Relic #3: Helen of Emerald Springs

Helen's face would never launch a thousand ships, so she caught her own...a train-car out of Emerald Springs. No Ajax or Odysseus or Theseus showed up to steal her in the night. Some fates you have to make yourself. Some choices, too.

Her lipstick, Plush Red.  Her gloves from Finney’s 5 & 10, perfect white satin with pearl buttons on the wrist. Her mother told her to save money and just wear her old Sundays edged with yellow lace, but when Helen left that town with all of its smallness, its starlight, its heartbreak, she damn well wanted to be wearing new gloves. Travel gloves. Gloves filled with hands that never touched a dirty dish at the restaurant or the concave tilt of Joe Kemper’s lower back as he unfolded his body over hers.  No. 

Helen wasn't the kind of girl to wait tables forever or to wait for men to choose. Helen chose herself. Chose freedom. Raised her white-gloved hand high and waved goodbye.