Vintage

by Susan Gloss

  “Those are great,” said April. “Violet—my boss—said they came from a professor at the law school who has a closet full of black suits and hundreds of pairs of wild shoes. You’re lucky you’re her shoe size. If you come back in a few weeks, we’ll probably have more. I guess the lady goes through her collection at the end of every school year and brings in the ones she doesn’t want anymore.”

  “I’m not sure where I’ll wear them,” Lane said. “Preschool field trips to the farm aren’t exactly conducive to heels—but I’ll make an occasion for them if I have to.”

  Lane agreed to take store credit instead of cash for her costumes. She used some of the credit to purchase the shoes and said she’d be back soon to spend the rest. “I have plenty more costumes at home,” she said. “So feel free to call me if there’s anything specific you need.”

  Lane wrote down her contact information, then headed out the door swinging an orange paper shopping bag with HOURGLASS VINTAGE printed on the side.

  April was proud of herself for successfully handling her first solo transaction and couldn’t wait for Violet to return so she could tell her all about it.

  When Violet got back from her errand, though, she looked critically at the bundle of costumes on the counter. “What’s with all these?”

  “Some lady who used to be an actress brought in a bunch of her old costumes. Look at this one.” April held up a shiny red leotard that looked like it could have been a circus outfit. She touched the sparkly band around the neckline.

  Violet sorted through the pile of garments, furrowing her forehead. “Wait, are they all costumes? We don’t carry costumes.”

  “Oh,” said April, feeling like an idiot. “Well . . . maybe you should, or at least have a supply you can haul out around Halloween. As a way to bring in people who wouldn’t otherwise shop at a secondhand store.”

  Violet looked skeptical. “It’s an interesting idea, but I’m just not sure how my customers would feel about seeing something that they actually wore to an important event, like a wedding or a prom, on the costume rack.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I should have waited for you to come back before buying the stuff,” April said.

  “In the future, you can always call me if you have a question and I’m not here.” She surveyed the costumes and sighed. “I guess I’ll hang on to these until Halloween, like you said, and see if we can sell them then.”

  April felt like she’d had a shot at proving herself to Violet and blown it. She needed to redeem herself.

  “You know,” she said, “when I was looking through the inventory book, it was really hard for me to find the information I needed. If you’re okay with it, maybe I could try to figure out a better way to organize everything. If we get all your records computerized like we talked about, they would be searchable. Seriously, I don’t mind doing that sort of thing.”

  Violet threw up her hands. “Okay, okay, you little data wizard. Have at it.”

  That night, April sat at her mom’s old secretary desk, paging through the ledger and file folders she’d hauled home with her from the boutique. The deeper she waded into Violet’s documentation, the more convinced she felt that she could come up with a better system of storing and sorting all the numbers and records.

  She heard a dinging sound and, by reflex, opened up her e-mail on her laptop screen. A new message from Charlie sat in her inbox, with the subject In Boston for orientation. April felt a little kick somewhere deep inside her and looked down at her belly. “E-mail from your dad,” she said. Sadness clutched her chest, and she deleted the e-mail without reading it.

  During the weeks following April and Charlie’s engagement, Judy Cabot had refused to speak with or see April. By default, this meant that Trip hadn’t uttered a word to April, either. Charlie had served as intermediary, pleading for his parents to accept his fiancée and the baby they would soon have.

  Then, one Saturday, April had gotten a call from Judy, asking her to come over without Charlie. As soon as April arrived at the Cabots’ home, Judy had pressed an Emily Post wedding handbook into her hands and led April into the living room, where an overeager brunette in a sweater set stood with a white binder under her arm.

  “April, meet Lila,” Judy had said. “She’s the best wedding planner in Madison.”

  “Um, hi.” April had given Judy a questioning look.

  Judy’s eyes had met April’s. “Not a thing about this . . . situation”—she glanced at April’s still-small but expanding waistline—“is how I would have chosen it. The wedding, at least, will be done my way.”

  April still couldn’t decide what had been worse—the silent treatment she’d received at first, or being forced to sit for hours while Judy and Lila debated different variations of monogram fonts and boutonnieres. None of it mattered now that the wedding was off.

  Even though she and Charlie were no longer together, April still hated the idea of his moving out east in August. She had at least hoped he’d be able to see their baby on a regular basis. But Charlie had only gotten into one medical school out of the fifteen to which he’d applied. He’d been wait-listed at his first choice, the University of Wisconsin, and from what the admissions office told him, his name was pretty far down the list.

  She tried to focus on entering data into her computer from the receipts and sales records from the shop. Unlike April’s past, numbers usually made sense. Today, though, connecting all the pieces proved to be frustrating because her mind kept wandering to Charlie and everything that had happened.

  She’d be lying if she wrote him back to say she didn’t want to see him. She did. She didn’t know if it was because she still loved him or if it was pregnancy hormones, but she craved his smile, his warm body curled around hers, the implicit understanding of each other they used to have.

  Three months earlier

  “Hey, wake up. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  April heard Charlie’s voice, as if from far away. She felt his arms encircling her, his lips kissing her forehead, her temples.

  She opened her eyes, and he wiped her wet cheeks with the corner of his bedsheet. Outside his apartment window, the February wind stirred the bare trees, casting spindly shadows on the wall.

  “You were crying in your sleep again,” he said.

  Charlie held her tighter as the realization set in, as it always did, that her mom was still gone. April longed for the day when she would no longer wake in the middle of the night, wondering whether her mom’s accident had been a bad dream. For the day when she could smile without feeling like something under the surface of her skin might break.

  April leaned into him, facing him, so that her arms, her stomach, her legs aligned and intertwined with his. At moments like this, the only thing more visceral, more palpable than her grief was her overwhelming desire for Charlie, and his for her. All around was darkness, all around was death. But here, under the folds of his comforter, under the weight of his body—and between them in her growing belly—was life.

  Chapter 8

  INVENTORY ITEM: hat

  APPROXIMATE DATE: 1949

  CONDITION: excellent

  ITEM DESCRIPTION: Bell-shaped hat made from lime-green felt and decorated with a black grosgrain ribbon and peacock feather.

  SOURCE: Lucille Rollins. Not for sale.

  Violet

  “EXCUSE ME, DO YOU have a men’s section?” asked a male voice.

  Violet looked up from folding a red Pendleton sweater. A man in a flannel shirt stood just inside the front door of the shop. He looked a little bit familiar, but she couldn’t figure out why. She decided it must have been the brown eyes, broad shoulders, and solid build—he had that lifelong Midwesterner look about him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I used to carry a few men’s clothes, but they didn’t sell well enough for me to justify keeping up with it, so I stopped. Is there anything specific you’re looking for? Maybe I can point you in the direction of a shop that might have it.”


  “I need a hat,” he said. “It’s the last week of school. I promised my students that if no one out of my seven sections failed the final exam, I’d wear a ridiculous hat on the last day of classes. They kept up their end of the bargain, so I’ve got to keep mine.”

  “What do you teach?” Violet asked.

  “Biology and earth science,” he said. “Freshmen and sophomores.”

  “Well, some of our hats could probably pass as unisex. Or, if you wanted to look really ridiculous, you could get one of our ladies’ hats. Come on, I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

  Violet led him to a display in a corner of the shop, where vintage hats in felt, silk, straw, and velvet were arranged on a circular stand.

  “Nice rack,” Sam said, then clapped a hand over his mouth. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. Sometimes I don’t have any filter.”

  Violet laughed. “I’m guilty of that, too. And anyway, I’m willing to admit it’s a nice rack.”

  It wasn’t often that Violet got men into the shop, let alone good-looking ones. He was handsome, but not in a showy way. He had a short beard that looked like it wasn’t so much a conscious choice but just the result of a few skipped days of shaving.

  He tried on a gray wool fedora with a feather on the brim. “What do you think?”

  “I think it looks great. I can get a mirror if you’d like to see for yourself,” she said.

  “Thanks. Hey, I’m Sam Lewis.” The man extended his hand and smiled. Little lines crinkled around his eyes.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Violet Turner.” She shook his right hand and noticed the lack of a wedding ring on his left.

  “I knew it,” Sam said.

  “What?”

  “You’re from Bent Creek, right? We went to high school together. You were a year behind me.”

  “I thought I knew you from somewhere,” Violet said. She picked up a silver-plated hand mirror from a table and gave it to Sam.

  He looked at his reflection and cocked the fedora to one side. “Hmmm. I think the kids will be disappointed if I wear something this normal looking.”

  “It’s very nineteen fifties Wall Street,” Violet said.

  Sam put the hat back on its stand and placed a red beret on top of his head. “It’s okay if you don’t remember me from school.”

  “Maybe I would remember you if you’d worn that beret,” Violet joked.

  “I just remember you because—well, you dated Jed Cline, right?” Sam asked. “He was in my class.”

  Violet hated that, even now, that single fact still defined her in some people’s minds.

  “I married him, too,” she said.

  “When did you guys move here?”

  “Oh, we’re not still married. I moved here on my own a few years ago to open this shop and finish a degree I’d started in fashion merchandising at the community college up there.”

  “You did both of those things at the same time? I’m impressed.”

  “I’d been planning for years to open a store, so I already had a lot of the details worked out. I’d also accumulated way more vintage stuff than I could justify owning if I didn’t open up a shop. I thought about doing it in Bent Creek, but there just aren’t enough people there to support a high-end boutique. Plus, I was too busy taking care of Jed. He needed me, and for a long time being needed seemed like the most important thing in the world.”

  “Yeah, I’d heard that he had a drinking problem. But you just never know what’s true and what isn’t with small-town gossip.” Sam took off the beret.

  “That’s for sure.” Violet didn’t even want to think about what gossip must have circulated in the wake of her divorce. Small towns had selective memories, and despite the fact that Jed could be cruel and controlling, especially when he drank, he had also stayed put. There were those people who stayed in Bent Creek and those who didn’t. Violet knew that the simple act of leaving had, in many people’s minds, made her suspect. Even her parents were wary of her decision. They knew Jed and Violet had their problems, but they didn’t see why she had to move away. They didn’t understand, as Grandma Lou had, that Violet couldn’t change her life if all of the people in it saw her a certain way.

  “Roots are important, honey,” Grandma Lou had said when Violet told her she was contemplating leaving. “But sometimes a flower outgrows its pot.”

  Sam grabbed a light blue pillbox hat and placed it on top of his head. He arranged the birdcage veil in front of his face and batted his eyelashes. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Violet laughed. “If you’re looking for ridiculous, you’ve found it.”

  Sam picked up the silver-plated hand mirror from the counter and inspected his reflection. “This will be perfect. My students will get a kick out of it.”

  “They’re lucky they’ve got a teacher willing to make a fool out of himself for the sake of their education.”

  “Hey, whatever works.” Sam took off the hat and ran a hand through his thick brown hair, speckled with gray. Violet wondered why she had never paid attention to him in high school, and then remembered that she had had tunnel vision at the time, focused only on Jed.

  Sam looked around the store. “I’m not very into fashion or design or whatever, but it’s a pretty cool store you’ve got. Is it just you who works here?”

  “I have an intern, but she’s at an appointment,” Violet said. “So I’ve told you how I ended up here. What brought you to Madison?”

  “I went to college here. And, like a lot of people, I fell in love with the place and never left. When I bike to work, I see a guy with a two-foot-tall Mohawk pushing his dachshund in a stroller along the bike path. There’s a stilt-walkers’ group that meets up at a bar in my neighborhood every Monday night. Where else can I get that kind of entertainment?”

  “The circus?”

  Sam smiled. “Anyway, even though I love it here, it’s good running into someone from back home.”

  Violet returned his smile, wondering why she hadn’t noticed in high school how cute he was.

  “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work,” Sam said. “I’m on my lunch break.”

  “Of course,” Violet said, disappointed. “Here, let me ring that up for you.” She took the hat from Sam and brought it over to the register.

  He handed her a credit card. “I’d love to finish catching up sometime.”

  “That sounds great.” Violet swiped the card and printed a receipt. She placed the blue hat in a shopping bag and gave it to him. Their hands brushed and she noticed goose bumps spring up on her arms, which were bare in her sleeveless dress.

  “Thanks,” Sam said. “Nice tattoo.”

  Violet blushed, hoping that he didn’t notice the goose bumps. Or maybe she hoped he did.

  “If you give me your number I can plug it into my phone,” he said.

  Violet opened a drawer and rummaged through a shoe box full of old black and white photographs. They were pictures she’d collected from thrift stores and garage sales, all of people she didn’t know. There were babies in lace bonnets and soldiers in uniform, women on horseback and kids at the fair. Violet didn’t know why she bought them, other than to save just a moment of these people’s stories.

  She searched through the box until she found what she was looking for—a picture of a woman in a birdcage veil similar to the one on the hat Sam had bought. She flipped the yellowed photograph over and scribbled her phone number on the back side.

  Sam laughed when he saw the picture. “I have to say I’ve never had anyone give me a phone number this way before.”

  Violet grinned. “I like to do things my own way.”

  “Hey, how come you didn’t let me try on that hat?” Sam pointed to the tangerine-colored wall behind the register counter. Beneath the hammered metal letters that spelled out “Hourglass Vintage” hung a green felt hat decorated with a peacock feather.

  “Because that one is special,” Violet said.

  A year earlier
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  After the funeral, while her relatives mingled over coffee and cookies in the kitchen, Violet snuck down the pile-carpeted hallway to Grandma Lou’s bedroom. She went into the walk-in closet and sat down on the floor, between the racks of clothes, and breathed in the scent of cigarettes and White Shoulders perfume. Her grandmother’s scent.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when she heard her mother’s voice. “Violet, where are you?”

  “I’m in here,” Violet called out.

  Celeste Turner appeared at the doorway to the closet and put a hand on her hip. Violet thought that her mom, with her pleated black pants and shapeless sweater, seemed out of place in Grandma Lou’s closet full of sequins and silk. Celeste dressed for function. She didn’t share her mother’s affinity for fashion. It seemed to have skipped a generation and showed up in Violet instead.

  “What are you doing in here?” Celeste asked.

  Violet ran a hand over the surface of a lacquered black jewelry box. “Saying good-bye.”

  Celeste’s eyes teared up. “I know. I miss her, too.”

  It had been six weeks since Grandma Lou had been admitted to the hospital after a stroke that put her into a coma. Violet’s mother had had to make the difficult decision, based on her mother’s advance-directive papers, to take her off life support.

  Violet stepped into a pair of her grandmother’s patent heels. “What are you going to do with all of her things?”

  “I’m not sure.” Her mother sighed. “I suppose we’ll just give them to Goodwill, like we’re doing with everything else. If your aunts and uncles were planning to stick around for a few days to help, I’d say they could pick out whatever furniture or keepsakes they want. But they’re all headed back out of town tomorrow. And anyway, they all said they have enough junk already and don’t have room for more.”

  “It’s not junk,” Violet said. She touched the hem of a black velvet cape lined with satin—an “opera cloak,” Grandma Lou had called it. Never mind the fact that Bent Creek didn’t even have a movie theater, let alone an opera house. It was a beautiful garment.