“Owl and Sky Afloat” Photo by Guy Biederman
– 200 pairs of Ferragamo shoes
– 60 Joan and David purses
– 40 Chanel jackets
– hats (baseball!) too many to count
– racks and racks of dresses size 0
– carton of Pall Malls in a shoe box, one pack missing
I wear the same size shoes as Ellen who lived next door, so her husband Walter invites me over to take whatever clothing I want. It’s strange going through Ellen’s closet and drawers, she was my mom’s age, and I decide on one purse and two pairs of boots.
Walter is watching a bowl game and intercepts me at the top of the stairs holding a small canister, asking if I wear perfume.
I don’t because of asthma and because I’m an X-Ray tech and the hospital frowns on perfume, but he sprays my arm before I can say no. Stunned, I’m enveloped by a lingering fragrance whose name escapes me, maybe Shalimar(?) something my mother wore, the air thick with memory, with presence, with sweet scents of dressed up days when this so gone moment was far away, inevitable, unimaginable.
I start coughing and move for the door holding boots and a purse not mine, headed for fresh air and daylight, leaving Walter by the stairs, inhaling deeply, his eyes closed.
Guy Biederman divides his time between a houseboat, an adobe casa caretaking cats, a cabin, and the road in between. He favors strong coffee, scotch on the docks, and the desert’s wabi sabi beauty. It’s all true, especially the fiction.
