My friend deals with vintage fabrics: silks, cottons, printed linens, boutis, and tapestries. She piles them in heaps in the back of her van. She goes wherever there is an antique market; Avignon, Béziers, Lyon or Montpellier, once there she lets her long blond hair down, straightens her Chanel and steps out in high heels. Not the usual attire for those who sale at the fair, but then she is not the usual attire type of woman!
Her home reflects her personality, cushions are covered in antique toile de Jouey, silks are framed as artwork, rock crystals sconces, her furniture is all 18th-century- except her blue Smeg frig. In her bedroom, roses have climbed up the outside wall slipping through the window that cannot longer shut: The roses are like wallpaper.
In her hallway there is a tapestry.
My Pretty Woman friend calls me. She says we must talk. Urgently! When I arrive she pulls me inside, as if life is close to death, telling me she has met a man. Her van had stalled in an intersection, he pulled up dashing in his sports car, “After he helped me… he asked me out. Of course I said yes, we are to go to dinner this evening… and I haven’t anything to wear.” I looked at her sideways, giving her a loud thought, “You have nothing to wear, you who wears Prada like I wear jeans;” She reinstated her need, “…nothing to wear and I MUST go to Christian Lacroix and pick up something smashing!”
I think to l myself, because she is already on the planet of “Hot-Date-Ville,” he hasn’t seen all your clothes, he only saw you in your van, what did you have on then: Your blond hair, mile long eyelashes and some one-two outfit, do you think he even remembers what you were wearing? Then it hits me like a champagne glass thrown at the mantle: my opinion is not what she is after.
“Corey,” in her charming English accent she teases, “You’ve often admired my tapestry?”
Stunned, I beg her not to sale her tapestry for a drive-by-date, “You’ll regret it! You’ll only wear the outfit once. Then it’ll pile up with your other fashion plates. Just go to your closet, close your eyes dig around and pull something out, I am sure it will work.” She is not convinced. Instead she slips the money for the tapestry into her Chanel bag.
I roll the tapestry and gently put it in the back seat of my car.
Several months later, my friend dines with us chez moi, at my house, with Mr. Sports car. He looks around admiring, he likes tongue-in-cheek-antiques, points to the tapestry and asks, “Corey, I love your tapestry. Don’t you honey? Where did you find it?” I look at him him and laugh, “You won’t believe this, it found me, the day you found Honey at an intersection…”
Note: This is a re post as I continue my Bed & Breakfast.
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