“So this is it?” I peer closely through my passenger window at the diminutive dark red building snuggled between two neighborhood houses. It is the kind of edifice that you might just miss while passing by, unless you knew what you were looking for, or if you didn’t perceive at once the crudely painted letters above its entrance. “I don’t know,” I laugh good naturedly, “I guess I was just expecting more of a barn like structure.”
My mother smiles slightly as she swings the car into park on the side of the street, several feet away from a greasy man working on his automobile’s engine. She sits back in her seat for a moment to warn me, “Daria, you think Cloth Corners was confusing, you’re going to be simply overwhelmed in here.” I grin as we both step out on to the hard cement of the sidewalk, the warm, spring sun embracing our shoulders. We stand together for a brief minute before plunging across the street to continue our expedition, and unmistakably through the faint odors of car exhaust, daffodils, and freshness of the air, I can smell undeniable oncoming victory.
We walk the few feet quickly, the sudden heat of the late April afternoon already making us uncomfortable, unbidden sweat threatening to appear on our furrowed brows. A young brunette mother is on the knees of her jeans, her tanned hands lost in a sea of various pre-made valances and assorted table napkins filling a large round metal bin. Mother and I approach an outside rickety card table ourselves, as we finger thoughtfully soft cottons of blue and white striped or light green plaid pillowcases. I carry awkwardly a small dresser drawer I have stolen that morning from my room at my side. Gazing down at it for a second, for the hundredth time I try to contemplate that why out of any design of the furniture I could have picked from as a nine year old, I chose all of my furnishings to be the ones painted with this unruly blue. I look up, suddenly, as my mother tells me knowingly in hushed murmurs that unlike the quick help of Cloth Corners, we’re going to have to be on our own here.
Finally we enter the grand display of rolled up fabrics filling every wall and shelf. Squinting somewhat into the darker atmosphere compared to the blinding sun we’ve left behind us, I am filled with awe at such an astonishing selection. Silently in adoration my mother and I roam among the stacks of plush violet, rich burgundy and delicate carnation taffetas, my imagination painting immediate vibrant images. In my mind’s eye sweeping curtains adorn large and open windows, perhaps fringed with glittering prisms to match the encrusted chandeliers above them that cast drops of rainbows on shiny ballroom floors. Stiff chocolate drapes hold back the sun in romantic dining rooms with bowls of dried Valentines Day roses on the center of the polished dark table with silver candlesticks and carefully picked formal bone china and sterling place settings. We continue on, pointing to certain patterns that catch our view, but nothing striking us with powerful desire.
We head into the next room after we have digested what we have just taken in, walking slowly and deliberately as we scan all around us. Red checks and blue flowers, embroidery and prints, they all quietly call attention to themselves as other mothers around us search for their own future upholstery. Then, I see it. My mother and I are peering across a row of cotton stripes, when it catches my gaze. “This one is pretty.” I tell her. She looks down immediately before assuring me, “Oh, Daria, that one is really cute.” She glances at it for a moment, smiling with agreement of its splendor. Beneath a roll of a solid crème lies an exquisite combination of lively pink and peach stripes and stitched topiaries with green leaves crowning blue and yellow buds. The more I ogle at its charm, the more determined I am that this is the final treasure, that I cannot leave this store with out a carefully excised swatch in my happy fingers. My mother snatches the whole roll out of its crevice and we begin walking with it held to her side like a most cherished possession until we reach a middle aged woman with glasses who shears a small part of it off and therefore grants me my desired wish.
“Let’s go upstairs and start looking for complementary fabrics.” My mother suggests excitedly. We hop lightly up the faded blue carpet, my heart about to burst with joy at the elegant but cozy bedspread that will transform my humble abode. What awaits us at the stairs is equally as breathtaking as the pattern clutched in my interior decorating partner’s graceful paws. Sample chairs already swathed in lime checks with country roosters cause a cry of delight to escape my eager lips. My mother grins brightly, as she watches my apparent portrayal a child in a candy shop. “Perhaps we can make a small pillow for your desk chair.” She tells me wisely, because much to my dismay, handsome roosters in light green simply do not match with my stunning topiaries in pink.
We continue gliding across the wood paneled floor, discovering a dainty, yellow gingham chiffon perfect for window treatments, and then finally reach the climax of the entire journey. Like as if they had been what we had been searching for the entire time, rest the French and country toile. Bright blue, yellow, black, and red scenes of colonial men and women dancing under the trees while their cows and horses graze nearby are arrayed in all their splendor in a dignified corner of the room. After some searching, we salvage a bright blue that somehow brings out the flowers of my dainty shrubbery. Finally we have come to the end our efforts, what needs to be achieved can not simply be done on our own.
Downstairs, my mother astutely picks out an older, but stylish woman at her desk to be our aide in our shared endeavor of the day. Her khaki pants and light white blouse are a mellow, slightly wrinkled linen, and her glasses strung on a strand of bright blue beads hang from her small neck. I judge her to be the kind of at times eccentric woman who writes poetry and drinks from an overly large coffee mug. We stand for a moment patiently beside her cluttered workspace, and finally she looks up with a smile after finishing the last bit of business that was on her mind from a last customer.
“My name is Debra, how can I help you ladies today?” Her voice is thick with a German accent, as she smiles warmly in our direction, winning immediately my trust in her abilities. After telling her of our undertakings, she whisks us back upstairs where we point out our chosen fabrics. “This is gorgeous.” She tells us confidently, holding in the palm of her hand my delightful swatch. It isn’t long until she cuts off a piece of cotton the shade of fresh butter, a large colorful tassel banging against her arm as the scissors fly. Then she finds with out hesitation rich blue, smaller tassels to edge both the soon-to-be toile throw pillow and the valence for my window. We stand together around in a vacant corner of the room, my mother’s steady hand on my shoulder as she tells our new confidant of the excitement I displayed over the simple rooster prints.
“I am going to have that fabric as cushions for my kitchen chairs when I have a family.” I tell her enthusiastically. She laughs asking my mother if it “does not scare her” that I am already thinking about marriage at seventeen. Then she begins to tell of us her own daughters and as she describes her loved ones who are already now in Universities, it hits me as well that soon that will be part of my life. I think about how that in a little more than a year, I will be leaving the continual familiarity of my own bed, of my own parents, and my car. It seems like I am expected to grow up in a blink of an eye, but maybe I smile to myself, that the first major step to my new womanhood is transforming a dull childish space into a striking mature vicinity. I turn my attention once more back to Debra’s sentimental memories, as I wait gleefully for when I can leave in ecstasy with swatches of butter yellow cottons, enchanting topiaries, magnificent toile complete with royal blue tassels, and… maybe a rooster or two.
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