sienna says.

Sugar Magnolia
My little sister called me a couple weeks ago. I was sitting on the little beach a couple blocks from my home, watching a young Russian girl named Olga. I’ve been picking up odd babysitting jobs, hoping I’d find a steady one… not a different child every week but the same one or the same two that I could get to know and “nanny”. I’ve done this though for a long time and I wondered if maybe I could find something a bit different for this summer. Chalice knows a lot of people in our little town and she said she’d look into for me. When she called me some weeks ago her words made me want to get up and dance. She had talked to one of our friends downtown who owns a consignment boutique – Sugar Magnolia – one of my very favorite stores in little Cambridge. She needed help and wondered if I was up for it. I accepted immediately.

Sugar Magnolia is the kind of store that Cambridge has been starved for. It opened a couple years ago and whenever I visit home I’m relieved to find it still alive, so very alive. Our downtown is sweet and small, quaint and humble… maybe a little too humble. It’s about 10 blocks from our home and in the past couple years I’ve finally been given reason to walk those blocks and visit the small stores that have started to grow. The days I work here I get to walk or bike, depending on how long it takes me to me to make my lunch in the morning. A lady always sits on the bench next to the front door, smoking her cigarette and reading her newest mystery novel. I unlock the door and grab the magnolia flag inside. Standing up on the bench, beside the lady, I push it down into its holder. I walk back inside, switching on the three sets of lights and pulling the chords to the ceiling fans as I make my way to the back and open the closet, letting out my little companion, Friday – the store’s friendly green eyed cat. I don’t normally like cats but I adore this one. She doesn’t use her claws on my skin and she comes when I call. She's nice to the customers. She keeps me company and sleeps on the couch beside the counter, giving the shop such charm. The front door stays open and she doesn’t run away. I never have to worry about her… I only tell the curious customers her amusing name and that it’s alright to pet her.

Opening a shop all by myself three days a week makes me happy. I breathe easy. I am peaceful and content. I picture Kathleen Kelly opening “The Shop Around the Corner” flipping on the lights and getting ready for a day of people and finding out small things about them as she invites them into this place of her own…. a place that represents her. Although Sugar Magnolia isn’t my shop, it is Stephanie’s and it says a lot about her. The kinds of clothes she sells, the way a cat walks around, the beautiful clutter around the front desk, the magazines on the table, the quote on the wall and painted girls on the wall behind me…. They each say something about her and that’s what I find most charming about this small downtown shop. It’s Stephanie’s. and when I open it each morning, I sort of walk into her world and I have the responsibility to maintain what she's created. Maybe I romanticize it a bit too much but sometimes that’s what words are for… opening and digging out the undiscovered beauty in something that we never stopped to really see. I have great respect for the owners of small shops who open up their lives for others to unpack… and I’m grateful for Stephanie Malkus whose given me the privilege to be a small part of Sugar Magnolia for the rest of my summer.

sisters come to visit.