Page One

To me as a young girl, the old apartment was nothing but wood, and gosh, it was overwhelming.  Judy and I ran quarters in the gouges of the red oak floor, near the sticky, stained, walnut coffee table.  Until I was a teenager I didn’t know that everyone had a “coffee” table, since no one else’s was so soaked through-and-through with the stuff.  A sign behind the fold-away ironing board notified “boarders” of their rights, and I remember that Judy believed these boarders must be the wooden nutcrackers on Auntie A’s table.  That’s because I told her they were.  But mostly, it was the doors of the closets that made everything seem wooden and hard, meaning to keep people out like when I’d wrap myself with Auntie’s leather belt inside there and stab her favorite pin into the palms of my hands.

Judy doesn’t remember prying into my hiding place and screaming in my face.  She doesn’t remember the old place at all, or anything about our Sunday visits to the city.  So it wasn’t right, hiring her to work under me at Roper & Tyme Publishers, and, boy, I knew it.  She had no sense for how to behave here, how they press you downtown.  And should she get into trouble….  We interviewed six different girls for the position before I relented and handed my sister's application over to the boys.

She was still thanking me for that helping hand two months later—that night, when after drinks, I decided she could come with me to experience her first party outside of the office.  Only now, her voice took on a quality I don't want to describe.

"I thank you, Edith, for the way you tried to look out for me."  She then also corrected me, as I found the building and led her inside.  "This certainly won't be my first party.  Please don't pretend."

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You are viewing page one of "Edith/Judith," a fashion photostory whose accompanying text draws inspiration from pulp magazine stories.

CREDITS  Models: Tonya Smith, Carmine Leighton; Hair: Corrie Horacek; Clothing by Sartorial Splendor; Photographs, text: Tom Seiler.