Lorraine pointed at the billboard with the large red letters that spelled out the words, VISIT AMERICA’S ANTIQUE CITY. 

    “That’s what they call Ponchatoula, you know.  America’s Antique City,” she said.

    Sandra Dugas sat silently in the passenger seat of Lorraine Miller’s minivan.  She wished she could smoke a cigarette.  Lorraine didn’t allow smoking in the van.

    “Did you know that, Sandra?  Did you know they call Ponchatoula America’s Antique City?”

    “No, I didn’t.”

    “Richard never wants to go to Ponchatoula.  He’s always saying we’ll go and then he ends up having to work.  I think he does it to spite me.  And you know how Jennifer is.  I’d have to listen to her whine for three hours. I wouldn’t get any shopping done.” Lorraine held onto the steering wheel with one hand and deftly unwrapped a piece of gum with the other.  She folded the gum into her mouth and then thrust the package at Sandra.

    “No, thanks,” Sandra said.

    Lorraine and her husband, Richard, had been Sandra’s neighbors for the past five years.  They lived in a squat brick ranch house next door to Sandra’s identical house, which, in turn, was identical to every other house in their quiet suburban New Orleans subdivision.   Lorraine was a housewife, or, as she’d heard it called on a morning talk show, a household manager. 

    When Sandra had retired a year ago from her job as a legal secretary, Lorraine began to pester her to go shopping.  Sandra resisted at first but finally agreed, believing that she could placate Lorraine by accompanying her once or twice.  Instead, the first shopping trip only encouraged Lorraine, who nagged Sandra incessantly to go shopping again and again.   In the past year, Sandra had gone on more shopping excursions than she’d ever gone on in her life.  They’d gone to every discount department store and outlet mall in the vicinity, not to mention weekly trips to Wal-mart.  Sandra finally had admitted to herself that Lorraine controlled her life.

    For twenty-six years, Sandra had worked in downtown New Orleans for an attorney named Jack Fontaine.  Back then, Jack controlled her life.  She’d gotten him coffee every morning and lunch at precisely 1:00 p.m., she’d taken his clothes to the dry cleaner, written his alimony checks, and remembered to send his girlfriends flowers on Valentine’s Day.  She’d kept the office going, the pleadings filed, the calendar up-to-date, the clients soothed.  Meanwhile, she’d saved every penny she made, and one day, she announced she was retiring.  Jack Fontaine threw a paperweight at her.

    “Shop ‘til you drop, that’s what I always say.”  Lorraine prattled on.

    Sandra reached in her purse and pulled out her sunglasses.  The highway had emerged from the dense woods and now ran adjacent to Lake Maurepas.  The water reflected the morning sun.  The sky was a clear, crisp expanse of bright blue.  The tops of the cypress trees had turned burnt orange. An egret sailed above the highway like a small white kite.  It was a beautiful Fall day.

    “Remember the time we found those 300-count cotton sheets on sale at the linen outlet in Gonzales?  I
put them on my bed and Richard said he hated them.  He said they were too slick, like he was gonna slide off the bed.  He likes the polyester blend sheets I got at Wal-mart better.  Can you believe that?”

    “No, really?”

    “Yes, really.  Richard doesn’t know what’s nice.  He’s so crude.  I never will forget how he kept belching at our tenth anniversary dinner - you know, the one we had at Commander’s.  I was so embarrassed.  I thought I was going to die.  I swear, you’re so lucky you never got married.”

    Sandra fiddled with her watch band and tried not to listen.  It wasn’t what Lorraine said that bothered her.  Most of it seemed to vanish into the air like steam rising from a pot of boiling water.  Instead, it was the way Lorraine spoke, the way her shrill voice pierced through Sandra’s solitude and interrupted her thoughts.

    “I just love antiques.  I can’t believe we’ve never gone antique shopping before.  You know that armoire in my bedroom? That’s an antique.  My mother gave it to me when I got married.  She said it was French.  All I know is I love it.  That’s what I go by with antiques.  If I love it, I’ve just got to have it.”

    Sandra’s mind vaguely latched onto the words “love” and “antiques.”  She’d never liked antiques much.  The idea of owning something that had belonged to someone else didn’t appeal to her.  Wasn’t it always better to have fresh, new things?  New things looked good, smelled good.  She thought of Jack Fontaine’s new BMW, the one he’d let her drive to make a late filing at court.  She’d liked the smell and feel of the leather upholstery so much, she’d gone shopping for a new leather sofa at Hurwitz-Mintz the following Saturday but thought better of it when she saw the prices.  She’d made do with old, unwanted things all her life so she could retire early, and now, in her retirement, she was going on a long road trip so that she and Lorraine could rifle through other people’s discarded things.  She massaged her temples and tried to relax.

    “Look, there’s our exit!”

    “Oh, good.  I need a cigarette.”

    “You are such a chimney,” Lorraine complained, rolling her eyes.  “We don’t have time for you to smoke.  We’ve got to shop, shop, shop.  I want an elegant little figurine for my living room.  Maybe a lady with a fan.  Do you think we’ll find something like that?  Something old and beautiful?”

    “I don’t know.”

    America’s Antique City consisted of old store fronts on a main street intersected by railroad tracks.  Shoppers, mostly women, wandered up and down the arcaded sidewalks, peering into shop windows.  As Lorraine cruised up the street searching for a parking space, Sandra squinted to see what lay behind the glare of the windows.  She caught a fleeting glimpse of what looked like junked furniture, each piece stacked precariously on top of the next.  She slumped down in her seat and sighed.

    Lorraine finally found a parking spot on the side of the street and pulled in front-ways, almost clipping a parked car.  She slammed on the brakes, jolting Sandra forward.  Lorraine threw her door open and hopped out.

    “Hurry up, Sandra, let’s get going.”

    Sandra pulled herself out of the car.  The ride had made her stiff.  She needed a cigarette badly.  Lorraine wouldn’t hear of it.

    “No time to smoke.  Let’s go look for my figurine.  I know she’s here somewhere.”

    Lorraine eagerly lunged into the nearest shop.  Sandra looked up at the wooden sign hanging over the entrance.  Kitty’s Kountry Korner.  Intentional misspelling always put her off.   She frowned, pulled open the shop door, and stared into the darkness for Lorraine.

    “Isn’t it precious?” Lorraine chirped.  It took several seconds for Sandra’s eyes to adjust to the dim light.  Lorraine was holding a dainty cup and saucer in a pink floral pattern.  She wasn’t even looking at them.  She’d already spied a decrepit grandfather clock in the corner.

    “Don’t you just love it, Sandra?  It would look great in my living room, don’t you think?”

    “Yes.”

    “Those angels are precious.  Jennifer loves angels.”  Someone had tacked a group of ceramic angels to the wall near the grandfather clock.  All of them were chipped.  Chipped wings, noses, garments.  Sandra stared at them.  Who would buy such things?

    Sandra realized Lorraine had left her side.  She surveyed the store and saw Lorraine discussing prices with the shop clerk.  “I’ll be back if I really want it.” Lorraine headed for the door.  “Come on, Sandra,” she said briskly.

    “Did you find something you like?” Sandra asked when they were outside.

    “She’s got to be kidding if she thinks I’m going to pay fifteen hundred for that clock.  I swear.”

    “Well, I think it’s really nice.  Maybe you should just buy it.  Then, we could have a nice leisurely lunch and go home.”

    “Are you kidding?” Lorraine smirked.  She charged down the sidewalk, turning her head from side to side, stopping momentarily to survey a shop window, then abruptly moving on.  Sandra trailed after her.

    “Let’s go in there.” Lorraine stopped and pointed at a sign overhead.  Chez Marie: Fine Antiques.  She jerked the door open and waved Sandra inside.

    “Oh, this is just fabulous.  Look at this stuff,” Lorraine raved, nudging Sandra out of the way.

    Sandra stood in the doorway for a moment.  Soft mood music played in the background.  A well-dressed woman sat behind a tidy mahogany desk.  Vanilla room freshener wafted through the air,  masking the dusty, decaying smell of old furniture.  Sandra felt more comfortable here.

    “Welcome to Chez Marie,” the woman said pleasantly.  “May I help you?”

    “No,” Lorraine said, “we just want to look around.” Sandra wondered if Lorraine had forgotten her figurine, the lady with a fan, waiting to be found.

    Lorraine navigated expertly through the closely packed armoires, dining tables, and buffets, stopping occasionally to admire a faded piece of china or a glass vase, cloudy with age.  Sandra barely looked.  She concentrated on following Lorraine through the maze of objects.

    “Oh!” Lorraine shrieked.  “I just love this.” She pointed frantically at a shaky-looking dining room table.  “How much is it?”  The clerk winced almost imperceptibly and rose gracefully from behind the mahogany desk.

    “Yes, ma’am.  That’s an oak table from England.  It’s seventeen hundred.”

    “That much?”  Lorraine thought a moment and then demanded, “How do you know it’s from England?”

    Sandra drifted off to the opposite corner of the store, away from Lorraine’s sharp questioning of the store clerk.   Her eyes settled on a familiar shape on the clerk’s desk.

    “I call her little Gretl.”   Sandra could hear her great-aunt’s reedy voice.  “Remember, you may not touch her, Sandra.”

    Carefully, Sandra picked up the porcelain figurine.  She ran her finger over its lacy frock, across its translucent, white face and rosy cheeks. It was the same figurine that once sat in her great-aunt’s china cabinet on First Street in the Garden District.  She could remember standing for what seemed like hours, staring at the lady behind the cabinet glass, daring herself to turn the key, take her from the shelf, and hold her just for a second.  She never did.

    “Gretl,” Sandra said.

    “I beg your pardon?” Sandra turned to see the shop clerk standing beside her. “Ah, I see your friend has found our newest item.  That’s Dresden porcelain.”

    “Dresden?” Lorraine asked.

    “Yes, this piece was made in Dresden, Germany.  Notice the lace skirt.  It’s real lace dipped in porcelain.  Dresden porcelain is famous for that technique.”

    “Oh, I love it, absolutely, love it,” Lorraine exclaimed, her hands reaching out toward the figurine.  Sandra backed up several inches, just out of Lorraine’s reach.

    “Where did you find it?” Sandra asked.

    “A lady who lives in the French Quarter brought it in just the other day, along with some other things.  She said she bought it at an estate sale in the Garden District about thirty years ago.”
    “Sandra, I can’t believe you found my figurine.  I’m so excited,” Lorraine moved in closer. 

    “But, Lorraine,” Sandra sputtered, “you said you wanted a lady with a fan.”

    “Oh, yes, we just happen to have a lovely lady with a fan right over here. You must see it.  It’s one of my favorites.”

    “Is it as pretty as the Dresden one?” Lorraine asked.

    “Oh, yes, much prettier in my opinion.” The clerk motioned to a shelf on the wall.  Lorraine and Sandra leaned in and looked closely.

    “Yes, it’s much prettier, Lorraine,” Sandra said, trying to sound convincing.  “I love her green dress and look at how seductive she is, waving her fan at her face.  Her expression is just exquisite.”

    “But the Dresden one looks older, more antique-looking.”  Lorraine seemed unsure.

    “Oh yes, the Dresden one is older,” the clerk replied, “and slightly more expensive.  But, this figurine was made in Milan by Gianni.  Pieces like this one are becoming very collectible.  For the price, you really can’t go wrong.”

    Lorraine stared into Sandra’s eyes.  Sandra stared back at Lorraine.  Then, Lorraine’s eyes narrowed and before Sandra could react, Lorraine grabbed Gretl out of her hands.  “I want this one,” Lorraine announced.  “I want the real antique-looking one.”

    “But Lorraine, I really wanted...” Sandra began.

    “No,” Lorraine interrupted.  “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.  I’m so glad you found it for me.”  Lorraine patted Sandra’s shoulder as the clerk wrapped the figurine in tissue paper.

    For the rest of the morning, Sandra followed Lorraine in silence.  She stared at the plastic bag in which Gretl lay smothered in layers of tissue paper, headed for Lorraine’s house where she would be scoffed at by Lorraine’s piggish husband, Richard, and her ill-tempered teenage daughter, Jennifer.

    They stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant crammed between an antique store and a real estate office.

    “I know just where I’m going to put my figurine,” Lorraine said between big bites of her meatball po-boy.

    “Lorraine, I’d like you to know that...”

    “I know, I know, you think I should put it in my china cabinet.  But you know where I’m going to put it?  I saw this in Southern Accents.  I’m going to stack some antique-looking books on my sofa table and get me a couple of those topiary things, and then I’m going to stick the figurine on top of the books and put the topiaries on either side.  It makes a real balanced presentation.  That’s what the article said.”

    “What article?”

    “The one in Southern Accents, silly.”

    “Lorraine, that figurine...”

    “Check, please.” Lorraine waved at the waitress.  “Lunch is on me, Sandra.  You found my figurine, after all.”

    “Lorraine, could you just hold on for a second, let me get a word in for once.”

    Lorraine’s eyes widened.  “Well, sure.  What is it?”

    “It’s that figurine.  My aunt Sophie used to have one exactly like it at her house.  I think it’s the same one.  I always admired it as a child, and I picked it up thinking I’d buy it for myself.”

    “Well, you should have spoken up.  I’ve already paid for it, and  I’ve already decided where it’s going.  You can’t expect me to just give it to you now.  I love it too much.  I’m attached to it, you know.”

    “Lorraine, I...”

    “Now, Sandra,” Lorraine said, picking up a toothpick and carving a piece of bread from between her teeth, “you just put that figurine out of your head.  You know you should’ve spoken up before I bought it.  You don’t even know for sure if that thing really belonged to your aunt.  For all you know, there might be a hundred of ‘em floating around New Orleans.  I tell you what -- on Friday, we’ll see if we can find you one just like it in one of those shops on Magazine Street.”

    Lorraine shoved her chair back and headed for the door, clutching the bag under her arm.  Sandra
followed her to the car and got in without a word.

    “Do me a big favor, hon’, and hold it for me on the way back.  I don’t want it rolling around in the back seat and getting chipped.”   Lorraine placed the bag in Sandra’s lap and then started the car.  “Let’s stop at the florist on the way back and look for those topiaries.”

    Even with her hands placed lightly on the plastic bag, Sandra could make out the general shape of Gretl, her flared, lacy dress, her outstretched arms, the little umbrella that hung from her slender wrist.  She tried not to think about it, but her mind kept returning to the image of the figurine in her great-aunt’s china cabinet and the childish longing to hold it.

    Sandra knew it wasn’t sentimentality.  Aunt Sophie held no special place in her heart.  Whenever Sandra and her mother visited, Sandra was required to sit quietly on the sofa so as not to disturb Aunt Sophie’s antiques.  The one highlight of the visit was when Sandra was allowed to look at the doll-like figurine behind the glass in the china cabinet under Aunt Sophie’s eagle-like grey eyes.

    No, Sandra thought, it definitely wasn’t sentimentality.  She wasn’t a sentimental person.  It didn’t matter that the figurine had once belonged to her aunt.  Instead, it was if,   after all those years, the glass door had been thrown open, and she was allowed to reach inside and touch something that had eluded her.  Standing there in the antique store with Gretl in her hands, she’d felt a strange sense of fulfillment.  Lorraine had ripped it away from her, ruined it.

    Sandra looked at Lorraine’s puffy face, her slack jaw chewing lazily on a piece of gum, her vacant expression.  As a thick stand of cypress trees thinned out into the open waters of Lake Maurepas, Sandra pressed the power window button with her right index finger.  There was a low whirring sound, and then cool, moist air rushed into the car, rattling the bag.

    “Hey, I’ve got the AC on.  Put your window up, Sandra.”

    In one, swift movement, Sandra flung the bag out of the window.  She caught a glimpse in the passenger side mirror of the bag bouncing behind them, fragments of tissue paper and large chunks of white porcelain flying out of it.  Sandra’s eyes focused on the succinct statement in the side mirror: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.  She turned to look at Lorraine, whose mouth hung open and who, for once, was speechless.