Theory XI

Delys had a collection of fur coats she took out each birthday and wore around the house in order of the year they were purchased.

The fox fur from her trip to New York in 1967. She and her best friend, Suzie Winowski, were single and in a mood to kick it up. Their hairsprayed candy-floss do's were as yet untouched by the ironed Berkeley style sweeping the cities (they were from a small town in northern Ontario) and someone (another friend?) had turned to take their picture. The photograph of the two of them striding down 5th Avenue, arms linked, smiles wicked, hung over the mantelpiece in the living room.

Her father gave it the evil eye every time he passed by. Why wasn’t the family portrait up there instead?

The full-length black Persian Lamb was a wedding present from her in-laws in 1974. For your glamorous side, they said, already counting the days when she would flee from their stolid son. But they hadn’t counted on the rewards of a life steadily climbing the accountancy ladder to a full partnership in a prestigious downtown firm....

...That paid for the luxurious mid-calf shearling in fawn with Bighorn sheep collar and sleeve trim, wood and leather barrel closures and a beaded knit cap a la Love Story. Very early-seventies, meant to capture the fading luster of a hippie generation that was fast passing her by. Being a mother and the wife of a junior executive, Delys had boomeranged past the pot-smoking era but wasn’t past looking the part in public.

You’re not wearing that to bridge with the Wilsons on Friday.

In the mid 80's her father had tried to mitigate the alarming trends in fashion by presenting his beautiful wife with a pelted ranch mink for Christmas in a swing style reminiscent of Doris Day in Pillow Talk. It shone and rippled in silky butterscotch waves across the new aluminum toboggan nestled under the tree. Both were adorned with red pom-pom bows.

Delys had accepted it with proper gratitude but worn it seldomly, preferring the next fur, one she’d found in at the Crippled Civilians resale store. This one was a sheared beaver jacket dyed burgundy with box pleats and big shoulder pads, which were back into style in the late 80’s when she found it wedged between a grey wool midi and a sad-looking men’s cashmere overcoat.

Sara cursed the appearance of the beaver jacket. Her mother had been obsessed with bargain clothing ever since she’d been fitting out two children on a slim household budget, but when she’d found the coat, whimpering for lack of attention but perked up by a good cleaning, her mother had never visited the inside of a regular clothing store again. There was nothing in her closet after her death but stained blouses and pilled pants.

She looked up from the phone and saw the beaver jacket. Somehow it had migrated from the basement to the hanger on the back porch door. Chip must have been by.

Her head hurt.
To Nate:
“I’m hanging up the phone, now.”
“I’m telling you the God-honest truth!”
He sounded desperate.
“Your mother…..”
The coat winked.
“Your mother, she loved shoes!”
Now triumphant.

Sara considered this.
It was true Delys had another obsession, for shoes. A particular style of shoe, rather. A pump with a two-inch squash heel and a gently rounded toe. She bought them in various colors and then dyed them other colors when the mood suited. Thirty-six pairs were still lined up along the bottom of her walk-in closet, from black to scarlet and every shade in between.

"Yes, sir, she loved shoes alright!"
“Why?”
“Beat's me.” Nate was calming down.
“No....I said, why did you know?" She got up and closed the door to the back porch. Tomorrow she would put the coat in the trash.

“It was ten years ago. She came to our house for a yard sale.”
“Sounds like her….” Sara was giving up. She slumped down next to the empty dinner plate.
“My parents……” He dwindled off for a moment. It seemed better to remember the yard sale than events that had followed….
“….they were out front and she came by. With the dog.
“Not Bertie.”
“No, another dog. Something with big ears and stubby legs.”
Their Bassett hound. Long gone now.
“She,” he continued, warming up to the subject, glad to be off that of his parents, “was very chatty.”
That would be Delys. Friendly.
“And she bought shoes.” Sara closed her eyes.
“Did she! My mom was a shoe nut too and they spent a good hour going through the box of cast-offs from the old lady’s closet.”
Suddenly the memory came to her.

“Six pairs!”
Delys burst through the front door with dog and sack tangling. The contents poured out onto the kitchen table a mess of worn, shabby pumps with the required squash heel and rounded toe. Sara backed away from them, the mixture of grease and dirty footpads and good leather waning. Their last legs, it seemed, were to be her mother’s.
“I’ll just dye them up and they’ll be as good as new!” She had that maniacal look in her eye. Like a rabid dog.
“Awwwww,” Sara caught herself.
Nate seemed not to notice.
“She told us about you!”
“And,” he added when met with silence, “..your brother.”
“But what…” She wanted to ask how it possibly could be that he’d remember this so many years ago and how he’d made the connection. She’d said nothing about her own life.

“It was the bike.”
“What?”
“You’ve forgotten.”
She hadn’t. It was just that it was crowded in with so many similar ones that it had disappeared into the minutiae.
“That bike was mine! I saw it the last time you were here and put two and two together.” He sounded so pleased.
“I hate you." It came out dull as dishwater. She had no energy left.

“Don’t you want to know why my mother sold that bike?”
“It wasn’t new….” She remembered how the it had been wheeled into the house after her mother had dumped her shoe booty on the table and gone out to fetch it.
“But how?” She should have known better than to ask this of her mother.
“I rode it home, silly!”
A picture, unbidden, came into view of Delys pedaling away in her boxy beaver jacket, bag of shoes, and the Bassett galloping along trying to keep up on his tether.

“Nate…..”
“It was fate.” He sounded grimly pleased.
“Nate….”
“You were listed….in the phone book.”
“Nate.”
“That bike was mine!” He shouted into the phone and hung up on her.
“That bike was old. And it was for shit.” She said to the wall. She’d said it once before, too. She’d meant it to be hurtful.

And Delys had laughed. The silvery sound was like magic, erasing everything. And nothing.