Eloise Van Pelt

The man in the hat, now a year older and having accumulated more hats, remembered the Mormon au pair he dated when he was fresh out of middle-school. Her name was Eloise Van Pelt, her father Alberto Van Pelt and her mother Edwina C. Van Pelt, nee Coalman-Slough. She had stitched-braids and wore a Dutch-woman’s winged cap. Her father forbid the use of lipstick, blush, eyeliner or anything that came in a powder-box. She ate with her mouth closed never once allowing a morsel of food to find purchase outside the chewing-vault. Her father wore spats and gabardine trousers with cuffs. The Van Pelt family lived in a four room walkup with two hotplates. Alberto Van Pelt bought everything secondhand: food, beverages, sugary potables, socks, shoes, belts and belt-buckles, hams and thread for sewing worn-through secondhand clothes. Eloise hid her stitched-up dresses in a corkwood box she kept stowed underneath her bed. Her mother, Edwina Van Pelt (nee Coalman-Slough) wore whatever was in reach upon waking each and every morning; some days a crepe dress with lace, other day’s sateen slacks with a smock or linen blouse.