Recent Entries

Entry tags:

frances

Frances

It was a Friday night, and Dresden, Jude, Gertrude, Johnny, and Frances were all hanging out after work. It was a balmy summer night, and the sky was only half-dark, so that the lights of the city shone when they crested a hill on the highway.

They were all piled into Frances's large, comfortable dark blue Oldsmobile, with Frances primly at the driver's seat. Gertrude was next to her on the passenger's side, while Dresden was in the backseat middle between Jude and Johnny. Dresden was wearing a plaid skirt and white tee with long white stockings that showed plenty of thigh. Her huge black boots seemed to take up most of the floor room.

Frances was the only one still wearing her work clothes, and she felt painfully boring next to the other girls. She wore black trousers and a dark gray cable-knit sweater, very finely woven of wool with a high scoop neck and long sleeves. She was always very drawn to the color dark gray and still had no idea how to wear colors. Her long medium-brown hair with a slight wave to it had an almost blond glint against the darkness of her outfit.

Their plan was to eat, walk around the Asian shopping plaza, and purchase some items from the pop culture store or grocery store.

In the rearview mirror, Frances's eyes were continually drawn toward Johnny, whose blue, black-rimmed eyes stood out starkly against his white-blond hair and generous lips. He was wearing a muscle shirt and baggy jeans, and she could clearly see his slim but well-built upper body.

She hated that she was dressed so plainly, with nothing to help her out in the restroom at the restaurant except some medium-pink lipstick and her hairbrush from her purse. Dresden saw her trying to make herself up in the restroom and smirked. Frances's eyes skated down to Dresden's yellow-lacquered nails. How on earth did she even do it? Frances could never pull off her stylish look, and even a small change she tried to make, like a bolder lipstick or nail polish, tended to get stared-at at work in a funny way.

Dresden worked at a vinyl record store but as a floral vampire did not have the same financial needs the others did. Johnny was also immortal, which showed in his more alternative clothing choices and attitude, since he too did not put in 40 hours per week at a repressive workplace.

Frances was only 22, but she could already feel her manufacturing job changing her. She yearned sometimes to live a secret life like wearing gothic lolita but already felt too old. She was just in work mode all the time.

As she ate her favorite massamun curry, she stole glances at Johnny across the table and wondered what he would do if she nudged his foot with hers. He seemed completely oblivious to her, laughing wildly at Jude and Dresden so that his chain-decorated choker flashed as he threw his head back.

Entry tags:

peacock blue - aubrey and blanchefleur

Aubrey wanted to get some air after a while, but he did his duty and made sure Josette was comfortable first. She no longer seemed to want his company and had lapsed into a reverie. She had, by degrees, inched closer to the heart of the salon, where Faerys reigned in her peacock-blue gown, seemingly interested by something Faerys was saying about the lost world of Atlantis. From the look on her face, Aubrey guessed she had gone far inward and temporarily forgotten about the presence of Blanchefleur at the gathering.

Josette was not a vapid, sheltered young woman, but in her time with Josian, she had turned out a fair imitation of one. Her natural personality was dreamy and wondering, which often put her into an aspect similar to the passivity desired in maidens. He guessed that it came naturally for her for her body to be present while her mind was elsewhere. Her life with her hard-bitten mother and later, earning wages, had not been easy, and a sensitive person would be likely to develop a complex inner world to shield them from the crudeness of their outer circumstances.

Josian enjoyed a cosmopolitan circle and would expose her to fascinating people, places, and ideas. Perhaps this would balance out his separating her from Bryony, eventually, and the rift between them would close.

The garden at night was pleasant. In late summer, the air was peaceful and refreshing. The night-blooming jasmine’s fragrance radiated in the darkness, suggesting the white flowers that remained unseen. The delicate splashing of a fountain was as effective at concealing private conversation as it was in complementing the night ambiance. Given Faery’s penchant for entertaining all night long, her gardens were undoubtedly designed to be viewed and enjoyed at night.

Aubrey ventured further into the darkness, away from the lights and music that flowed from the open windows and doors of the ballroom. Here, the landscape grew blurred and indistinct in the shadows, and the growing sparseness of beds indicated that he was leaving the garden proper and moving into the open park. The sounds of birds’ chirps and occasionally beating wings confirmed the impression. The moon shone full and bright overhead, but the heavy foliage of the trees concealed its silvery light from the park, so that only a few dim rays penetrated the plush green of the lawn.

“What are you doing?” An abrupt voice jarred Aubrey from his study of nature and he turned, finding on the opposite side of a silvered pool, a woman with pale, nearly white, hair in a white hooded cloak and pale blue gown. Her general appearance gave an impression of immense beauty, but the warmth of the impression was checked by the disappointed, almost cold, look that always lingered around her hollow eyes.

Aubrey’s gaze automatically went searchingly toward her eyes, because they always reminded him of the eyes of another. She and this other were alike in some ways, and when they spoke to him, it was always with an appeal, as though to the theologian, for some hopeful news of salvation.

When Aubrey experienced this kind of appeal, he felt an answering appeal in himself, never more than when he had met Louis’s blue eyes, which reminded him so much of Blanchefleur’s. He became aware then of a yearning in himself for dissipation.

“Miss Blanchefleur.” Aubrey’s voice was equally abrupt. It was his habit to conceal his fanciful and often wild thoughts with an attitude of severity, particularly when they were interrupted by someone else. If some of the thoughts were known, he might be taken to be completely insane, since he often eschewed the bounds of logic and rationality to consider the universe in more holistic terms. “The night is growing cold, and I don’t think your wrapper will be equal to it.”

From Blanchefleur’s position at the opposite side of the pool, Aubrey could not tell if she had come upon him in the dark, or if he had in fact come upon herself.

She lifted her shoulders in a clear denial, shrugging off his words. “It is my right to feel cold on a walk at night if I so wish, though your words are scarcely justified given that I am wearing a cloak. While I appreciate your considerate talk, Aubrey, since we find one another here, I wonder if we can speak more frankly.”

“That depends upon the subject.”

His response, as spontaneous as it was frank, pleased her, and her rouge-colored lips curved in a smile.

“You are a close friend of Josian’s, I know, and you have been dedicated to the service of one another for some time. Now, you are taking his newly-found sister around, this… Josette.”

Aubrey looked at her searchingly, wondering if it was possible if she could feel jealous toward Josette, as Josette felt toward her.

“Josette piques your curiosity?”

“Of course. There is something to her. A richness, a depth. Her beauty is considerable but not uncommon, especially given that she has been so recently retrieved and polished up. She would, of course, shine all the more, feeling the novelty of her circumstances.”

“I hope you will be as frank as you indicated you would like to be.”

“I wondered if there was an understanding between yourself and Josette.”

Aubrey was surprised by Blanchefleur’s question and had to consider it a moment. He would have thought that Blanchefleur’s keen and broad intelligence would prevent her from believing that which Josian hoped everyone at the salon might begin to suspect, that Aubrey and Josette possessed a special enjoyment of one another’s company. He was certain Blanchefleur must be aware of his love for Louis and all sorts of things about himself he had never revealed, always hoped to conceal, that society had managed to fish out and discuss at salons like these beyond his earshot.

Entry tags:

aubrey,
josette

Josette and Aubrey - Peacock Blue

The salon was bright and airy, light furnishings accentuated with gold, gauzy draperies parting with the breeze to reveal manicured green gardens.

Faerys was a charming woman. It was evident at first glance. Her peacock blue gown was in the best of taste, adorned at each shoulder with golden accents that gave her a Grecian appearance. The effect was heightened in how her golden brown hair was piled high in a loose arrangement and confined with golden clasps.

“I don’t know what to expect regarding today’s salon,” Josette murmured behind her fan to Aubrey.

“I suppose you could chalk it up to Josian’s love for learning, though it doesn’t quite add up.” Aubrey darted a glance toward Josian’s self-important stance.

“Do you think…” Josette’s voice faltered. “…that Josian meant to present us as a couple? To protect my reputation from further gossip?”

Aubrey’s pale golden eyes swept the room, picking out acquaintances. “In truth, my dear Josette… they would not be fooled. They know me too well.”

Her brows lifted as she regarded him searchingly.

A thought seemed to occur to Aubrey that distressed him. “I think not only the fascinating Faerys herself is the focal point here, but also one of her own acquaintance. Josian’s willful arrangement of this gathering for us is beyond a doubt… But not because he would go so far with such a weak lie as that.” He nodded toward Faerys and a woman on her right, with moon-pale hair.

Josette blanched almost immediately. She didn’t need to be told who that was. Aubrey could hear the pain of her breath and wanted to reach out to her. She didn’t deserve to hurt this way.

“I had hoped never to lay eyes on her.”

“Best just avoid her. If she takes an interest in you, it will be hard to disentangle yourself from her invitations.”

“An interest? Doesn’t she know who I am?” No, Josette thought, of course she wouldn’t, and if she did… why… It would scarcely hurt Blanchefleur… not as much as it would hurt Josette for the women of society to know her sordid history.

Aubrey looked like he wanted to speak. He opened his mouth to do so, then closed it, then tried again. “How much… do you know of Blanchefleur?”

“The only and most important thing there is to know.”

“Interesting.” Aubrey gave Josette a searching look. “You are really just like your brother in so many ways, do you know that?”

Josette looked pained. “I am not cruel like he is.”

“Cruelty is complicated and multifaceted. Not cruel in itself per se, but a quality that could easily partner with others to result in cruelty. That is, you don’t know anything you aren’t bothered to know about others. You don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly pertain to you, and the things that do… You’re fixated on them. For instance, you see and think of Blanchefleur, but all you can see in her is Bryony’s fiancée, correct?”

Josette let out a breath impatiently. “I’m tired of your riddles. What else should I see? Her humanity? I’m sure she has some good qualities. She’s beautiful. I noticed that one immediately. I’m sure she’s intelligent, if she’s in Faerys’s salon, moreover one of her most intimate friends. What else is there to know? You think I’m liable to hate her by default because she’s betrothed to Bryony? Perhaps she doesn’t even want to be. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. It’s a pain you seem to little understand or care for.”

Aubrey’s mouth tightened, so slightly that the deep offense Josette had caused was scarcely perceptible. “You would be surprised at the complicated circumstances that give me pain. Who I could hate, but care for anyway. Who I could resent.” Then, as though to himself, “Why am I here, anyway? Playing the good brother, when your own flesh and blood is so nearby?”

“Don’t… Don’t go, Aubrey. Please. I can’t bear to have to sit with Josian. He and I aren’t really even speaking. It would be so awkward if you left. I don’t know what I’ve done to offend you. I know I’m ignorant and selfish. But to be fair, you’re speaking in riddles, and you have been ever since I’ve known you. Now, I know one thing, and that is that you don’t care for women. You like men instead. I’ve got that. I’ve even managed to intuit that you keep worldly enough company that no one around you really cares, either. I suppose you mean that Josian doesn’t know or care about your preferences because it doesn’t benefit him to do so. Really, then, why keep such a selfish friend who can’t be bothered to care?”

Aubrey shrugged. “Well, no one is perfect. Josian doesn’t think of relationships in terms of preferences. Thinking about the kind of partner one prefers is utterly foreign. Marriage is about something entirely different to him. Love, for him, doesn’t even exist. Honestly? Why should I try to make him understand? It isn’t something that affects my friendship with him one way or the other.”

“Right. But you look at me with such resentment at times. That there’s something about Blanchefleur I should care about other than that she’s betrothed to Bryony… What should I care to know? Moreover, how can I begin to understand your resentment of me if you don’t explain yourself?”

“You’re asking for honesty, plainly enough. I can see you’ll be content with nothing less. You’ve backed me into a corner, so I’ll have to be honest. I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you. You have your deep, dark love. Well, I have mine, too. You can learn a lot through observation. You’ll learn about Blanchefleur. You’ll learn about me. Honestly, if you had a crumb of perception to the degree of a woman like Faerys, you’d have had me figured out ages ago.”

Josette thought quietly for a while. “I suppose I did know. I’m sorry. I just brushed it aside because it wasn’t important to my problems. But… Louis, I suppose, is the person you love.” She gave Aubrey a pained look. “Ah… you may think we’re so different, but we both fell hopelessly for scoundrels that don’t deserve us, isn’t that right?”

“I see it differently. We both fell hopelessly for people that we will never, ever, ever be able to be with.”

Entry tags:

eleanora

Eleanora - Valentine's Day

With my husband, I was in a large warehouse that had been converted to a coffee shop and other establishments. It was Valentine’s Day, and we had just spent the afternoon at the museum. Now, we were waiting for coffee in this vacuous space in one of the sparse clusters of plushy furnishings for intimate groupings. A large and well-outfitted bar lined one wall, but it was closed for the daytime.

Afternoons like this reminded me of when we were in our 20s. In my memory, I recall our 20s as being full of museum outings and stylish dining experiences, which I know was probably not so. Yet, those experiences were more frequent then than now, almost 20 years later, and it was in the midst of these experiences, then and now, that I felt like a well-cared-for princess, beautiful, stylish. Female servers used to be really rude to me and try to get attention from my husband, which upset me, but in my forties, I looked back and saw that they had behaved that way because I was, in fact, the object of envy, the princess, that I felt myself to be. I was beautiful with shoulder-length dark hair and bangs that framed my pale face and hazel eyes, making me look like a china doll. I had been told more times than I could count that I looked just like Anne Hathaway, and even had a couple of weird experiences in which teenagers truly thought I was Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway, I will think to myself now with a wistful smile, is in her forties, too. I never hear her name mentioned at all anymore.

The fact is, in the past couple of years, I had begun to feel invisible. My fortieth birthday fell during the deadliest and most locked-down part of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. I had had girlish plans that recalled my more fanciful days: I had asked my husband for a long, white Gunne Sax dress, and I wanted to wear it for afternoon tea at one of the local antique mall tea rooms, because I had never had afternoon tea, with the courses, before. Of course, these plans were laid before we had ever heard of COVID-19. Instead, on my fortieth birthday, I was in my room alone and took a selfie of myself wearing the long, white Gunne Sax dress. With my long, flowing dark hair, I looked like a beautiful maiden. That is the very last selfie I’ve taken to this day that doesn’t give me disappointment or shame to see.

Somehow, during that year and a half of isolation, I lost myself. I wore shapeless house dresses and worked from home. I didn’t know what to make of my aging face or physical symptoms that came on me sometimes, like headaches, heart palpitations, sleeplessness, and real panic attacks, like I had always heard about.

Slowly, the world reawakened, and I stole back into it, never sure if I was doing the right thing for myself or others in doing so.

It was a different world: colder, impersonal. A world of Door Dashers. A world of Trump supporters. I had no idea how to act in the world any longer. I didn’t know if I should smile or say hello, or assume that the stranger I interacted with would be rude and so preemptively shut off to them. I usually got it wrong and got my soft “hello” or “how are you” ignored, only to hear the person served after me greeted in a friendly way, or be preemptively cold to someone who was prepared to wish me well that day.

I felt ugly all of the time. My hair had grown out, and my home box dye attempt had damaged my hair, so that it lightened every time I washed it, with the section above my roots a bright orange. I had no idea what clothing I should wear. I realized that over the years, I had become less and less in touch with style and fashion. It may be for this reason that I felt the fashions that were in vogue were unbearably ugly, high-waisted highwater jeans that made a mockery of the body I was struggling to keep in shape, and ruffled lolita-like tops that bared the midriff, not even to be thought of. The wardrobe I maintained was very plain and mostly featured the color gray. I was almost always in a shapeless gray dress or sweater of some kind.

In light of this history, Valentine’s Day, on which I was wearing a nice outfit, a little on the plain side, but still all right, and having learned to dye my hair dark with indigo so that it was no longer bleached out following the bad chemical dye experience, I was looking and feeling all right, comparatively. I felt indulged and loved in this space with my husband where we spoke about random things on our minds. I sipped my Mexican mocha latte drink, savoring the snap of cayenne and cinnamon against my throat, washed and soothed by the milky softness and sweetness of chocolate. It was a memory even sweeter than those in our 20s. Maybe the young girls at the coffee shops were just nicer than they used to be, or maybe we really were just too old to be an object for their aims, but I could sit back against the plush armchair in the urban coffee shop without feeling worried or hurt about anything.

It was in this space that I told my husband about one of the most beautiful works of art that I had ever seen. A doll from a Korean online doll shop, in white ceremonial robes with a scroll in his hands. His sweet, baleful expression complemented the solemnity and spirituality of his look. I showed my husband pictures of the doll from my phone. He agreed with me and saw all of the points that I described about the doll’s beauty and majesty. He gave me a mysterious smile, and I hastily assured him I would never want such an expensive doll and, guilty, would not tell him any more about the doll.

So that was how Aubrey came into my life.

Entry tags:

fanchon

Fanchon

It was a hot July afternoon in Jewett.

The lawn in front of the yellow house with white gingerbread trim was plush and green. Humidity rose from the grass in waves as remaining moisture from the morning’s watering evaporated. An oscillating sprinkler attached to a green hose gleamed from the center of the lawn.

The house and lawn had been very well-kept for the home’s century of existence without an interval of neglect.

The mistress of the house was diligent each year in digging up her tulip and daffodil bulbs after their season, carefully waiting until the plant had absorbed enough nutrients after the flowers had faded before digging them up and storing them in a well-kept potting shed that was cool even in summer due to its location beneath an enormous oak. In the fall, she replanted the bulbs in properly-prepared soil, so that they were always lush, colorful, and blooming in neat rows at Easter time each year.

She was a neat and focused woman in late middle age with short, well-kept hair. When doing chores, she wore an apron that covered her front and back and was a few decades old.

Her home was decorated in a country style, with country rabbits and cows she had sewed and assembled herself in the foyer and living room seated on miniature furniture she had painted, simple benches or old-fashioned school desks.

The house’s interior was always dark and cool. The house did not have central air conditioning. The coolness was due to window units in each room and her diligence in keeping the curtains drawn.

She always had a stash of coffee, Folger’s, and tea, Lipton, with a small ceramic holder on the kitchen table filled with pink Sweet-N-Low packets, and she was ready at a moment’s notice to make coffee or tea for visitors. Her mugs, purchased in the 1970s, were thick and brown. They were perfectly clean, and she had a full set of them because she had never broken one.

The only thing on the property that was disordered were the cardboard boxes. “Well,” her firm, frank voice reverberated across the plush lawn. “I’m selling these for my sister. I don’t know where she got some of these things. She doesn’t remember either. I didn’t have time to have the yard sale last fall. I can’t believe these things have been gathering dust for eight months, and here we are in a new year.”

I could see her serving a glass of Lipton tea, iced and sweetened, to a shopper, in a thick, citrine-colored glass textured with a pattern of bumps. Three matching glasses and a pitcher with large, thick ice cubes from an ice cube tray were positioned in a plastic tray on a card table covered with a faded floral vinyl tablecloth. Next to the tray was an adding machine with an electric cord that trailed back toward the porch and a carbon copy receipt pad.

“I would like to take a look at them, if that’s all right.” I heard the most dulcet voice I had ever heard before. I nearly felt gooseflesh on my arms. The entire world held its breath as she came into my view.

At first, I had a general impression of ivory lace, peach ruffles, and long, lank brown hair hanging to a ribbon-belted waist, partially obscuring a wan, oval face.

“Oh, my dear,” I heard the homeowner saying. “I used to wear my hair just like that when I was young.”

“I like it this way best. I’ve always worn it this way, since I was a child.”

“I guess you must just get it trimmed a couple times a year.”

“That’s right.”

In the bend of the young woman’s slim, pale arm was a straw rectangular basket purse decorated with pastel papier-mâché flowers and leaves. Small peach puffed sleeves decorated with slim ivory ribbons covered her upper arms.

Her face was calm, nearly expressionless. She had slim, medium-brown brows, neatly groomed, and full lips that were decorated at this moment with what I would later learn was her favorite orange Tangee lipstick. She was slim and moved gracefully, with a trace of ghostliness in her manner.

She introduced herself to the homeowner as Fanchon.

My chest hurt deeply, as it was the first time it had been flooded with such intense emotion. My heartbeat thudded painfully as she came nearer. My face warmed as though it would become stained with a blush of embarrassment, excitement, or love, as she lifted me from the cardboard box where I lay against the colorful, matted faux fur of decades-old stuffed toys and examined me closely. Her slate eyes looked searchingly into my own sky-blue glass eyes, well over a century old, but as bright and clear as the day they were made. She stroked my limp blonde human hair wig, rumpled and a little patchy from the many decades spent waiting for this moment.

I looked into her eyes, reflecting all the love that had been unlocked from my heart at our first encounter.

Fanchon gave a low cry of dismay at the stained, oversized baby pants and top that concealed my slender body. She gently wrapped my body in a tangerine-colored silk scarf from her basket purse as though she understood my embarrassment. “My dearest one," she whispered, leaning my head close to her ear. “I’ve waited so long for you, too.”

In a flurry of pretty excitement, she went to the homeowner to pay. She paid $150, a fair price for an old ball-jointed doll at a yard sale in Jewett.