(Edited Short Story)

“For The Love of Clothes!”

Margaret was a stunning 5’9 blonde with corkscrew curls and captivating lime green eyes. She had just turned forty and looked as if she hadn’t aged a day. She was slender through her obsessive compulsive nature of working out until she nearly collapsed. She was a bit of a control freak, maybe due to a lack of being able to control her own body.

You see, Margaret couldn’t have children, and even after seeking the advice of top notch medical professionals and researchers, the results still came up as inconclusive as to why she would never be able to bear a child of her own.

 Most of the time Margaret remained a bored housewife, and instead of loving a child she chose to love her husband.  But most of all, she loved the material things he bought her, like an apple-red convertible and wardrobe filled with expensive clothing. Her husband Richard was a successful ER surgeon who seldom was ever home, but attempted to show he still cared for her by buying her anything and everything under the sun.

Like Margaret, Richard was obsessed with his possessions as well. Some may even call the dynamic duo greedy, lavishly spending money only on themselves for luxurious vacations and new Maseratis, but never a dime to visit their ill-stricken parents neither had seen in over a decade. The couple thought themselves to be happy with this life, but would soon find out they were not. Richard was also charming, but extremely cocky. He invested significantly in the stock market, and turned those profits into his own wing in the hospital. With so much money one would think the couple would donate money to charity, or maybe even the upkeep of Richard’s share in his hospital wing. But they never spent on anything of substance or moral value. Richard was forty years old, 6’3 tall with a toned body, full head of black hair and bright blue eyes that contrasted with the midnight hue of his hair like nothing you’d ever seen before.

Although Richard had no problem dropping money on his privileged lifestyle for the sake of his marriage and his image, he never once thought to invest in a suave wardrobe that was up to par with his looks, which were definitely GQ Magazine-worthy. He wore socks with his sandals even in the midst of the long Manhattan winters, paired with tattered bird-watching hats,  and khaki shorts with holes that almost revealed too much of his chiseled butt. But mostly, he had a collection of retro and paisley printed tie-dye shirts recycled from the early 70’s. This drove Margaret mad, since she was all about dressing to the nines and putting her favorite Gucci dress on for all of Manhattan to envy.

“Can’t we take you shopping for some decent clothes?” Margaret would say repeatedly.

One day when Richard was working at the hospital, cunning Margaret decided to take control of her husband’s wardrobe malfunctions. She stuffed the worst of his clothing choices into a garbage bag (which is what she viewed them as: garbage) and got into her red Maserati and drove the bag of clothes to the Goodwill store. This was Margaret’s first donation ever… but not her last.

A couple weeks passed and Richard didn’t seem to notice that the bulk of his tacky clothing was nowhere to be found. Due to his cluelessness, Margaret got the best beauty sleep of her life, falling into slumber with her angelic face atop her plush Temper-pedic pillow, her body deep within the couples’ Egyptian cotton sheets, dreaming of her next naughty splurge at Saks Fifth Avenue. Until one night, when Richard arrived home early.

“Mags honey, the weirdest thing happened earlier this evening at the hospital,” Richard said as he made his way toward the couch.

“What on earth Rich?” She replied plopping down next to her husband on their mahogany colored leather couch to listen more closely.

“A patient today, well, not even a patient, a homeless man came in wearing a paisley printed, bright green, tie-dye, tattered shirt. I could’ve sworn it was one of mine, but I couldn’t quite make it out because of the blood all over it. He got into a drunken brawl with another homeless man over some food they both found while dumpster diving together. I thought I was the only one who liked those funny lookin’ shirts. Anyhow, it was real weird and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.”

“That is indeed bizarre, sweetie,” she said with a menacing smirk on her face.

“Yes, very much so!” he responded, getting up off the couch to make his way up the stairs to bed.

That night as Margaret laid in bed next her husband, she thought how sneaky it was for her to donate his clothes to charity. But the odds of the homeless man ending up with her husband’s shirt, and then in the same hospital was simply unfathomable. She grew manic with the urge to dispose of more of his wretched pieces of clothing, but this time to a charity whose customers were not tangible to her husband. Margaret was so fixated on doing so she crept out of bed, and again stuffed the worst of his clothing choices into a garbage bag, and tip-toed down the stairs to hide the bag in the trunk of her car. She then delicately crawled back into bed with her husband and shut her eyes until the urgency to dispose of his clothes drifted away.

The next morning Margaret looked up the address to the Haiti relief fund in the Yellow Pages. She then loaded the bag in her trunk into an old box that used to be filled with clothes her husband ordered for her online from Yves Saint Laurent. Again, she hoped into her red Maserati, and this time drove to the post office to mail off another load of Richard’s wardrobe hoping it would never return to haunt her again.

A year passed and the couple continued living the same lifestyle they had always taken for granted. One night Richard arrived home exceptionally late from the ER, and Margaret woke up at 3:47AM to the floor boards creaking. After contemplating whether she wanted to fall back asleep or greet her husband who had just arrived home, she finally decided to slowly walk down the stairs, sliding her left hand along the banister. She sat next to her husband in complete and utter silence for a quite a while on their leather couch. He then got up to pour himself a glass of Scotch from their marble countertop bar. Then he sat back down next to his wife on the couch and turned on the TV. To both of their bewilderment an infomercial came on featuring the Haiti Relief Fund. In the commercial appeared a family consisting of a husband, wife and young boy opening up a box labeled Yves Saint Laurent. Out of the box came nearly all of Richard’s outdated shirts. The husband looked at his wife with complete and utter joy, and they rejoiced in hugs, laughter, and tears of joy.

Richard turned to look at Margaret with amazement.

“It’s not a coincidence another destitute man ended up with clothing resembling mine in a box of clothes I bought you, is it?” he said to his wife tersely.

Margaret broke down crying hysterically.

“Yes it’s true. I believe that box is full of your clothing I got rid of and shipped off to the Haiti Relief Fund, and yes it’s true the homeless man at the hospital was probably also wearing your shirt I donated to Goodwill.  I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY, RICH,” she pleaded, falling to her knees.

Richard paused for a long while to reflect on what had just happened. After thinking for quite a while he had some sort of revelation.

“Margaret, we have been pretending to be happy for a very long time. And although I do not condone this type of behavior, I also realize through this experience that we take each other and everything else in our lives for granted. Look, look how happy that family is who has nothing with my hideous box of clothes.  We have so much and still are never satisfied,” he said.

“You’re so right,” Margaret responded. “All I ever wanted was a family and we never had that opportunity and now have turned to the wrong things to make us happy.” Margaret had tears in her eyes and her voice was the most sincere he had ever heard it.

The next day Richard called in sick to work for the first time ever. Together, the couple took the subway (instead of a taxi) down to 42nd Street, where the adoption agency was located. Six months following their visit to the agency the couple flew back from Haiti with an adopted baby boy, nestled deep in Margaret’s arms. They both then looked at each other, smiled and laughed with tears of joy overflowing in their eyes, just like the Haitian family did in the infomercial.