Dream Intermission
A moment in time
Eleanor couldn’t help herself. Her parents were preoccupied with the flea market anyway. They won’t notice.
This was Eleanor’s time. They were too busy scrutinizing the same seven trinket stands they walked through every Saturday that summer to notice. She slipped across the street to a quiet local shop that had caught her eye some weeks prior. An alluring storefront, it was as gentle and colonial as any traditional architecture one might come across in New England. Dickie’s, the name read in tattered lettering.
Eleanor gently pushed the weathered shingle doors open and revealed a shop of singular charm. With elegance, it maintained the curated balance of a supremely common beach town gift shop alongside the antiquated character of a boutique that could only exist in a northeastern town whose age predates Eleanor’s own grandparents.
“Hello?” Eleanor’s voice rang out across a shop that felt far too delightful to be as empty as it was.
A yellow dress hanging on a rack across the shop caught her eye. To Eleanor’s frustration, the dress was without a price tag. Maybe her parents will buy it for her.
“Sure looks like a good beach day out there.”
Eleanor let out a modest gasp, startled as she turned around to find a dainty man, clearly along in years.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir. I was just looking around—”
“Shop tends to get awful quiet on days like today. I think folks like making the most of the sun when it shines here.” The man looked at Eleanor with a tender smile. “You have a good eye. That dress is awfully pretty.”
Eleanor was flattered — she did have good taste. “I want to see if my parents will buy it for me, but I didn’t see a tag anywhere. How much does it cost?”
The man thought for a moment. “Usually, I would say $30 for a dress like that. But you and that dress go together so well. For you, I’ll do $20.”
“Wow, thank you, sir! Can you wait here? I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab my parents.”
The man smiled and nodded.
In an excited rush, Eleanor ran outside to corral her parents in for a deal they couldn’t dare pass up. After extensive pleading, Eleanor’s parents begrudgingly followed her into the shop.
Eleanor’s dad bemoaned, “Eleanor, sweetie. You have more clothes than you know what to do with. Besides, this weather isn’t going to—”
“Hello? Mister?” Eleanor called out. “Mister? I’m back! I brought my parents!”
A few rounds of this yielded no results — the old man was nowhere to be found.
“Okay, Eleanor, that’s enough. Clever thinking to get us here this way. We need to get going.”
Eleanor’s parents began ushering her toward the door.
“But wait!” Eleanor shouted. “I promise, he was just here like one minute ago.”
At that moment, a teenage girl emerged from the boutique’s storage room. No older than sixteen, she fit the profile of a town sojourner fulfilling a summer job.
“Hi there. Can I help you?”
Eleanor, equal parts perplexed and enthusiastic, did her best to convince her parents she was not delusional.
“Hi, I was just here talking to an old man who worked here and said he would sell me this dress for $20!” Eleanor gestured toward the dress. “Where did he go? My parents are buying it for me!”
“Old man?” the boutique employee responded. “I’m the only one scheduled to work this afternoon. Such a great beach day — it’s been awfully quiet.”
Eleanor’s mom quickly jumped in. “Eleanor, we don’t have time for this. Time to get home and clean up before dinner.”
“Well,” Eleanor sighed dejectedly, “he was definitely in here. If the dress is still here next week, will you buy it for me?”
Eleanor’s mom was fine with anything so long as it got them out of the store.
“Sure, Eleanor. If it’s here next week, then we’ll buy it for you.”
Playing right into Eleanor’s precocious hands, her mom’s restless withdrawal opened the door for mischief. Once they had enough distance from the boutique to play it off, Eleanor claimed to have inadvertently left her sunglasses behind.
“I’ll be right back. Just wait one second!”
Eleanor was going to hide the dress — she had to make sure no one could get it before her.
She moved quickly as she re-entered. Securing the dress, she had to find a place to stash it that wouldn’t attract attention. As she scanned the store, her eyes met the same storage room door she had seen the teenage girl emerge from earlier. Slightly ajar, it piqued her interest.
What better way to hide the dress than to get it out of the public eye entirely?
Eleanor sauntered slowly to the door when a pang of unease washed over her. She pushed through to reveal a desolate room, furnished only with a photo hanging on the wall directly across from her.
As she approached the photo, the image crystallized.
Eleanor was pictured standing between her parents after a day at the beach, wearing the very same yellow dress she was holding in her hands.
A familiar voice echoed behind her.
“I’ve always loved that photo.”
Eleanor nearly leapt out of her skin as she turned around to see the old man from earlier, greeting her with the same earnest smile that made him so endearing.
“Isn’t it funny how memories take different shapes over time? I suppose that’s the bargaining we do as we grow older. The less life you have ahead of you, the more you exist in the past — in your past, the version that’s comfortable. I loved your mother with all my heart. And how she loved you. What I wouldn’t give to step back into that moment in time together.”
Tightening her grip on the dress, Eleanor placed her father — aged tenfold from the man in the photo — waxing poetic about an image that stood still in their minds.
“…Dad? But I don’t understand.”
“How a memory exists for one person is often different for someone else. And the retelling of this story to yourself is simply a photocopy of your experience. What’s not a photocopy is how you’ll feel when you come back here next week and Mom buys you that dress. You can see it in how your smile comes through in our favorite photo.”
Eleanor stepped thoughtfully out of the shop to find her parents impatiently awaiting her return.
“I don’t see any sunglasses,” her dad lamented.
“Sorry. They must be at home. Let’s go find them. I’ll need them on a beach day like today.”