The Black Velvet Coat

by Jill G. Hall

  “Doesn’t matter,” Sylvia mumbled, and she looked down.

  Milo ambled into the store. He returned with a scowl on his face as if angry, then grinned and passed over the magazine and a pack of Lucky Strikes. “Don’t worry. No one needs to know.”

  “You’re the best.” She smiled at him.

  They continued up the hill toward home. She put the magazine aside and slid the cigarettes into her purse to try later. The tangle in her stomach twisted. She eyed the Tiffany package beside her and picked it up. Her fingers itched. She untied the white ribbon, opened the box, and stared at the snowflake pin. She clutched it. The knot inside her dissolved into calmness.

  At home, Ella met her at the door. Underneath her lace cap, wispy curls had begun to turn the same gray as the uniform she always wore. “Shopping again?”

  “Only a bauble.”

  “Just what you need.” Ella stuck her hands in her apron pockets. “And don’t even think of breaking your date tonight.”

  “I won’t.” Sylvia’s throat felt dry.

  “You need to start dating.”

  Sylvia looked down. “I’m only twenty.”

  “Yes, and it is high time you became more social.”

  “I’m trying.” Sylvia ran past Ella up the stairs.

  “Your parents would practically have wanted you married by now!” Ella called.

  Yes, but they weren’t here anymore, so it really didn’t matter. In fact, if that painting didn’t hang above the landing, Sylvia might not even remember what they looked like. She thought back to that day shortly after the funeral, hiding in her usual spot beneath the stairs, when she overheard Paul talking to Ella and Milo. “I think we should send Sylvia to boarding school.”

  Ella disagreed. “Mr. Paul, you know she’s fragile by nature. Right now she doesn’t need any more disruption. She’s only thirteen and needs our care.”

  “At least the two of you could move into one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

  “No, thanks.” Milo said. “Our home has been down here for years, and that’s where we’ll stay.” So Ella and Milo continued to live in the little room next to the kitchen and continued with Sylvia’s day-to-day care and supervision.

  What a relief. It would have been a nightmare to live with strangers. At the time, she didn’t really grasp the finality of death but somehow understood her parents were never coming back.

  Now from a box on her canopied bed, Sylvia pulled out the velvet coat and clasped the snowflake pin on it. She donned the jacket and looked in the mirror. A lovely and confident woman stared back, at least for a moment, then faded to a trembling waif. She touched the pin and regained her composure, but within a few moments, it left her again. She shrugged off the coat, unclasped the snowflake, and grasped it in shaky hands.

  How would she ever make it through her date tonight? Would Mr. Bonner think she was pretty? She wondered what to wear and entered her closet: a hollow cave filled with unworn sequined cocktail dresses and beaded chiffon gowns. She fingered each one. None of them seemed to fit the occasion.

  She drifted to her dresser. On top rested seven identical turquoise leather jewelry boxes. She opened the first, placed the snowflake inside on black satin, and gazed at it. She felt nothing and quickly opened all the other boxes. One by one, she picked up each sparkling treasure—earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and brooches—and held each for a few seconds. The magic lasted only that long. Tenderly she closed the boxes and straightened them in a row, safe now.

  She’d skipped lunch and knew Ella would fix her a sandwich if she asked but she couldn’t stomach food right now. Her body ached from exhaustion. She curled up to take a nap but wasn’t able to sleep so she knitted until she finally yawned, put away her needles and nodded off.

  Awhile later Ella knocked on the door. “He’ll be here in an hour.”

  To calm her nerves, Sylvia ran a bubble bath, stepped into the tub with the Vogue, and studied all the new jewelry and clothes she wished to buy. She dried off and wrapped a towel around her body. Checking the clock and in a panic, she entered the closet again, closed her eyes, and randomly picked a sapphire blue dress. She put it on. The sequins itched her skin, but she didn’t have time to change. With her hair brushed and makeup on, she took the snowflake brooch from the box and returned it to the coat’s collar just as the doorbell chimed below. She gasped for air.

  Ella knocked and entered the bedroom. “He’s here.” She appraised Sylvia’s choice. “You look charming, dear.”

  Sylvia glanced at her image in the mirror. Would Mr. Bonner think so?

  “It’s time.” Ella smiled.

  Sylvia couldn’t breathe, shook her head, and sat on the bed.

  “I’m sure you’ll have a good time.” Ella walked over to her, hand outstretched. Sylvia swallowed, composed herself, and took it. Ella led her to the top of the stairs, placed Sylvia’s fingers on the newel, and let go. “You can do it,” Ella whispered in her ear.

  Sylvia grasped the rail as she descended the stairs. At the landing, she stopped and peeked over the banister. Mr. Bonner, hat in hand, waited for her in the foyer. From the back, he looked nice enough—short brown hair and a sports jacket. But what if he wasn’t? Her heartbeat was so loud she thought he might hear it. She turned and ran up the stairs, past Ella and back into the bedroom again.

  3

  Where are the Jag keys?” Anne scanned the rack. “He called down ten minutes ago!”

  “Not Mr. Duchamp. Let me look.” Howard ran his hands along the keys and shook his head. “They’re not here.”

  Anne stuck a hand in her coat pocket and pulled out the key. “Thank God. Found them. Slipped them in here before I got that smarmy guy’s Corvette.” She read the key-ring tag and sagged her shoulders. “Up north?”

  “The lot filled up fast from the convention.” Howard held out his hand. “I’ll get it. You’ve taken enough for today; you don’t need Duchamp.”

  “No, it’s my turn.” Anne ran out into the fog and straight up the hill past the Sears Café. In the next block up, she found the car, jumped inside, and tried to nudge away from the curb into the thick of rush hour traffic. A delivery truck blocked her way though—cones placed behind it with flashers blinking. Anne swerved around the truck and heard a crunch but kept going. In the rearview mirror, she watched as the demolished cone dropped from underneath the Jag and a burly man chased her down the hill. She made it across Post as the light changed from yellow to red and pulled up to the hotel, where Mr. Duchamp waited.

  “About time,” He growled, got in and threw a dollar bill on the ground. “If you want it, pick it up.”

  Anne looked at Duchamp, who offered a cocky smile and a wave. She wanted to yell, Get it yourself, but with tears in her eyes, she stooped over and picked it up.

  Howard put his hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you take the rest of the night off?”

  “That’s okay. We’re too busy.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dried her eyes.

  Anne reached home at 1:00 AM and counted her tips, only now about half of what she needed to pay the rent. She checked her cell, and there was one message from her mom. “Are you using that new moisturizer I sent you? The California sun will wrinkle your face like a raisin.” Anne thought about taking off her uniform but instead fell right to sleep.

  In the morning, Anne grabbed the only thing left in the kitchen cupboard, a Chips Ahoy! bag, ate the few crumbs left in the bottom, wadded it up, then threw it on the linoleum floor. Out of coffee, she found an opened can of Diet Coke in the fridge and took a sip. It was flat, but she drank it anyway in hopes it had some caffeine left.

  She couldn’t continue to live like this. What if she got evicted? Maybe Karl would lend her some money or let her stay with him for a while. After all, they’d been seeing each other for almost a year. And the sex was great. He hadn’t ever told her he loved her, but she was pretty sure he did. At twenty-eight, she should start being serious about settling down.

/>   She splashed water on her face in the bathroom. Oh my God, was that a wrinkle around her left eye? Maybe her mother was right. Anne pointed at her image in the mirror. “Okay! I’m giving you six more months. If you’re not making ends meet by then, you have to move home.”

  From a chair, she picked up her coat, pulled the old brass key from the pocket, and set it on her wealth and prosperity altar for good luck. Anne rubbed the Buddha’s belly, looped rosary beads around its neck, bowed to the Shiva statue, and lit a gardenia votive candle. Its scent wafted throughout the small space.

  She had the morning free and knew she should really spend it working but didn’t feel much like it. Back on the unmade bed, she picked up a vintage Life magazine with Grace Kelly on the cover and began to skim through the black-and-white photos. The ads for slide projectors, encyclopedias, and cars bored her. But Anne especially liked the women’s advertisements: Maidenform bras, Ponds Angel Skin, and Clairol hair products. Maybe she’d do a series on those sometime.

  She perused page after page until a photo of another blonde beauty caught her eye. Anne paused and stared at the picture. The woman had on a swing coat similar to the one Anne had bought yesterday at the thrift shop. She leaned in closer and peered at something on its collar. Could it be a snowflake pin? It sure looked like it. That would be quite a coincidence.

  Next to the woman, a pencil-mustached man held her elbow in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He had a smirk on his face. The pair stood behind a long white Cadillac. This picture might make an amazing photo transfer.

  Anne carried the magazine over to her used-but-still-working computer equipment and scanned the photo. Then she flipped the copy upside down on the paper and taped the corners down to make sure they wouldn’t move. Her heart zoomed. Starting a new piece always gave her a rush. She held her breath. With a clear marker, she rubbed hard back and forth diagonally over the copy. Transparent liquid seeped dark ink through on fresh paper underneath. Sometimes this process worked, and other times it didn’t. With caution, she pulled tape from a corner and peeked.

  “Yay!” The woman’s head was clearly visible. Anne lifted the entire copy to reveal the couple’s eerie gray image. Cadillac fins stuck out fiercely like treacherous sharks’. The transfer looked fabulous, spooky and romantic all at the same time.

  To let it dry, she tacked it to the wall across from the daybed. Then she relaxed back on a pillow and studied her work. The picture had a lot to tell. The woman’s tight-lipped smile seemed false. Was it a mask covering fear? You could see it in her eyes. They stared straight ahead and maybe blinked at a camera flash that had caught her by surprise. The man’s smug expression included one raised eyebrow. He seemed to be squeezing her arm.

  Anne returned to the Life magazine and read the caption below the photo:

  SYLVIA VAN DAM and fiancé, Ricardo Lorenzo Lopez, leaving their engagement party at the St. Francis.

  Right here in San Francisco! This woman lived right here, and the coat, pin, and key could really have been hers. Anne looked at the transfer again. Maybe Sylvia had been afraid of her fiancé, with his smoothed-back hair and that menacing sneer. The pair appeared to be opposites, light and dark, sun and moon. Her pale face looked frozen as if she had seen a poltergeist.

  Anne’s imagination ran wild. She Googled Sylvia Van Dam. Several items from the Netherlands popped up in Dutch gobbledygook. To narrow it down, Anne typed in San Francisco, and some interesting biographical information appeared. There had been a Van Dam Shipping Company in the late 1930s. A Sylvia Van Dam born in San Francisco in 1942 had lost her parents in a 1955 plane crash. How sad. She would have been just a teen. Anne looked up at the photo transfer. How would Sylvia have gotten along without them? Anne had lost her own father at a young age, but at least she had her mother. The article went on to say that Sylvia’s named guardians, Preston and Pauline Palmer, also perished in the accident. Their son Paul Palmer, twenty-four, who had recently joined his father’s law firm, became responsible for her.

  Anne clicked on an article about a dance at the San Francisco Yacht Club, skimmed the item, and found in the last paragraph a reference to the woman:

  In attendance at the Valentine’s dance were club members Jay Allen, Patricia Swanson, and Carolyn Grant. Escorted by Paul Palmer, Esquire, a stunning Sylvia Van Dam wore pink chiffon. Ricardo Lorenzo Lopez, recently from Acapulco, was a standout on the dance floor.

  Anne checked the Life magazine’s date: April 10, 1963—two months after that dance. Ricardo Lopez wasn’t Sylvia’s date that night, but he had been there. Maybe that was when she met him. But how could they have been engaged so quickly? Anne looked at the coat tossed over a chair and studied the snowflake pin.

  This was all too surreal and serendipitous. Could Sylvia Van Dam really have owned this coat? These thoughts were crazy. She sat on the daybed and tried to peruse the magazines again. But her mind wouldn’t cooperate. She glanced back at the photo transfer and felt goose bumps rise on her arms. Sylvia Van Dam and Ricardo Lorenzo Lopez stared back at her.

  4

  Sylvia smelled the gardenia corsage on her wrist and laid her hand on Paul’s shoulder. How sweet of him to remember her favorite blossom. She felt the heat from the bright spotlight bounce off her shoulders as they danced to a crooner singing “Night and Day.” Pink and red paper hearts hung over the dance floor, which was packed with club members in formal attire.

  A brunette and her date glided near them. The buxom woman’s low-cut crimson gown accentuated her cleavage. Sylvia almost wore her own red dress but changed at the last minute, too afraid people might stare. The lace blush-rose piece she chose concealed all.

  The song ended and the crowd applauded as the band left to take a break. Paul escorted her to their table, where martinis waited. She took a sip and pursed her lips together to keep her pink lipstick from fading. Then she glanced at Paul. His sky blue eyes stared at her.

  “What?” she asked, while pushing a loose bobby pin into her blonde swirl. She had put her hair up into a French twist, thinking it made her look more adult.

  Paul put his hand over hers, then quickly pulled it back. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

  She squinted. “Did Ella put you up to it?”

  “No, it was my idea.” He leaned back in his chair, debonair in a crew cut and white tux.

  “Are you certain?”

  “I’m not just your guardian. I’m your friend too.”

  “Oh?” It had been a long time since she’d thought of him that way. They used to be such great pals. Now though, he didn’t visit very often, but he continued to keep track of the trust fund. That was his job, but she felt certain he really did care about her.

  She thought back to the first Thanksgiving she could remember: she was six years old, and the Palmer’s were over for dinner. Ella had started to serve the pumpkin pie.

  Paul sat across the table from her. A big teenager, ten years older—she pretended he was her brother. It would be fun to have one. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters either. Paul gently kicked her under the table. She tried to kick back but couldn’t reach and slid down on her chair, almost falling to the floor.

  Her mother snapped, “Sylvia! Sit up straight or no dessert.” She thought her mama was the most beautiful woman in the whole world, with blonde hair piled high on her head and neck sparkling with jewels.

  Sylvia pulled herself back up into the chair, and Paul winked.

  Her mother grit her teeth. “Get your elbows off the table.” Sylvia folded her hands. She wanted to please her mama. Plus she didn’t want to miss out on Ella’s yummy pie.

  Paul’s father, Mr. Palmer, The Van Dam Shipping Company’s attorney, looked over. Her father frowned at her with caterpillar eyebrows. Then the two men returned to talking about boring business stuff.

  Her mother and Mrs. Pauline Palmer, dear friends from the club, returned to their gossip about the other members. After they had eaten the pie, Paul tilted his head toward the ope
n door with a smile.

  “Mama, can we be excused?” Sylvia asked.

  “May we?”

  “Mother, may we please be excused?” She smiled sweetly.

  “Yes, dear.”

  The youngsters ran to the library and sorted through the games in a low cupboard below the bookshelves. “Chess or Scrabble?” Paul held up the games.

  “I don’t know how to play those.”

  “I’ll teach you.” He put the Scrabble box on the hassock and set up the board. “Shake the tiles in this little bag.” They started to play, and he helped her spell words. Her favorites that night were “sweet” and “heart.”

  Over the years, they played Scrabble many times. When she wasn’t certain of a word, he’d show her how to look it up in the dictionary. He came up with the most ridiculously long words, so she never understood how she always seemed to beat him. Now, as she looked at him across the table, it dawned on her that all those times, he had probably let her win. Her heart tugged with sadness. Suddenly this past year, he had become so serious. Was it from the strain of his responsibility for her?

  “Any shopping trips lately?” he asked.

  She fondled her beaded clutch, shook her head, and lied, “No.” If she told him about the snowflake pin, it would spoil the evening. She would suffer the consequences later when he saw the bill. Hopefully he wouldn’t get too mad at her.

  “Good for you.” He nodded and drank some of his martini.

  She smiled as her stomach tightened with guilt.

  At the next table, Patricia Swanson, a plump dowager, wore amethyst teardrop earrings on flabby lobes. Sylvia resisted the urge to lean over and touch the jewels that sparkled in the light. Instead she touched her own pearls then sipped her drink.

  The crowd across the room laughed as a tall man, the center of attention, moved his arms overhead as he spoke. They were too far away and she couldn’t hear a word, but a glow emanated from him, an electric heat she could almost feel, even from a distance. From the goo-goo eyes and open mouths of the women in tight dresses encircling him, Sylvia could tell they felt it too. Ella would call those girls “floozies.” The man looked over at their table and waved at Paul.