Gatsby and I

In which I turn into a 1920s girl

Next thing I know, miss Celestine called me in as loud a voice as she could:

"Cla-RA! Come up here. I ran into the best thing ever. A chest full of dresses right here. Come see!"

I came up the spiral staircase at once and saw a hallway. Celestine's voice called out:

"Third door to the right. Not the one in the bottom, because that's the closet where I found the chest."

So I obeyed her and opened the door she'd indicated. In the room, there was a bed with two end tables (one to the left and one to the right) done in cedar wood and which were really beautiful. A painting of a lake hung above the bed and the windows had the same cashmere shawl curtains as those on the ground floor. Those were big windows and the shawls interwoven in pairs were green with straw yellow tassels. Beautiful leaf patterns were etched on the curtains and the sheets were light blue with arabesque shapes on them done in a darker shade of blue. I would say cobalt, but a little easier on the eye than cobalt blue itself. The walls of the room were lined with paper of a pale yellow which had arabesque shapes on it as well, but those done in pale pink. It looked like old but beautiful wallpaper. And miss Celestine's dress sort of matched the room, with its dark blue colour and its lighter coloured fleur-de-lys patterns. In that greenish light, she looked rather lovely. She sat on the bed more elegantly than I could ever sit (as if she were striking a pose for some sort of picture) and at her feet, on the bed, was the chest she had spoken of.

That chest was made of maple wood and on its lid were written the initials "J. G." in ebony veneer. These letters were surrounded by a circle from which started a sort of five-inch-wide intricate mandala in the shape of a sun. This mandala made them seem smaller than they actually were. The letters themselves were one inch tall and a half-inch across each, with a quarter inch of space between them. I wondered what these initials stood for. So I asked Celestine:

"What's these letters stand for, eh?"

"You'll find out a bit later, I think. No! I know you're gonna find out.  Woman's intuition."

"Open the chest, Celestine, and tell me what kind of dresses are in there. I'm dying to know!"

"Black, white, I saw two dark red ones and a gold party dress. Most any colour you can think of! Which colour is your favourite?"

"Green."

"Green? Okay. Lemme find a green dress."

And in complete opposition to the elegant way he'd sat in, I saw her rummage through the chest like a raccoon, with her tiny hands scurrying in a flurry and her head buried in the chest. she did pay an uncanny resemblance to a raccoon in that fashion.  She then stops and childishly yells:

"Found iiiiit!"

She pulls out a dress with short sleeves and emerald green fern leaf patterns on it. It was dark sea green, a colour I had never worn at all. It also had ivory buttons on it and was made of a fabric that resembled tulle, but was a bit thicker so I thought it to be silk. She also held in her hand a girdle made out of a braid of three strands of brownish chiffon fabric which were each about a half-inch thick. This girdle was about three feet long and it had small black leather tassels at either end. The whole outfit would've seemed tacky at home, but here it was really reasonable. A pair of black suede shoes was all I thought would be needed to complete this outfit. Or a piece of head jewelry with a bluish-green feather in it.

"Try it on!", Celestine shoved the dress into my hands. "Try. It . On!"

She was beyond excited to see how I would look in it, I could tell from her voice. I saw a door somewhere on the left wall and I knew that must have been the bathroom, where she would do her hair and makeup in the mirror like I do at home. I went there and changed swiftly, then took a look in the mirror. Looks like the dress suited me very well and the blue shoes I had on ever since I entered this world (Yeah, at home I didn't even take off my shoes to read "Gatsby"... Ugh! Priorities, right?) were more than right for that particular dress. But the hair... It was wrong. So what did I do? I took a hairbrush from the pocket of what had the seeming of a bathrobe (not sure if indeed it was one) and brushed the daylight out of my hair until it turned frizzy. Then, I ran my fingers through it, making it virtually straight. The loose waves in it drove me mad, but that would do because curling irons were not invented yet. I tied my girdle around my waist and stepped out of there, nonetheless.

I saw that Celestine had a broad smile and a sparkle in her eye when she saw me. She couldn't help but utter:

"Whoa, Clara! You're drop dead gorgeous in this dress. By that, I mean you just look drop dead gorgeous in it. The only person I ever liked in that way, in fact, was my husband."

At the mention of her husband, she began crying, louder and louder until the tears turned into words. Between them tears and hiccups, she said these things:

"I just wanted a child. That's all! Can I at least make you my apprentice to feel like you're my daughter? I'll treat you like a mother should. Promise!"

"You can make me your apprentice any day. Mother would be proud to see how much you care for me."

I held out my arms and I knew what I was doing. I was about to hug her. But I was totally fine with it. At least for the moment. I asked:

"May I?"

She smiled at me again. She gracefully wiped her tears, nodded and whispered ever so faintly:

"Yeah, old sport."

I now felt guilty for this, yet I hugged her. She breathed in my ear with a sigh of relief. I was glad that I could wash away her worries for the moment. But why was I guilty though? Why did I feel guilty?  Not that I loved her or so much as liked her, but with her not being my mother I felt like this was sort of wrong. Why did I feel like this is wrong though? I really don't know.

But let me finish with my inner turmoil and say that she let go of me. She smiled once more as a mother would smile to her child. It was clear that in her mind she had adopted me. I loved how caring she was because she never had a child in the first place.

Yeah, that was the dress that I would wear on the town. At home, she found a kimono in a floral pattern that had nice flower designs. And all diverged from the pattern the second day after the next one, when I decided to wear the straw yellow dress.