Hand Me Down Princess

When I was a little girl my favorite part of living in Hollywood was sitting on the boulevards and watching the rich and famous in their fancy clothes walk here and there. The youngest child in a litter of seven, and the only girl, my clothing were always what my older brothers grew out of. I never minded, or complained, because I knew there were families that had even less than we had. My mother and father worked hard to support our family, but in all fairness, being from a small little no named county in southern Alabama, I don’t think either of them considered the cost of living for a family of nine in the city of stars.

I knew that my mother tried. Watching her stay up into the late hours making alterations trying to make them special for me. I always smiled and give her the biggest hug I could. I never wanted her to feel unappreciated. I learned to never ask for anything expensive, I never complained or cried when I didn’t get something I wanted. I never wanted to purposely make their life any more difficult in this aspect nor did I want them to feel like I didn’t love them for everything that they worked so hard for. I never let them see or hear what other children called me. I embraced my nickname of the hand-me-down princess. It didn’t bother me in the way I knew it would bother them.

Like all my other siblings when I turned eleven and started needing more than just the bare necessities my mother and father helped me get a job on the weekends to earn a little bit of pocket money. She had a friend who offered to let me help in his shop, he was a particularly quirky man, with a taste for the lustrous. It was with the help of this beautiful Queen, I discovered a place more magical than any fictional realm in any book or movie. A place that gave birth to millions of possibilities.

The name its self is quite plain and unimaginative but to a girl like me it was the beginning of my world. A Thrift store, who knew eleven letters could bring so much meaning into a young girl’s life. Walking into a thrift store for the first time was like walking into a musty smelling heaven. Names like Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Versace, Armani, Ford, Jacobs, and Prada isles and isles of gorgeous lightly worn to possibly never worn clothing for pennies on the dollar. Walking into the shop was like walking on clouds.

He brought me into the world of fashion and like a baby duck to water I dove head first. The first weekend I worked with him we spent a good portion of time having a fashion show. I tried on anything I could get my little fingers on. They were clothes that a girl could love to wear and feel empowered by. Clothing that would get a second glance even if they were silently outdated. But I didn’t care. The pentacle of my first thrifting experience is when I tried on an Oscar de la Renta strapless silk chiffon gown and I cried. The feeling of that material sliding over my skin was like sliding into perfection. Simple, underrated perfection. I was hooked. And in that moment, I knew I could never willingly give up the gift of the thrift store, it was the one thing I had that was truly mine. And my world went from being rather beak to a universe filled with never ending color.

During the summer months I worked in his store for as long as he would let me, for sixty dollars cash a week and a clothing allowance of fifty dollars a month his world became my world. I’d spend hours sorting through the merchandise, pulling things out of the pockets. Sometimes I would get lucky and fine something cool, like a ring or a key. But most of the time it was just lint.

“Never stop looking in the pockets baby girl.” He’d say reaching into the pocket of a newly donated fur coat. “You never know when you will find something worth a memory.” He said pulling out a small golden locket. He taught me things my mother couldn’t, he gave me things he knew she couldn’t. And I gave my mother and father everything I could. The do’s and don’t of the popular fashion, the ways to skirt that and make it my own. How to feel confident and live in my truth. He showed me how to be a true Queen.

“Baby girl…” He used to call me. “Baby girl no matter, where you come from, the family you got or the money you don’t the world can be a cruel place to the fabulous.” He’d twirl around in his bright pink robe, feathers and sew-on rhinestones lining it head to toe. “But with the fabulous armor we got here, ain’t no body hurtin’ us today!” He was my home. I spent every day after school, and during the summer learning under his tutelage.

When I turned eighteen and graduated from high school, I was uncertain of my path, and was more than willing to settle into a life of working at the thrift store and living in the small apartment above it. But like the second mother he was, he surprised me with a sponsorship. He gave me the world in an envelope.

“I never thought I would be so lucky as to have a daughter, I never thought of myself as a family type. But for the past seven years it was a blessing to have such a smart and talented girl as my daughter. You have become my family. And I want you to conquer the world with that beautiful unique eye of yours.” With tears in my eyes, I sit between my parents and him, I open the large envelope and find an acceptance letter.

“Congratulations, Ms. Esmeralda Blackburn, it is our pleasure to inform…” I had to clear the tears from my eyes. “…you that you are one of thirty…thirty?” My heart stopped. I’d would never have dreamed it even a possibly.

“Go on suga’ finish readin’ it.” She squeezed my shoulders, tears threatening to give way any second.

“Students to be selected to start the curriculum at Studio Berçot in Paris starting Fall 2010. With this letter you will find paperwork to file for a student visa, applications for our internship programs, and apartments located the school. If you accept your reserved slot please complete and submit it by July 18^th, 2010.”

My life changed in an instant. I was no longer the poor girl who wore her brothers’ hand-me-downs, I was a fashion student studying in Paris. I called him every single day and video chatted him as much as I could. He supported me through my entire education. And I never knew how to reply him such an enormous debut. Shortly before my graduation my calls started getting sent to voicemail, my video chats denied. When I called my mother, she always said that things were getting very busy at the shop and not to worry. But something always felt off, but I allowed that feeling to be pushed aside. During the month before graduation I got two extra part-time jobs, I worked as hard as possible up until the dead line. I ordered three plane tickets, I wasn’t going to allow any of my parents to miss the proudest moment of my life. My graduation was in five days and I wasn’t 

“Madame Esmeralda?” The concierge to the building called me to the front desk as I walked in holding the confirmation tickets to my chest.

“Yes Pierre?” I gave him a sweet smile.

“Madame this package arrived for you this afternoon.” He pulls a dusty white rectangular box from beneath the counter and slides it over to me. I glance over the postage, and smile.

“Thank you so much.” I take it and he smiled at me, I quietly run up the stairs to my apartment. And set the package on the small coffee table in the corner of the room. Looking at the clock it’s half past three in the afternoon, so half past six in the morning at home. Dad should be getting ready for work, I smile to myself and grab my phone. The phone dials out and rings until a gruff sounding grunt is heard on the other end.

“Howdy?” He sounded uncharacteristically awake. “My apologies, I ain’t able to talk right now, but please leave your name, and call back I will get back with you.” I laughed. “If it is something important try calling my wife. Okay? Thanks bye.” And the voicemail beeped. I had a hard time controlling my laughter. I hang up and try dialing my mother, and her phone goes straight to voicemail. I give up on reaching them so early and resign myself to sitting on my bed that doubles as my couch and sitting area. I turn my tv on and listen to it in the background while working on the last few projects in my portfolio for my internships after graduation.

Lurking in the corner the box stares at me until I slide my desk over and stretch across the bed to grab it. I read the shipping label more carefully and nearly drop it from excitement. My fingers vibrate as I start to peal the tape from the cardboard like it is holding a million dollars beneath its folded edges. Pink feathers peek out with the releasing of its sticky grasp. Lifting the folds my heart stops as I look down at the fabulousness contained within its bland walls. I take it in my hands and lift it from the box like a prized relic. Not a replica but the original robe, I bury my face onto the soft fabric and inhale the combination of the musty store and his sweet perfume. I slide my arms into the sleeves and look at myself in the mirror it drags behind my on the ground as I walk to the bed.

I slide onto my bed and look in the box for a letter. But instead a CD case holds a DVD and a sticky note that says, “play me first”. I loved his over the top gifts, he never disappointed. I take the DVD and the large manila envelope behind it out of the box before placing it on the floor, I pull a pillow onto my lap and set my laptop onto it. I pry the plastic case open and put the DVD into the CD port. I hunker down into his robe, with it on it feels like he is there hugging me. I blank screen pops up and a blurry image of my mother appears in a still frame. I press play.

“Are you ready?” Her voice is full of sadness, and her eyes are puffy. When she steps back and out of frame, I am staring at hospital bed with a person laying down attached to several machines. And they nod. My mother helps him sit up in the bed and places a pillow behind him. He wipes a tear from her eye, and she leaves the room, the door can be heard shutting behind her before he looks back into the camera.

“Hello my sweet pea.” His voice is weak, and his skin is a pale grey imitation of his normal caramel coloring. His face is way to skinny, and the sparkle in his eyes is dulled. “I wanted to start by apologizing, these last two months have been undeniably the worst, keeping this secret from you nearly broke my heart, but I know it is going to be for the best.” I felt the world fall away from me as a sickening feeling plunged my heart to the pit of my stomach. “Eleven years ago, a friend of mine walked into my shop with this little tom-boy looking girl that hadn’t ever wore a skirt in her entire life. She practically begged me to let this little thing help me in the shop, sweeping, folding a few little things here and there. I said no at first. I had thought to myself, what could this little thing do to help me? She is barely tall enough to reach the racks let alone help me with anything productively.” He wiped a tear from his eye and smiled. “I had no intention of little her leave her child with me on the weekends. It just was not going to happen.” He laughed, but it was hollow it hurt my heart to hear. “But when I came back out of the office and saw you head first in a pile of Ralph Lauren and Prada, just the way you looked at the clothing, and how you glowed when you held anything up, I knew I was in trouble. You stole my heart with your love of clothing. And I couldn’t take that from you. I will forever be grateful that you became my daughter, even if I was only your fashion mother, it meant the world to me.” I was staring at the screen with blurry vision has he started coughing and I felt like a part of me was dying. “I am not going to be able to stay with you until your graduation, if you have received this package then my time with you has ended.” It was like something in me broke and I nearly sent my laptop flying to the floor. “But don’t be sad, you have got a lot of life left to life, I wanted to give to everything, and I hope that you will listen to me when I say, I know that you are hurting. And I love you. But I would never forgive myself if I was the reason you gave up your dream. You must be strong, so that you can become the next Queen a little girl looks up to. You are going to graduate, and you are going to become someone that can make a difference. I will always be with you. I will always be watching you from above. If I see you give up, I will be very sad, and I would never forgive you.” My heart is actively being pulled from my chest and pounded into the dirt. “Before I leave you, I have one last gift to give you. Rather not a gift but something you earned during our time together.” He smiled through his tears. “And it’s not the robe, even though you paid for that too. It’s what’s in the pocket…”

I paused the DVD and frantically searched through the pockets, but nothing was in it. I got of the bed and just the floor and the box, I looked all around. Had it fallen out onto the floor? Maybe the bed? I sounded like a banshee running around my apartment looking for something that could have fallen out of the pocket. But there was nothing. I played the DVD again sinking to my knees.

“Inside the left-hand side of the robe there is an invisible zipper hidden by a few of the rhinestones…” I paused it again and looked closer at the seam and an almost impossibly small zipper stared back at me. With trembling fingers, I opened it up and reached my hand in side and pulled out a singular brass key. Slightly dulled from years of unlocking doors and sliding in and out of pockets. It sat in the palm of my hand as I traced it with my eyes. I un-pause the video. “Inside that pocket is a key to the shop, and in the manila envelope are the deeds, contracts and everything you will need to complete the transfer of ownership of the building into your name. It has been my home for nearing forty years, it is a place where I turned unwanted and unloved clothing into works of art and armor of fabulousness for girls like us. And I couldn’t imagine leaving my only baby to anyone else besides you. I want to see you turn it into your own, open your own design firm. Become the star I know you can be.”

I sit here still remembering his words echoing in my head. I followed his words and I became the women he wanted me to be. I went to my graduation and held my head high. I worked my fingers until they bled, and I made a name for myself in Parisian Fashion. I brought my credible name home with me and built an empire from the teeny little store front that used to be a thrift store. I wear my robe and twirl around in my armor just as he would have done.

“Become the Queen, that no one would dare call hand-me-down princess.” His last words rang in my head. I loved him as family, and he inspires everything I do. I stand in the middle of the show room at all the pieces of my heart hanging along the walls.

“Hello, welcome to Hand Me Down Queen what piece of armor can I make for you today?” I smile at them as they enter, and they smile back at me in awe. A young girl walks in behind them, and she looks at the clothing on the wall, and I never grow tired of the look that beams from their faces.

When I was eleven, I was gifted a home in the form of a thrift store, and when I was twenty-two, I was gifted a future in the form of a key hidden in the pocket of a fabulous robe. And now I get to give them the same type of chance.