Well, I’ve been on Ebay again. And look what I found…this is a tee-ninsy woman’s address book – just 1 3/4″ by 2 1/2″. It literally fits in the palm of my hand and is so shiny/classy I almost feel like a dimestore starlet. The button beside the letters slides up and down, and when I push the little cigarette case-like button on the bottom the book opens up to just that page. This little address-keeper has no scribbling in it whatsover, and a 1955 calendar on the back of each page. An unwanted gift, maybe, from a beau she didn’t love. Or the one who couldn’t buy her something better.

His name might have been Roger, or Jim, or Richard – nothing dashing enough, really, for her to write in the little book. Maybe the gift was a disappointment, a decision made, not enough. After she left him outside the door, she may have tucked it away in a scarf drawer with the other almost-but-not-quite things from perfectly nice gentlemen who wore the wrong hats or didn’t quite manage to shine their shoes. Another trinket from a fellow working behind a counter instead of a desk.