You can view them online right now
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15,000 choices for only 98 USD
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Dear Bill Nye
,
I’m one of your biggest fans, and I could hardly believe that someone as famous as you has to advertise
—
Hello there, handsome
,
I am your fabulous, fiftyish fantasy
—
When the doorbell rang, Edward tossed the newly opened letters into the trash and shoved the others into the crazy drawer in the kitchen. Then he went to let Sybil, Lizzie, and Joy in. They’d come, at Sybil’s suggestion a few days earlier, to help him dispose of Bee’s belongings. “Don’t you think it’s time, Edward?” she’d asked—a diplomatic rhetorical question. But he could imagine her telling Henry that Edward was becoming morbidly attached to artifacts, straight out of “A Rose for Emily,” and she didn’t even know about the ironing.
And now there she was, armed with two sidekicks and a stack of cartons. “Your cleaning brigade has arrived!” Joy announced gaily in the doorway, as if the three of them were really there to mop up after a wild party. It was only nervousness that made her blurt things out like that, Edward knew. She often put her hand over her mouth right after she spoke, as if to stem the flow of any further faux pas.
Edward squeezed her arm. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “All of you must have better ideas than I do about this stuff.”
This stuff
. He could have clamped his hand over his own mouth. Instead, he took the cartons from Sybil and led the women upstairs to the master bedroom, where he flung open Bee’s closet. “I guess we can start here,” he said, and Joy burst into tears.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, fluttering her hands helplessly before dabbing at her eyes. “It’s just—”
“We
know
,” Sybil said, slapping Joy sharply on the back, as if to dislodge a fish bone from her throat. Then she began pulling hangers off the rack and laying Bee’s clothing out across the bed. The long gray velvet skirt, the pale green silk suit she’d worn to Nick and Amanda’s wedding, the blouses Edward had so carefully ironed falling into a limp, shapeless heap. The other women quickly joined in, Lizzie piling shoes on the floor next to the bed, and Joy gently placing one of Bee’s favorite dresses—with a pattern of violet sprigs—on top of the blouses.
Edward opened the drawers of her dresser and added underwear and panty hose and nightgowns; they slithered so easily through his fingers. From the corner of his vision, he saw Lizzie briefly hold the violet-sprigged dress against her body while glancing into the full-length mirror inside the closet door. “If there’s anything anyone would like to have …,” he began, and then abruptly stopped. He’d had a vivid image of a future dinner party where every woman showed up wearing something of Bee’s.
“No,” Sybil said, yanking the dress from Lizzie’s hands. “No. Bee would have wanted it all to go to some charity. She said something about it once, don’t you remember, Edward? We’ll put the boxes in the garage and you can arrange for a pickup. Maybe we can get them to that flooded area in the Midwest …”
“Yes, perfect,” Edward said, his motives less altruistic than Sybil’s. He just wanted everything to be taken as far away from there as possible.
When they were done, he opened the drawer in the dresser where Bee had kept her costume jewelry in a tangled mass, like a child’s dress-up treasure box. “I know she would haveliked each of you to have something of hers as a keepsake,” he said.
It would be tolerable, he’d decided, to spot one of her Bakelite bangles in a crowd one day, or a string of glass beads that actually might have belonged to anyone. Most of them
had
belonged to someone before Bee. She’d loved to shop at flea markets and garage sales, sometimes speculating on the previous owners of her finds as possible kindred souls.
Each of her friends chose a single piece of jewelry and the rest went into one of
—
15,000 choices for only 98 USD
—
Dear Bill Nye
,
I’m one of your biggest fans, and I could hardly believe that someone as famous as you has to advertise
—
Hello there, handsome
,
I am your fabulous, fiftyish fantasy
—
When the doorbell rang, Edward tossed the newly opened letters into the trash and shoved the others into the crazy drawer in the kitchen. Then he went to let Sybil, Lizzie, and Joy in. They’d come, at Sybil’s suggestion a few days earlier, to help him dispose of Bee’s belongings. “Don’t you think it’s time, Edward?” she’d asked—a diplomatic rhetorical question. But he could imagine her telling Henry that Edward was becoming morbidly attached to artifacts, straight out of “A Rose for Emily,” and she didn’t even know about the ironing.
And now there she was, armed with two sidekicks and a stack of cartons. “Your cleaning brigade has arrived!” Joy announced gaily in the doorway, as if the three of them were really there to mop up after a wild party. It was only nervousness that made her blurt things out like that, Edward knew. She often put her hand over her mouth right after she spoke, as if to stem the flow of any further faux pas.
Edward squeezed her arm. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “All of you must have better ideas than I do about this stuff.”
This stuff
. He could have clamped his hand over his own mouth. Instead, he took the cartons from Sybil and led the women upstairs to the master bedroom, where he flung open Bee’s closet. “I guess we can start here,” he said, and Joy burst into tears.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, fluttering her hands helplessly before dabbing at her eyes. “It’s just—”
“We
know
,” Sybil said, slapping Joy sharply on the back, as if to dislodge a fish bone from her throat. Then she began pulling hangers off the rack and laying Bee’s clothing out across the bed. The long gray velvet skirt, the pale green silk suit she’d worn to Nick and Amanda’s wedding, the blouses Edward had so carefully ironed falling into a limp, shapeless heap. The other women quickly joined in, Lizzie piling shoes on the floor next to the bed, and Joy gently placing one of Bee’s favorite dresses—with a pattern of violet sprigs—on top of the blouses.
Edward opened the drawers of her dresser and added underwear and panty hose and nightgowns; they slithered so easily through his fingers. From the corner of his vision, he saw Lizzie briefly hold the violet-sprigged dress against her body while glancing into the full-length mirror inside the closet door. “If there’s anything anyone would like to have …,” he began, and then abruptly stopped. He’d had a vivid image of a future dinner party where every woman showed up wearing something of Bee’s.
“No,” Sybil said, yanking the dress from Lizzie’s hands. “No. Bee would have wanted it all to go to some charity. She said something about it once, don’t you remember, Edward? We’ll put the boxes in the garage and you can arrange for a pickup. Maybe we can get them to that flooded area in the Midwest …”
“Yes, perfect,” Edward said, his motives less altruistic than Sybil’s. He just wanted everything to be taken as far away from there as possible.
When they were done, he opened the drawer in the dresser where Bee had kept her costume jewelry in a tangled mass, like a child’s dress-up treasure box. “I know she would haveliked each of you to have something of hers as a keepsake,” he said.
It would be tolerable, he’d decided, to spot one of her Bakelite bangles in a crowd one day, or a string of glass beads that actually might have belonged to anyone. Most of them
had
belonged to someone before Bee. She’d loved to shop at flea markets and garage sales, sometimes speculating on the previous owners of her finds as possible kindred souls.
Each of her friends chose a single piece of jewelry and the rest went into one of
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