The old woman behind the counter at the thrift store had a smile that unearthed pure sunshine. She wore a tie-dye t-shirt from her years of touring with the Grateful Dead, and she would reminisce to anyone who listened about the time she saw Jerry Garcia fall to the stage in a diabetic seizure back in ’86. The woman was small, but the tea she brewed supplied a supplement unknown to the ranks of body builders. Her voice was music, and her shop was home to only the most joyous of spirits.
The woman’s store, which was one of the few businesses in Charlotte Hall Square to outlast the Coronavirus, had seen few visitors that winter. Despite the infrequent flow of customers, each person to pass through her chimed door was immediately overcome with a trancelike sense of purpose, and each of them left having purchased some sort of oddity. Those who later spoke of their experience in the store only had positive words to highlight their unwavering recommendations, and those who listened had little choice but to promise a visit.
On a day in late February, the woman was sorting through a stack of Janis Joplin records when a man entered the store. He was a large man with a proportionate beard, and he was wearing a stained t-shirt with an image of a ferocious tiger. The woman watched him as he muttered something under his breath before stumbling lazily into an inflatable snowman and veering down the aisle towards her.
“Hello dear!” The woman beamed and spoke. “Can I help you find anything in particular?”
“Oh no,” the man smiled back, “just looking, thank you.”
“Well, that’s about as particular as it gets.”
“Can I help you with those?” The man offered, reaching for the immense stack of records in the woman’s hands.
“You’re very kind!” The woman dumped the records into the man’s arms, and he immediately slumped over several inches. “They’re all J’s! From Janis to Jimi. Be a doll and sort through them before putting them in their proper section. I could’ve sworn I saw a Woody Guthrie in the mix. After that, meet me up at the front and we’ll get you sorted out.”
The man laughed and raised his eyebrows at the woman’s retreating figure. He quickly sorted through the records and then made his way up to the checkout counter. The woman was standing behind the register, watching as he approached and blowing on a Fourth of July windmill. She set the windmill down when he reached the counter and smiled at him expectantly.
“Errr—” the man started to speak but faltered.
The woman didn’t say anything but continued smiling.
“You’re Ms. Julie, aren’t you?” He finally managed to ask.
“Actually, it’s Madame Julianna! I take it you saw the billboards.” She laughed.
“Madame Julianna… Really?”
“Of course not, how pretentious would I be?”
“Well— I—” He faltered again.
“No dear, I’m Ms. Julie, and this is my store. Quaint, isn’t it?”
“It’s pretty fantastic.” The man looked around at the aisles of various knickknacks and appliances, taking in his surroundings for the first time.
“It is!” It wasn’t a question. “Now, what can I help you find?”
“I don’t know, I’m really just here to kill some time.”
“No, you’re not.” Ms. Julie looked suddenly stern. “No one comes in here to kill time. Pause time? I can help you with that. Hell, I can even help you make time. My store has many things, but none of them are destructive. So, I’ll ask again, what can I help you find?”
“Uh,” the man gazed around helplessly, “Well, to be completely honest with you, I completely forgot that it was Valentine’s Day last week and… well… suffice to say, my wife hasn’t quite forgiven me yet.”
“Beautiful!” Ms. Julie clapped her hands. “I have just the thing. Stay right there!”
Ms. Julie disappeared behind a cluster of shelves. The man heard various clinking sounds and the rustling of paper before Ms. Julie reappeared a moment later, beaming from ear to ear. She had a small red box in her hand, and she placed it on the countertop before sliding it over into the man’s oil-stained hands.
“Go ahead,” She looked right at him, or was she looking through him? “Have a look!”
The man removed the lid from the box to reveal an object sitting delicately upon a mound of tissue paper. It was a glass butterfly, multi-colored and handcrafted, nothing like those cheap pieces the man had seen on so many suburban lawns. There was something enchanting about the small butterfly. Had it not been so fragile, it would have seemed almost invincible.
“Its… Its…” The man started.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ms. Julie beamed down at the glass insect. “That’s a charmed piece, that is. Bears enormous healing power. Brings fortune to the holder…”
“Where did it come from?” The man interrupted, but if Ms. Julie heard him, she showed no sign of recognition.
“…Radiates good will, repels evil spirits, and on the fifth of every month it glows purple to communicate with Jupiter.”
“It really is quite beautiful.” He agreed, smiling down at the butterfly. “But fragile also, it seems. What if I break it?”
Ms. Julie raised her eyes slowly off the butterfly to meet the man’s gaze.
“Well, that would be unthinkable.”
The intensity in Ms. Julie’s stare made the man somewhat uneasy.
“Well, do you have anything else? Maybe a jewelry section somewhere back in the catacombs…” He trailed off.
There was a quick flash in the woman’s eyes, and whatever severity had existed in her complexion melted as she rushed around the counter and made for an aisle filled with Halloween decorations. The man watched as she disappeared into the Shangri-La of oddities. As he leaned against the counter his thumb felt a fissure in the surface and he looked down to see that someone had carved their initials into the old hardwood. The letters ‘A.B.’ were clearly visible next to a plastic container of palm tree keychains. The man was wondering who had left the indentation when he heard the cheery voice of Ms. Julie as she reappeared down the Halloween aisle, reciting some charm with a sing-song intonation.
“Ahh yes, in the forest of the night,” Ms. Julie’s melodic voice rang out, “what immortal hand or eye, dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”
“Sorry?” The man smiled politely as Ms. Julie reached the register and laid down another package, this time silver, on the countertop.
“Your shirt, dear.” The woman said. “Now, this is something I’ve been holding onto for just the right occasion. Why don’t you take a gander?”
She unclasped the hinges and opened the second box. Her customer stared down at the golden necklace inside, which was crafted as a figaro chain with a miniature coryphée pendant, no longer than an inch, all solid gold. The man raised an eyebrow and frowned slightly, quite impressed with the chain and the finely crafted ballerina.
“Spectacular.” He said, before shaking his head to break from his spell and address Ms. Julie. “How much for this?”
“Considering the market, I’ll cut you a special deal. How does five hundred sound?”
“Five hundred dollars?” The man frowned again. That’s a bit outside my budget right now…”
“Not dollars.” Ms. Julie tapped her windmill on the counter impatiently. “Cents… Five hundred cents.”
“Five hundred cents?” He squinted and laughed. “So… five dollars?”
“That’s the price.” Ms. Julie rolled her eyes. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it! Absolutely I will!”
Ms. Julie smiled slightly as she wrapped the box in packaging paper, but the man couldn’t help but notice the smile had deviated from the playful one he knew. It was a sadder smile, a smile that remembered a time when glass butterflies were more luxurious than golden trinkets. The man paid for the necklace and made his way towards the front door. As he reached the door, he turned around to get one last look at the place. Ms. Julie was up on a ladder adjusting a stack of top hats. She was smiling that mischievous smile again and was seemingly unaware of the man’s extended lingering. He held the silver box close as he opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit plaza.
Back in his car, the man took the box out of its brown packaging paper and wedged it firmly between the windshield and the dashboard. He wasn’t quite sure why he removed the paper; aside from the fact that he liked the look of the sleek silver box. The sun had now completely vanished into the Southern Maryland stratosphere, but the damaged moon above him provided light enough for the man to find the ignition and turn the key. He pulled out of Charlotte Hall Square and onto RT-235. His apartment was back in the direction he’d come from, so the first town he drove through was Mechanicsville.
Few cars crossed his path as he drove by the corn fields and farmhouses of Amish country. As he passed Captain Morgan’s seafood restaurant, he reached for a cigarette, but realized his pack was empty. The lights of a Wawa gas station appeared in the distance. He decreased his speed and pulled into a parking space right next to a horse drawn buggy. A man donning Amish attire was sitting on the caddy’s stoop, clearly waiting for somebody in the store.
Inside the store, the man bought a pack of Camel Wides from an acne-ridden teenager. He tapped the box against the palm of his left hand vigorously as he left the store. This was a method he’d adapted years ago, packing the tobacco tightly into each and every filtered cocoon before setting them aflame. In the driver seat, he peeled away the cellophane from the box and popped one of the Wides into his mouth. He lit the cigarette and rolled down the windows as he accelerated backwards.
The immediate whinny of a horse caused the man to slam down on the brakes with full force. The silver box soared from the dashboard and out the open passenger side window. The man expected to hear the muffled sound of cardboard hitting the pavement, or perhaps the jingle of the necklace falling out of the box. He was instead surprised as he heard the faint breaking of glass, which was followed immediately by a curse from the reinsman atop his perch on the horse drawn buggy. The buggy scampered off as the man opened his door to assess the damage. He walked over to the passenger’s side and looked down at the mess on the ground. Now it was his turn to curse.
A beautiful multicolored glass butterfly lay in a shambled pile of dismembered pieces next to the silver box and its extruding tissue paper. The man stared at the massacre in disbelief for a moment before his brain began to process what had happened. Perhaps Ms. Julie had absentmindedly switched the butterfly with the necklace. Perhaps she had done it on purpose. The man thought about trying to put the pieces back together, but the thing seemed irreparable. He then thought about going back to Ms. Julie and demanding a refund, but realized this was likely a lost cause.
His cigarette shrunk to the filter in his hand, and after a few minutes of staring at the broken butterfly, the man felt hot ember against his knuckles. He scraped the cigarette against the pavement and tossed the filter into the silver box along with the tissue paper and whatever shards of the butterfly he could manage to pick up. He carried the box over to a trash can outside the gas station and threw it and all its content inside. He then lit another cigarette and walked away from the gas station, trying not to feel too bad about the butterfly. He’d only owned it for an hour, at most. Besides that, he hadn’t even intended to purchase the thing in the first place. It was hard to feel too much of a connection.