Irreplaceable

Every single piece of clothing tells a story and she knew exactly what story matched each item, what great tales the items held and what sights they had seen. To her younger siblings she would tell stories of great adventures, cities with blinding lights, cobble stone pavements, exotic countries with animals that never made it into the encyclopaedia and vintage auctions of exquisite jackets. The stories were like her own children, they kept her comforted in times of distress, they made her feel worthy of their attention and they stood by her no matter what.

Her closet brimmed full of items that were never seen again on another person on the planet, each had a nametag clearly stating their owner. The precious silks shimmered next to the satin, the sheepskin lined coats next to delicately piped blazers, chiffon dresses gleamed next to champagne coloured trench coats and all these things were the joy of her life.

It had always made him mad that she would never love him as much as her irreplaceable clothes, that he came second rate to everything that had amassed in her wardrobe, which was bigger than the study that he had once owned in their house. Her efforts had always belonged to that wardrobe and it’s contents. Clothes would never let you down; they couldn’t kick you in the face or spit on you. They never told you they didn’t love you or cheated on you, her clothes never teased her, were never cruel and flighty. They were always there for her. They were constant, and if they were broken there was a sure way of fixing them. Heels could be glued back on, sequins could be sown on again, patches mended and jackets stitched up again. Only the really precious pieces were the ones to watch out for. They were the truly irreplaceable ones, jackets bought in France, expensive trousers from vintage shoes in Italy and shoes from New York, they were the apple of her eye.

But one thing that wasn’t irreplaceable, were men.

She had tried to explain that to Ethan the day they met. But he never listened to her. Just like many others before him he didn’t take heed of her warning that he probably wouldn’t know any more about her at the end of the relationship that at the start, that he would have to compete for her affections. He just like others had laughed it off, firmly set that he would be the one that would change everything for her. She was going to be his everything and he was going to be her everything, that much was certain.

April had seen the end of her and Ethan’s relationship before it even started properly. She probably shouldn’t have started dating him, because he hadn’t taken her seriously. He laughed at her job, retailer. He said it was just an excuse to go shopping, to reveal in something that was so stereotypically female it almost hurt. He could never understand her love for the hand made chiffon blouses or the avant garde leather high heels that she displayed carefully in her wardrobe.

But she lost little sleep over his lack of understanding. At first she had tried to buy it, he was one of the first men who, even though she could foresee the end, she wanted to keep around for a little while longer. He was tall and suited her type. He wore clothes well and even though he didn’t appreciate them like she did, they still looked very good on him. She bought him the car that he had wanted for so long, and for a while he was appeased and argued little when she would spend a day being shown through the wardrobes at high fashion magazines.

However, Ethan felt neglected, he wasn’t treated with the same care as the vintage Chanel two piece suit, or the Burberry trench coat. No, he instead had to go and find his own fun, his own hobby that took place over everything else. And for all the beauty that April saw in cuts, seams and trimmings, he saw in the female body. Specifically when it lacked the clothes that April so cherished.

Whereas in April’s life everything that lived in the closet was one of a kind, the women that Ethan cavorted with in the car that he had been given, were replaceable. One night a brunette model, the other night a blonde actress who was actually a waitress, maybe every now and then a girl with red hair or even pink hair.

None of these women care for the clothes that they so easily shed and let drop to the floor of the car. They had spent a month’s salary on the dress and yet only to take it off. A lot of the time Ethan would carelessly step on these clothes, marking them with a horrendous black foot print, scarring the expensive rarities beyond belief.

As the city sang at night April knew that something was about to change. Her radiance in her beautiful tailor fit garments almost trumped that of the great city, the lights were on par with her and she was almost always stopped by curious people asking where her dress was from, her shoes or her jacket. But she would just smile and say she had forgotten. The women were welcome to Ethan but not her clothes.

The traffic hummed on the busy street below as April continued to sip her drink, and from somewhere far back in her subconscious her mother’s words came to her.

“Remember what Coco Chanel said: ‘in order to be irreplaceable you must be different’. The men in your life will be irreplaceable, but you and your clothes will never.”

But for once she wanted to be wrong. She finished her drink and swept out of the sky bar, leaving many women in the room staring at her enviously. April made the resolution to be kinder to Ethan and to explain to him how much her clothes really meant, as she put her key in the lock.

But all good intentions were destroyed when she saw another woman standing in her wardrobe, jokingly holding the priceless items to her too orange half naked body and then carelessly tossing them to the floor as Ethan watched her, a laugh spread across his face.

The strangest thing was, that the next day when April had ceremoniously thrown his own cheap and generic clothes into their yard, the emotion that register on his face was angry, it was the first time in a long time that she had been able to register this emotion on his face. Up until now she had only been able to draw out annoyance, but today it was different. He had never shown anger to her before, only resentment or defeat. But today he was angry for the first time in a long time, angry that she dared throw him out of the house they had bought together, that she mistreated his clothes. He had seen no wrong in anything that he had done, and he couldn’t understand her own anger and despair.

“I don’t care who or what you sleep with,” she had shrieked. “But if you bring it back and let it touch my clothes with it’s skanky hands then we have a serious problem, you of all people should have known that about me. You’re out!”

He had made an attempt to go into her own closet and ‘accidentally’ put one of her expensive vintage handbags into the brown box that was full of his own rubbish. He knew it was worth a lot and could have sold it for even more online, but of course April saw it.

“That’s my stuff, if I bought it don’t you touch it,” her voice was filled with venom.

She pointed to the left as she walked past her, anger seeping out of every pore. The taxi was already waiting for him outside. As she locked the door behind him, she heard him shouting that she’d never be so lucky, that she was a fool and find another man like him. That he was one of a kind of man, no one would ever take his place, he was the one and only and that she would be crying for days before she crawled back to him.

April only smiled to herself as she walked into her wardrobe knowing that he was very much wrong and shut the door and sat on the floor, looking up at all her clothes that had stood by her when everybody else had left, all the while knowing that she was the one who was irreplaceable.