muse

Imagine a coat. Imagine the pocket of the coat. Imagine what’s in that pocket.

*****

Joanne was entranced from the very first time she saw the trunk. It was sitting in her mother’s house, oddly out of place in the modern living room. It was a heavy vintage steamer trunk, black and cracked at the edges with age, the kind that whispered of the exotic places depicted in old pulp novels or Indiana Jones movies.

Joanna’s mother had just received the trunk from her great uncle, and it was full of her great aunt’s old things. Jo had always admired her Aunt Vivian — she was truly of a dying breed. Glamorous, into charity teas, a die-hard DAR member. When Jo was thirteen, her great aunt had taught her the art of the cucumber tea sandiwch. It was a strange point of pride; I mean really, how many girls in tenth grade knew how to make cucumber tea sandwiches?

The trunk sat untouched in the corner of the living room for several months, taunting Jo with it’s alluring presence. Then, on a rainy Saturday afternoon in July, Jo’s mother had decided it was time to crack the trunk. And she asked Jo for a hand going through it. She only had to ask once.

They dragged the trunk to the center of the living room and cracked the lid. Jo’s nose was immediately burning with the smell of mothballs and age. Inside, they found carefully bagged and labeled clothes that Jo’s Aunt Vivian just couldn’t quite bear to part with. They started pulling out the bags, examining the little index cards written in her careful, graceful handwriting.

“Worn on my first date with Edward Randolph.” Jo’s uncle. Wow.

“Worn to the christening of the U.S.S. Napa, 1944.” A sleek vintage suit in a discreet navy.

“Worn to the inaugural ball for Harry Truman, 1949.” This one was a fox-fur swing coat in gorgeous condition. Jo couldn’t resist … she slipped it out of its bag. The coat smelled faintly musty in that old fur kind of way. Jo slipped the coat over her shoulders and felt instantly glamorous. She slipped her hands in the satiny pockets … and there was something there! Jo grew wide-eyed as she pulled her hands out slowly. She looked down at the piece of cardstock, and was face-to-face with an inaugural invitation. WOW. The president and vice president were both pictured, one on either side, and in the center, the announcement and invitation. It was creased on one of teh corners and softened with time, but still amazing. Jo couldn’t help imagining what it would have been like.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 12:47 am and is filed under ARWA 301, Writings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.