The Divorcee's Hat Emporium

Dust gathered on dust like fossil layers in the roadside hat store as a red pickup truck sent up more of the same outside. Melinda's heart rose then fell as she watched the Ford F-150 pass the skeletal remains of the old steel mill that loomed like arthritic dinosaurs over the land of the forgotten.

The store's hats were in their display cases, relics in glass tombs waiting to be exhumed. All the hats' pewter pins still shone, and each hat was a Harry's original, priceless beyond measure.

But the place hadn't seen so much as a single customer day after day.

The truck that did not contain a customer parked in front of the store's log cabin facade.

Melinda stared through the storefront's grimy windows while John Whiskers Booth on the counter stared at Melinda and tried to guess where she had hidden his Abraham Lincoln plush doll.

The cat's ears twitched when she reached for something, then he blinked slowly in disdain when he saw that it was only a hat and not his stuffed nemesis.

Melinda set the dark moss green hat on her head then pulled down the brim to give it an aggressive tilt. The hat's feathered pewter pin caught the late afternoon sun and reflected it back like a nuclear afterglow as the Ford F-150's driver exited his vehicle.

Harry was wearing a snakeskin cowboy hat, stunning with its cactus pin. But it was not a Harry's original, Melinda reminded herself. Due to some oversight in the divorce proceedings, those were all hers now.

Harry strode across the broken pavement. Damn, he looked good, had lost weight even, probably because Teresa was forcing him to eat vegan. Melinda hoped he was miserable and craving bacon every waking minute.

Well, she knew he'd come again, but at least this time he had the decency not to bring—no, the passenger door opened, and out stepped Teresa. Melinda felt something die within her when she saw the slight swell of her sister's stomach.

"What are you doing here?" Harry said by way of greeting, after he'd held the door open for Teresa.

"What are you doing here? You want to buy back one of your hats?" Melinda asked, hoping he'd name some ridiculous sum that she could then refuse.

"Hi Mel." Teresa lifted her baby blue eyes and waved her dainty hand. When Melinda didn't wave back, her younger sister crossed her arms, which had the annoying effect of accentuating her already generous breasts.

"I see you brought your mid-life crisis." Melinda said.

"It's not… it's electric," Teresa volunteered.

"I wasn't talking about the truck."

"It's not our fault. It just happened. We were star-crossed." Teresa was the first to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Yeah, I'm sure he just slipped and fell… wait, what do you mean by 'star-crossed'?"

"You don't have to—" Harry began.

"No, maybe it'll help her understand," she said to Harry then turned to Melinda. "You know how we all come from stardust?"

"Sure, Teresa. Everything is stardust. So?"

"Well, when two people who come from the same star cross paths, they can't resist. It's natural because they started off in the same place and are destined to be together again."

"Wow, just wow, so that's what 'star-crossed' means. Harry, I hope business turns around soon so you can afford a special tutor for your kid. How far along are you anyway?"

Melissa realized she'd been shrieking when Harry and Teresa shared a look.

To ward off any reply, Melinda grabbed the cat's Abe Lincoln doll out of the cash register.

"Look look look. Get him. Get the president, John Whiskers Booth."

"That's unpatriotic," Harry said, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

"I'm allergic…" Teresa said.

Melinda, Harry, and John Wilkes Booth ignored her as the scene that had played out time and time again began once more.

The fat black cat leapt down from the counter and clumsily stalked his top-hatted foe.

"Come on, Abe. The play's not even that interesting." Harry chided the dangling doll as John Wilkes Booth made his approach.

Melinda twisted Lincoln's string to give the doll the appearance of looking both ways. The cat stumbled from side to side to stay out of view.

"Abe, watch out, Abe!"

Melinda pulled up on Lincoln's string as John Whiskers Booth tried to ambush him from behind. The cat skidded into a corner and raised up a cloud of dust.

As Melinda slid Lincoln back into the cash register, Harry grinned and was about to say something when Teresa broke out into a coughing fit. It sounded forced to Melinda's ears.

"I told you I was allergic," she sobbed and ran for the door.

"Foxglove tea is a great herbal remedy," Melinda shouted after her.

"Seriously? She's trying. Your sister wants you in her life."

"And what do you want?"

"Mel, we're worried about you."

"No, you don't get to say that."

"You need to—"

"Another word and I swear to God I'll burn this place and everything in it down to the ground."

Harry bit his tongue then walked outside to where Teresa was waiting for him to open the Ford F-150's passenger side door.

Before he left, he'd given her that look again, as if it were her fault that they hadn't all moved on.

Bing bong bong bong. The store's grandfather clock marked four. As if time mattered here.

Melinda watched the truck that had never hauled an honest load in its life go. She watched it raise up stardust to be endlessly recycled.

She waited until they were around the bend to kick over the grandfather clock.

For the umpteenth time, she thought about burning the hats, all of Harry's originals, and sending him the ashes. But the hats' pewter pins stopped her. Those were hers, each pin handcrafted.

Had her pins made Harry's hats, or had his hats made her pins? If Melinda could find the answer to that question, maybe she'd be able to disentangle herself from the last 22 years of marriage.

They'd started here in this roadside shack before somehow going nationwide. Harry's hats adorned with Melinda's pins.

The lawyer had said Harry couldn't sue her as long as she changed the name, so she'd decapitated the first "r" in "Harry's" and hung that head on high to make an "i."

She waited behind the counter of "Hairy's Hat Emporium," a place meant to be a padlocked museum, day after day, for the customers who never came.

This was the place where it began, the place where it had to end.

Melinda took off the dark moss green hat, the prize specimen, the first one they'd gotten "right." Harry hadn't acknowledged its existence again. She put it back in its display case.

Besides fedoras galore, there were Panama and porkpie, boater and bowler, Stetson and stingy brim, even the odd neck flap cap. All had their place.

They were objects of vengeance, they were love songs to be worn, they were recycled stars.

The hats waited while dust crossed paths in the wider world beyond.

And for now, all Melinda could do was bear witness to their awful frozen splendor.