Green

It was June’s favorite spot at Maggie’s. The little antique shop on the square held everything from forgotten toys to glassware odds and ends, and the collection changed almost daily. Surrounded as it was by designer stores and expensive restaurants, Maggie’s was an unlikely success, but the window display stopped traffic every time.

She asked Maggie once why an old broken shelf covered with mismatched pots, cans, and boxes full of succulents. Other stores displayed the most appealing of their wares, carefully arranged and enticing. What did an unchanging window full of plants have to do with antiques?

Maggie had smiled mysteriously, and said to meet her three streets over an hour before opening the next morning. June was curious enough to agree, and the two of them joined the already bustling sidewalk throng as the pavement began to warm beneath their feet.

For an hour they walked up and down streets, dwarfed by metal and glass that reflected rather than blocked the sun. They cut through shaded brick alleys that smelled of yesterday’s trash and unwashed bodies. They peered in windows full of human imaginings. Then there was Maggie’s.

In a sea of gray, brown, and blinding, all June could see was green. It drew her, a smile widening across her hot face. The broken wood, the mismatched containers, all disappeared in that living cascade of color. June glanced at Maggie, who put her finger to her lips and turned the key. June was the last of a dozen smiling hustlers to enter and breath a slow deep breath of sudden peace.