Semi-Daily Scribbles

The face in the mirror bewildered Mildred. She was young and lissome only yesterday. It was just yesterday honeysuckle perfumed the air, and Mildred picked peaches for a cobbler. She promised Jack Montgomery she'd bring her cobbler to the Friday Nite Pot Luck at the Grange Hall. His band was to play afterward. There'd be dancing. Yesterday she finished the hem on her new blue dress. It was only yesterday. Mildred, hat in hand and trench coat buttoned up to her chin, stood and stared at the hallway mirror. There was somewhere she needed to be, but she couldn't turn away from the sight. The reflection was familiar, and yet she did not know the woman in the gilt frame. Brown eyes clouded and moist, dark skin marred by a mottle of furrows and ashy patches. Mildred wondered if the deadened expression on the face ever changed; if the intruder had ever been beautiful. The air was heavy with honeysuckle, and a question and a promise rolled around and around in Mildred's mind. She heard the first few bars of "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and slowly unbuttoned her coat.