Mourning Crepe

Aunt Edith was a woman desperate to be loved, which led to affairs during her marriage and following her divorce, real and imagined. After decades of unhappiness, late in life, my aunt suddenly and mysteriously became happy, a happiness nearly impossible to conceive. Crankiness disappeared, drinking subsided, bitterness dissolved. She stopped concocting stories about rare and fatal diseases. She behaved civilly to everyone. A veritable childlike sweetness enveloped her existence.

On the other hand, my mother (her sister) continued to pester her doctors for poison pills. She rarely went out. She wore stockings with runs. She cut her own hair with cuticle scissors. Her YSL jackets were stained and her tennis shoes had holes.

The two sisters had not spoken in fifteen years, since an incident at my grandmother’s deathbed when mother jumped on Edith like a beast, requiring three nurses to pull them apart. Afterwards, a traumatized Edith was hospitalized for shingles, which prompted her son, Malcolm, to threaten to kill my mother if she didn’t leave his alone.

This sibling feud neither began nor ended with their mother or children. It started with a competition for their father’s affection and eventually moved on to mine. Growing up, it was noteworthy that my father’s attentions were often directed to my aunt who hung adoringly on every word.

During my parents’ boisterous arguments, mother accused daddy of “screwing” her sister. These frequent, verbal attacks, accompanied by crystal, cutlery, and shoes, induced him to flee our house and pass the night in my aunt’s guest room. No doubt, complaining of the madness at home.

Husbands of both sisters worked at my grandfather’s mill. If Edith bought a luxury car or fur coat, mother made public denouncements at club dinners and private parties that her sister was stealing the family fortune. For years, they kept tabs on each other’s purchases, vacation plans, house renovations, and charge accounts. Information gleaned from maids and sales clerks, willing to gossip for small tips.

Now in their seventies, it was reasonable they should reestablish a relationship. They were both alone with common memories of common dead friends, living in Atlanta on limited fixed incomes with identical laments about their long fall in the world.

During Aunt Edith’s few happy months, the sisters occasionally went to a movie or lunch. Rapprochement ended when Edith accused my mother of stealing a set of silver dessert spoons. She claimed her ex-husband of thirty years was spreading rumors about her former infidelities. She refused to get out of bed, waited to be fed, and generally deteriorated from paranoia to delirious juvenile behavior.

As soon as Edith was diagnosed with dementia, my mother’s own death wish faded away. Her new mission in life was to take good care of her sister. Although she bemoaned the waste of Edith’s mind (publicly), the real loss lay in the demise of their life-long rivalry.

The night before my aunt died, I dreamed I was in Atlanta at her bedside. “Aunt Edith,” I said stroking her hand.

No response.

“Aunt Edith, it’s Sue.”

No response.

“Aunt Edith, you loved me, remember?”

Instantly, she sprang to life. Her eyes unglazed and looking straight at me, she said, “I hated you.”

Even in my sleep, I had to laugh.

The next morning, I was called with confirmation of the news. Within a few hours, I had boarded an airplane and landed in the lushness of late spring in the South. Confetti blossoms of crepe myrtle dotted the avenues. Sunlight splayed the canopy over Aunt Edith’s grave.

In attendance were three generations of slim, good-looking brunettes, wearing fashionable black suits. Mother was the most stylish in a dark silk sheath, a triple strand of large pearls, her head wrapped in point d’esprit. She sat amicably beside her nephew Malcolm in front of Edith’s casket (despite their history of death threats and animosity).

After the interment, we meandered up the hill to the family plot bought by Morris Abelman for his daughters and their husbands. Sadly, Edith had to be buried elsewhere since the second wife of her deceased ex-husband (a blond convert from Mississippi and twenty-five years his junior) now had legal claim to the grave.

“Edith should have taken my space,” mother cackled, pointing to the empty slot beside my father. “She was always trying to throw him into bed. Here, they could have slept together for eternity.”

From the cemetery, we convened at mother’s large Peachtree Street apartment where for several hours, we passed around the family photo albums, laughing and weeping over the fate of the bloodline.

A week after Edith’s death, mother received a call from a stranger who had read the obituary in the newspaper.

The woman introduced herself as the daughter of Narcissus. Narcissus, long dead herself, had worked for my grandparents’ household from 1923 to 1939. “Miss Marguerite?”

Mother must have smiled with pleasure. She had not been addressed with subservience in years.

“My mother loved Miss Marguerite and Miss Edith like her own,” the daughter said.

Next to the phone rested a framed sepia portrait of the two young sisters in their organdy pinafores and barbershop bobs. They were lovely, pristine children with no clue of the desertion, suicide, and mental illness that would eventually dog them. On the contrary, they exuded the privilege of their birth and Narcissus’ careful grooming.

“But she could never decide which one she loved more.”

Psychic Shopper

Does the hook snare the fish? Or the fish swim up and grab the hook? Peter and I used to sit for hours with rod and bait, our legs dangling over the pier, sipping beer, waiting for something to happen. Most of the time, nothing did. But that didn’t matter. We were looking for an excuse to do nothing and preferred if it had a name. Fishing is the best apology ever invented.

If I have an hour, not long enough for a walk but enough time to lose myself, I visit the local discount department store. There’s no effort to make anything look attractive, and items are often one-of-a-kind. I prefer this ocean of discards and seconds to the tidiness of conventional retailers. Suspended in a meditative state, I scan the sad polyesterscape until I spot something lively, something made from natural fiber. I check the size (mine) and price (almost nothing): a DKNY linen skirt, a merino wool sweater, a pair of Italian leather sandals.

After trolling the clothes, I wander down aisles stuffed with towels, kitchen gadgets, and crockery. I pick up a few gifts: an oddball vase or a bib for a baby who hasn’t been born. Like fishing, absent-minded shopping requires no concentration. It carries no expectations. It’s an experience of detachment.

My cousin, Peggy, possesses rare telepathic instincts about clothing, confirmed by a holiday office party in 1999. The week before the occasion, she pictured exactly what she would wear (brown velveteen slacks and harlequin silk blouse). She drove to the discount department store. Voila! They were there, waiting as she imagined: her size, good quality, and affordable. She tested other items. On demand, a trench coat, summer loafers, and chiffon dress materialized. Dross to gold. Thought bubble to blazer.

Peggy consulted a friend with a small, successful home business. Together, they made a list of what she would need to launch Psychic Shopper.

The same day that Peggy posted her flyers on utility poles, she got her first call.

“Psychic Shopper!” We had already spent an hour practicing her inflection.

“The stain won’t come out!” a panicked woman cried. She had spilled coffee on the brocade suit she intended to wear to her son’s wedding.

Peggy was calm and reassuring, speaking in a tone that invited confidence. “I’ll need your age, weight, coloring, and height.”

As Jackie Germaine replied, the picture of a tall, heavyset woman emerged: dark skin, shoulder-length dyed red hair, fifty-two years old, size 16.

“I see it,” Peggy spoke from a trance. “Elegant but not dull, formal but not staid. I’ll get back to you before Tuesday.”

Three observations related to shopping:

• Size is rarely accurate (varies by manufacturer and style)

• Three is the maximum number the brain’s shopping hemisphere can process

• Comfort (emotional & physical) for women over 40 (unless they’re delusional) is the most persuasive factor

After they hung up, Peggy closed her eyes and let Jackie’s body drift around. “Blue,” she concluded. The following day, she brought home the possibilities: a navy, cotton lace suit, a turquoise sheath with a bolero jacket, and a rayon evening gown in divine Carolina blue.

When Jackie arrived, she overflowed with gratitude. She chose the evening gown and insisted that Psychic Shopper come to the reception.

“Gold,” Peggy recommended. “Gold shoes, gold purse, gold pin. You’ll look like King Tut’s mother.”

The next call was tough. Helen Wallace was a bitch who needed (yesterday) a casual Hawaiian wardrobe for a weekend conference.

“I don’t have time to shit,” Helen shared.

Hawaii? Alaska? Peggy wasn’t phased. At discount stores, the merchandise never coincided with seasons.

“Thirty-six, 5’6”, 122, 34B, 9N, high-waist, flat ass, light ash brown,” Helen said, “No bikini, I got stretch marks.”

It was not easy to bond with Helen’s cause. However, one’s best work is not always fueled by inspiration. By noon, Peggy had assembled two wrap-around skirts (white duck and red check), three sleeveless Ts, a high-cut Speedo tank, a rayon fish-print sundress, black patent slides, burgundy sarong, and a short silk nightie (in case she seduced a conferee).

Helen Wallace rifled through the clothes, rejected the nightgown, paid the fee, and left without a word of thanks.

Peggy’s phone rang steadily. Most of her customers were women at the end of their wits and schedules, but men called, too.

Additional observations related to shopping:

• Never trust a man to describe a woman accurately

• Men’s impressions are generally vague

• Men and women never agree on what’s attractive

• If men had their way, a woman would never cut her hair or wear loose pants

After six weeks, Peggy was running in the red. She would have continued to build the business if it hadn’t been for Millie Stern.

“I got a date Saturday night with Mr. Right,” Millie confided to Peggy. Already, that sounded wrong.

“Do you know where he’s taking you, Millie?”

“I’m taking him,” she roared. “I call him ‘last chance.’ I got two tickets for a cruise on the San Francisco Bay. They got music, champagne, they got everything. It’s my birthday.”

“Congratulations. Age and weight?”

“Ninety-one and ninety-one!” Millie laughed hysterically. “My grandchildren call me ‘the incredible shrinking Millie.’ My coloring ain’t good. I can’t describe it. Oatmeal, maybe. Before you see the color, you see the pores and moles. My hair ain’t good either. Almost all of it come out. But I got a real human hair chestnut wig. Now, I need a dress, something with zip.”

“I’m sure I can find something comfortable,” Peggy said.

“Forget comfort, I’m wearing mules. They kill me, but I can dance in anything. My legs still got something going.”

Peggy pictured it perfectly: size 2 – 4 (petite), milk chocolate silk or synthetic with three-quarter trumpet sleeves, hemmed at the knee, and a scoop neck. She even envisioned Millie Stern, dancing to a cruise trio that only played The Beatles. When the tempo picked up, Mr. Right wanted to sit down.

“Last dance, last chance!” Millie laughed gaily.

Like a hyena, Mr. Right thought.

At the end of the evening, the pleasure yacht chugged back to the pier. Along the Embarcadero, the Royal palms swayed in time to the music. The ship’s hull tapped the dock as Millie clutched her brown pleated bodice and sank to the deck. Mr. Right was not so agile. He couldn’t bend over, but he shouted effectively. It was no use. Millie Stern was dead.

Peggy called Millie back. “Maybe one of your daughters can help you,” she said.

“They dress like bags,” Millie complained.

“Something came up.” Peggy said firmly. There was no way she was shopping for a shroud.

All week, she checked the obituaries, but Millie Stern’s did not appear until the following Sunday. The Chronicle featured an article on the life and times of Mildred Gross Stern who died on a Bay cruise.

Miss Gross had been a member of the Isadorables, Isadora Duncan’s famous dance troupe. She settled in San Francisco during World War II and married art dealer, Stanley Stern. She is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren, and a French bulldog, Diagliev. Her original costume wardrobe will be donated to the Isadora Duncan archive.

One day, Millie’s grandchildren would recall her liveliness and remember she died dancing in her nineties. “On a blind date,” they would marvel.

That afternoon, Peggy removed the flyers from the telephone poles. She disconnected her number. She notified her regulars that she had lost her touch.