Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
He gave her hand one firm shake and then pulled a large handkerchief out of his pocket.
“You have a handkerchief?” Lily asked.
“What? They’re useful–bandage, sling, bag, garrotte…”
“How much use is a cloth covered in snot? Turn around.”
“Why?”
“So I can tie this over your eyes.” He did so, deftly and firmly, leaving her ears unmuffled. “Now, aren’t you glad I didn’t blow my nose on it?”
She was, but refused to say so.
Restoration Day, Deborah Makarios
Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little body and lifted her head.
“Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”
Although a life-long fashion dropout, I have absorbed enough by reading Harper’s Bazaar while waiting at the dentist’s to have grasped that the purpose of fashion is to make A Statement. My own modest Statement, discerned by true cognoscenti, is, “Woman Who Wears Clothes So She Won’t Be Naked.”
Molly Ivins