by: Trish Cantillon

“Is that a scrunchie?”  I asked the Madewell salesgirl yesterday, pointing at a container filled with the 90s era hair bob with suspicion. The girl nodded enthusiastically, “Yes, aren’t they cute? They’re really popular!” Was that true? Were they cute and popular again? It immediately brought to mind my own jar filled with scrunchies, a pink neon fanny pack and my boom box.  I wondered, why are some things gone forever while others resurface?

On a winter’s night in the early 1990s I’d been allowed to leave work a few minutes to run an errand for my boss that was on my way home.  I was wearing my favorite outfit: black, straight-leg Gap jeans, black, off-the-shoulder t-shirt, and my black, cowboy shoe-boots (at one-hundred-eighty dollars; the most expensive clothing purchase I’d ever made). Black Ray Ban Aviators and a string of faux pearls completed my look. I slid Madonna’s Like a Prayer tape in my stereo and turned the volume up. Although my new hatchback Hyundai was several months old, the cassette player still felt like a favorite toy on Christmas morning.  I cranked the volume on the title gospel-style title track and sing at the top of my lungs. The Hyundai was the benefit of having totaled my Datsun 210 when I plowed into the side of a car as I pulled out of my apartment driveway. Because mandatory car insurance was a new law in California, I had to make sure I followed the procedure of sharing information. I would not move my car from the street until I did. I blocked traffic on Barrington Avenue, a busy street in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, standing next to my smashed-up car wearing my magenta, drop-waist t-shirt dress from The Limited and white Keds.  Unable to get to work, I stayed home and scoured the Yellow Pages for car rental agencies with the cheapest rates. A few weeks later, and the financial help of my sister,  I drove my brand new Hyundai off the lot.

Running errands for my boss was part of the job description as an Administrative Assistant at a small movie production company. Renting and returning videos was almost a daily task. I pulled in front of Vidiots, intending to run in, drop the stack of tapes on the counter and be on my way. I hoped to get to the wildly popular and quasi-healthy Koo Koo Roo to pick up a dinner of skinless chicken breast, butternut squash and creamed spinach before the line got too long. I was unprepared for the conversation the Vidiots clerk struck up with me.

“I think I saw you at the Elvis Costello concert last month,” he’d said.  “My name is Quinton.”  I was caught off guard and found it weird and exciting that someone saw me without me knowing. He wasn’t a clerk I’d ever talked to before.

“Hi. I’m Trish. Yeah, it was a good show! I love Elvis!” I’d gone with two girlfriends, our seats were terrible, all the way at the top of the Santa Barbara Bowl, but we’d had a great time. The Spike cassette was in regular rotation in my car and was tucked in the center console with other top favorites Hammer Don’t Hurt “Em, by MC Hammer, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation and Storm Front by Billy Joel.

“I have this new bootleg CD, if you want, I can make a tape of it for you,” he offered. I was intrigued by the promise of a mix-tape and the flirting. I looked a little closer at him. He was tall, thin, with light brown hair and blue eyes.  He wore a fifties-era vintage shirt, jeans and Doc Martens. The aesthetic was definitely cool.

“Sure, that’d be great, I’d love that. Thanks.”  I smiled.

A week later, on a similar errand, and with much greater attention paid to how I looked, I walked into Vidiots in my light wash Gap jeans, indigo oversized sweatshirt with matching socks and my white Reeboks.  I scanned the counter area for Quinton but didn’t see him. My mood sank a bit as I dropped the video tapes in the return bin and headed for the door.  “You’re Trish, right?” I heard a voice behind me. The clerk who was working had a cassette in his hand.  “Quinton asked me to give this to you.”  I noticed that he’d fashioned a cover with a photo of Elvis Costello.  I took the tape, excited and a little embarrassed.  When I popped it into my car stereo the first song to that came on was Baby it’s You.  I let my mind wander to a place where a guy who was interested enough in me to make me a mix-tape might have put that song first on purpose. Then my mind brought me back to the laundry list of dashed hopes and expectations of my love life, such as it was at twenty-five.  I set the cassette player on repeat and let it play over and over for several days. A few weeks later, Quinton and I had our first date. A few months after that we were living together and he revealed he had, indeed, put Baby it’s You first on the tape.

By the end of that year I’d left my movie business job and began a dream career in non-profits as Celebrity Wish-Coordinator for Make-A-Wish Foundation.  I spent my days working on the wishes of kids who wanted to meet Kirk Cameron, New Kids on the Block and Whitney Houston, among many others. I could hardly believe I was getting paid twenty-three thousand dollars a year (an increase from my assistant job) to do a job I loved so much.  Quinton worked part-time at Vidiots as he pursued his career as a screenwriter following his MFA at the American Film Institute.  He was on the higher end of the hourly pay scale, making ten dollars an hour, well above minimum wage. We split the seven-hundred-fifty dollar rent for the guest house we lived in, divvied up the utilities and took turns buying groceries. When payday rolled around Quinton splurged on books or music and I shopped for new clothes. Pleated pants from Ann Taylor.  A long, sheer, floral dress with full-length bodysuit from Fred Segal. Hush Puppies from Nordstrom and plenty of bras and pajamas from Victoria’s Secret. When our bank accounts were lean, we entertained ourselves with free videos and watched Dodger games on TV since they were the only thing worth watching on the local channels on the weekends.  For special occasions or if the mood struck, we’d treat ourselves to a fancy dinner at Ivy at the Shore, an expensive, trendy restaurant near the beach, using my “emergency only” credit card with the three-hundred-dollar limit.

On Sunday mornings we bought The New York Times and LA Times at the convenience store down the block and took them to Congo Square coffee house, the only place nearby that served lattes and cappuccinos. Quinton thoroughly read both papers while I skimmed only a few sections of each. I’d write in my journal and watch as shoppers strolled in and out of Woolworth’s, the new AMC movie theater and the funky used book store. Congo Square was an eclectic spot with mismatched furniture; the atmosphere was relaxed and I never felt out of place in my boxer-style shorts from The Gap, purple t-shirt, and hair swooped in an exploding pony tail held by one of my many scrunchies.

Through the five moves Quinton and I made in the 90s, I hung on to my favorite scrunchies.  The “good” ones didn’t lose their tension and they were expensive. Next to my Mac make-up, tucked in a plastic box was the floral scrunchie. In muted pinks and beige, it went well with jeans and a t-shirt or my yellow CP Shades skirt and top. The black satin crinkle one was good with the black jeans and/or my wide leg pants and sheer blouse. The cream colored crocheted one was perfect with my maroon empire waist dress. The scrunchie was the perfect accompaniment that tied an outfit together until the day they suddenly seemed ridiculous and more like a costume than fashion accessory.  A realization that lead to a short haircut reminiscent of Monica on Friends.

At Madewell this week, I  lingered over the jar of scrunchies and thought that I probably should have saved mine. My twenty-year-old daughter would probably love to have a vintage one in the way I loved to comb through my mom’s accessories for costume beads and pearls in the 80s. Somehow her vintage items felt old-fashioned. I realize the nineties are on the edge of being thirty years ago now, but it seems impossible that it’s time for them to resurface. All I can think of is: already?

Trish Cantillon is a married mother of two who has published on The Fix, Refinery 29’s “Take Back the Beach,” Storgy, Brain Child Magazine Blog, and in Gold Man Review and Berkeley Fiction Review. She works for Dream Foundation, the first and only national organization serving terminally ill adults, and their families by providing end of life dreams.