Pop-Up

A pop-up at Kingsgate Mall. Hard to make sense of it. An out-sized styrofoam human skull at the door; a free-standing restaurant menu behind it; against the walls are tables covered in posters, postcards, pictures, picture books -- many of them from the early 1960s. Props from a movie shoot?

I gather up a bunch of postcards ("6 for $1"), including some of the photos. One of the photos (date stamped "JAN. 59") is of a forty-something woman who looks a lot like my mother's Auntie Kippy.

"I think this is my mother's Auntie Kippy," I tell the old man sitting by the cashbox.

"Did she work at the Horseshoe?" he barks.

"No, she worked at a doctor's office."

"Then it's not your mother's aunt."