Evie Work Mike's Shirt, According to Girl

Evie wore Mike’s shirt according to Girl: I think it was made into a poster. It was a black and white photo blown up to lifesize, featuring brown eyes staring directly at the camera, a magical smile and a messy head of dark brown hair. Of course in the black and white world, my hair looked black with tender curls of sunlit hair framing my face with the window behind me, the daylight backlit the "wispies" just as an artist would brush on his canvas.

Mike was a great photographer back then (and still is today). We can be walking along, and he will say, "Hey, Ev, this would make a good shot." So I point and shoot a digital, and I sell it online.

During those New York years Mike shot black and white with his Nikon. Photography back then was not forgiving. You had to send the film off for developing. When it came back, you then selected the negative you wished to be transformed into a picture.

So, as the poster boldly shouted, this girl was wearing only a light blue shirt, mostly unbuttoned, with the sleeves rolled up. Because the picture was in black and white, the light blue of the shirt was contrasted only slightly by her ivory skin, in the soft gray of the morning sky, just before the sunrise.

This is the shirt I remember. This is the shirt I wore for an entire weekend. I slept in this shirt, I made love in this shirt, I toasted champagne dreams with our paper cups, in this shirt, and I had pizza in this shirt. Finally, it was in this shirt that I became the poster child for Mike.

After heading back to Michigan, this shirt was what I left. This was the part of me that Mike would remember. It belonged to him, but became bigger than both of us; it was the memories in the shirt that continued to keep our love alive.

He took my negative from the Nikon, sent it to the lab. It was about six weeks before the poster arrived from FedEx. Meanwhile, Mike did not send that special shirt to the laundry with his other shirts.

That shirt was what dreams were made of. It was the faint scent of Evie and Estee Lauder that Mike loved.