Thrift Store Finds
Breakthrough on the Bargain Tour
My niece is in town to see my sister-in-law Amy, her aunt. From Grand Central, she takes the train to New Haven and I pick her up. She turns down my lunch invitation in favor of hitting up a few thrift stores before going to Amy’s apartment. She owns a printing business, but her side gig is operating a booth with vintage clothes, accessories, and jewelry at a flea market in Brooklyn.
It is fascinating watching her shop for items to resell. She’s quick, surgically precise, with an eye for what is trendy. She chooses at least 30 silk scarves, several outrageous belts, some beaded and glitzy clutches, a bright red jumpsuit. We talk as she separates the must-haves from the never-minds.
There is what you talk about when your gaze is on something else. So many times we have been alone together and discussed nothing beyond the mundane. She has been through losing her mother to cancer as a young teen, which led to self-destructive recklessness, which led to a terrible car accident, which led to years of addiction. While her mother was dying, she was sexually abused by her stepfather. When she told us years later, some were shocked, others disbelieved, but collectively, we failed her. As she sifts through scarves, she tells me she only recently faced the mountain of anger she felt for her mother, a radiant spirit who made terrible choices. But then, she said, when you get to be a certain age, you realize that it’s on you to rebuild your life, to make the changes-like three years of sobriety- rather than lay the blame.
“I am so sorry I didn’t speak up for you back then,” I said. “I knew you were telling the truth.” A thirteen-year-old girl who has to drag her dresser in front of her bedroom door and sleep with a knife under her pillow is not making shit up.
“That’s okay,” she says.
It’s not okay, of course it isn’t, but she’s moved on to footwear. “Look at these!” she says, picking up a pair of half-leather, half suede boots. “Eight and a half. My size.”
She examines the scuff marks, smoothing them over with her fingers. She looks up at me and grins. “Definitely not flawless, but whatever. I still love them.”
The perfect metaphor. Fendi riding boots. Forgiveness. In between the jumbled castoffs, treasure. You really never know what you’ll find at a thrift store.