Participants:
| Scene Title | There's A Jacket |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | … in a window. |
| Date | August 31, 2009 |
There's a jacket.
It's not just a plain jacket that one would wear when it's cold, or to shelter you from the rain. It's one you wear when you're important enough to want to look good. To impress.
This particular jacket sits in the window of a local thrift shop on Staten Island. Nearly every day June walks by and stops, and for 10 minutes exactly, she looks at that jacket. It is probably ten years old, which could by why it is sitting in the thrift shop in the first place. But it's fancy enough that the owner of the store wanted to display it.
It may have, at one point, had a pair of slacks that went with it. It certainly belongs as part of a suit. The color of the jacket is a somewhere between beige and khaki.
Every day as June walks by and looks into the shop window at that jacket, the storekeeper watches her from the counter, where she would read a novel or a magazine. If June comes by around lunchtime, then perhaps the store owner is watching her afternoon soap operas.
On Sundays, when June walks by no one sees her since the store is closed for the Sabbath.
But June never misses a day to visit that jacket.
Today, however, the store owner saw June walk by and stop. She glanced up at the clock as she has for the past several weeks and could count the second before June would turn and walk away, but as that time approached, the store owner reached over and turned off her television. Standing, she comes from across the counter and walks to the door, the bell jingling as she opens the door and steps outside.
June's attention remains on the jacket as the woman stands there watching her. Dirty, is currently June's attire and yet the woman finally asks. "Do you want to try it on?" June's attention if finally tugged from the garment as she fixes her eyes on the woman speaking. "I would." she responds as if she never thought it was an option before.
The woman leads June into the store and she pulls the jacket from the window. "Turn around and look at the mirror," she says as she leads the way to the mounted mirror on the wall. She holds the jacket and June slips her arm into it and then the other and pulls the jacket all the way on.
As something tugs at June's memories, whatever it is about the jacket, it's not enough to bring it forward. It's like having a word at the tip of your tongue and yet, that word never comes.
"I should know you," she says aloud to the woman reflected back to her. "But I don't remember."
The woman frowns at the girl. "Do you want to buy this jacket? It's only forty dollars."
June knows exactly how much money she has in her pocket and it's far less than forty dollars. Yet, as she removes the jacket and hands it back to the woman, she has to disagree with her. "That jacket is worth far more than forty dollars."
The woman nods curiously at June as she takes the jacket and puts it back in the window. "I can hold it for a couple of weeks. If you want to come back when you have the money."
"Okay." says June before she turns and walks from the store, letting the bell jingle again as she opens the door. She turns and starts to leave, when she pauses in front of the window again, taking one last look at that jacket.
She knows that tomorrow she'll wake up, and come down here, because you see..
.. there's a jacket.