, Gilda. The photographer will pull her van up next to the door. It won’t take long to load us. No one will be around, and the manager will think we were dumped. He’s not going to check.”

        “Wait a minute. We need to tell FREDerique and Doreen,” Gilda said.

        “We’re always getting moved around. We’ll each be in a window with one of them soon,” MAXine said.

        “It’s good they didn’t know about the death threat,” Gilda said.

        “Yeah, and while they both tried to make the best of the situation working here, I think they were becoming weary,” MAXine said. “This will be a good change for them—and for all of us.”

        “Absolutely,” Gilda said.

        “Your wish is coming true, Gilda. It’s a way out. You’re going to be big art in a little city. I also heard the photographer say that she was going to contact a famous window dresser in New York City and ask him to take a look. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be big art in a big city.”

        “It’s what you want,” MAXine could be heard saying to Gilda at the opening of the exhibit on the First Friday Art Walk.

        It turns out that’s what they all wanted.