“Just ’cause y’all had a falling-out doesn’t mean I have to give her up, Dauphine. I was friends with her too, you know. That’s unjust.”
“Falling-out? She was my best friend. He was my boyfriend. They killed my whole world.”
“Eight years ago! Most of your major organs have completely replenished themselves in that time! When are you gonna move on? You need a man!”
What if you don’t need a man but you still want one? I wanted a man, just not all the mess—that murky pond of feelings the worst of them sometimes leave you sitting in.
Men, however, were about the only subject to which I always deferred to my mother. She was from Tennessee pageant stock and believed she knew a lot about men and their motives. She also believed she knew a lot about me. She disapproved of the way I dressed. Her face said it all one day when she and Dad came down from Baton Rouge to take me to my thirtieth birthday brunch, where I wore a gorgeous 1940s tea dress with a pillbox hat and little black veil.
“I understand there is probably a very moving story behind that hat, but you’re puttin’ out a message that says ‘Stay away from me, for I am peculiar, stuck in the past,’” she said. Peculiar was the worst thing you could say about a Southern woman of a certain age.
I shook my head at this brief bout of nostalgia and watched Elizabeth lay down a yellow nest of crimped paper strips. Mardi Gras had ended, and now we were gearing up for Easter. Yesterday I scouted around for ideas for a theme and today I could see that Elizabeth had seized upon quite an interesting one. When she finished tying up the back of a pale blue corset, I knocked on the window, giving her my best what the hell? face.
“What are you doing here so early, Dauphine? You’re on afternoons!” she yelled through the glass.
“I promised to style you. For your date tonight.”
Her eyes flew open. “Right!”
“What’s your plan here?” I asked, my finger circling the pile of mannequin legs and arms.
“Corsets!” Elizabeth held up a fistful of lace and ribbons.
“Right. When I think of Easter, I think: lingerie.”
People strolling past the store stopped to stare at the nearly naked mannequin and the two women yelling at each other over bras through glass. She plucked vintage white Playboy rabbit ears out of a bag, pairing them next to a pale pink teddy. “Look how cute!”
If you want to keep good people close, you have to let them loose every once in a while, my dad used to say. So I just had to trust that Elizabeth would put together another traffic-stopping display. Let her do this; let someone else take the lead.
I gave her a weak thumbs-up and headed inside.
My stomach rumbled. I had skipped breakfast, but we had a big shipment in from a hard-won estate sale and I wanted to go through those boxes myself before we opened. So I left Elizabeth to work her magic in the window box and unlocked the store, taking in my outfit in the full-length mirror by the front counter: a dark blue, A-line dress that buttoned up the front, circa late ’60s, the kind with a built-in bra, matching belt and slip lining; three-quarter-length sleeves and kitten heels. My red hair was pulled back in a chignon, now loose and fuzzy-edged from the humidity. I had on big, dark sunglasses, à la Jackie O. I had to admit it was a little warm for this dress, but they just didn’t make them like this anymore, something my mother celebrated and I, of course, lamented. But when did my collars become so high, the hems this long, my sunglasses so large? Who takes eight years to get over a guy?
With Elizabeth busy in the window and the store still quiet, I dug into my purse for my lunch, then realized I had left it on my kitchen counter. Customers weren’t allowed food or drinks in my store, but I ate all my meals perched on the stepladder behind the cash register. Screw it, I’d skip lunch too, and have a big dinner.
I dragged the smallest estate-sale boxes to the front counter. The first was filled with accessories, Elizabeth’s specialty, so I kicked it aside. The second box was all girly sundresses, straw hats (vile) and ballet flats. I wouldn’t need to put summer clothes out for a few more weeks, but I admired a dark green halter dress from the ’70s. It was stunning material, crepe, beautifully lined and floor-length. I noticed the hem was fraying. I could shorten it to knee-length and get a good price. Or I could keep it for myself. And show off my arms? Not a chance. Still, it was so pretty, the green, and with my red hair …
I set it aside for the “keeper” pile, which was getting bigger than the “for sale” pile. Why did I do this? Save things for some imaginary future or for some imaginary customer who would really appreciate it if given the chance.
“Our back room office could be a whole other store,” Elizabeth once said. “A better one than what’s out front.”
The third box was filled with men’s clothes: tweed jackets, several T-shirts, a pair of tuxedo pants (satin stripe down the side) and a matching tuxedo jacket with stylishly slim lapels. I put my nose to the thick fabric and inhaled. It was clean and smelled like men’s cologne. That manly-man smell was so intoxicating. It reminded me of a late night out, of cigars and aftershave, the back of a cab, desire. I felt a pang behind my belly button. I imagined getting this tuxedoed man home, unzipping my long velvet gown, surrendering it to the floor. Underneath it I would be wearing a silk slip. He’d lie back on my gypsy bedspread, smiling, putting aside his scotch. I could feel his hands on my shoulders as he pulled me down onto him, gathering a fist of my long, red hair, pulling my head back to reveal my tender throat. I would cry out his name loud enough to clear the cobwebs from the hallways of the abandoned house my body had become, and—
“Dauphine!”
I nearly fell off my stepladder. “What in the hell, Elizabeth,” I said, dropping the jacket I’d been clutching.
“I called your name, like, ten million times!”
My stomach growled so loud we both heard it. Then I saw stars in my peripheral vision and grabbed the glass case to steady myself.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just tuned out for a second.”
“Your stomach sounds like two wolves fighting in it. Go get some food. Sit outside in the sun. You don’t officially start until two,” she scolded with the adorable authority of the very young. She plucked my purse from below the glass case, grabbed my arm and shoved me towards the door.
“Return when you are well fortified, missy. And take your damn time.”
“Fine,” I said, still seeing stars.
Next door I nabbed the last empty patio table at Ignatius’s and ordered a hot bowl of gumbo. The Sunday shoppers seemed frantic, or maybe it just felt like that because this was early spring and the first time in a long time that I’d been outside, around people, instead of holed up in my store dealing with inventory. I had also been skipping breakfast, skipping mornings altogether. Maybe that’s why I was losing weight, something I was contemplating when I noticed him—him him—Mark Drury—the lead singer of the Careless Ones.
I’d never seen him with a beard before; I liked it. His band had a regular, early-evening slot on Saturdays at Three Muses. And Mark’s voice was a husky, alt-country dream. Every once in a while, he’d sing a cover of an old Hank Williams song that would make me swoon. He was all limbs and black hair and pale blue eyes. His stooped shoulders were those of a man with an instrument perpetually strapped to his back. And there he was strutting by my patio table and heading inside. He and some of his band mates would hit up the Funky Monkey for T-shirts, jeans and even outlandish wigs if they were doing a show during Mardi Gras. But I always shoved Elizabeth in front of them, too shy to help them myself. The Careless Ones was the only local band I’d go see alone, time spent listening to music being the only time I could really let go and be in my body. Music was the opposite of me. That’s why I was mesmerized by performers like Mark, who could stand on stage in front of everybody and give himself permission to let go.