Precisely one year ago, I bought the most miraculous sharkskin jacket. Flawless, really. I adored it like nothing else. I bought it specifically to wear whilst meeting Sir Anthony Hopkins (I just call him “Tony”) during his big SIFF to-do last summer, and I bought it from a very big-boned blond woman called Lynn Lara. She was well over six-feet tall, and in high-heels, she was almost monstrous. She dressed exactly like a drag queen. She walked with a limp. She was impossible to miss.

Lynn Lara had recently transplanted herself from LA or San Diego (her stories ran together and conflicted a lot), and she owned and ran a new-ish little vintage clothing shop on the North-ish end of Broadway where the old Film Stop used to be. She called it, uh, “Glitter” or “Glitz” or something like that. She sold hats and vintage ties and drag-queen shoes, and, somewhere toward the back, she had set up a massive shrine devoted to the worship of glamoure—the crowning jewel of which was a life-size wax effigy of Marilyn Monroe. It was completely terrifying.

And of course this store and everything associated with it were utterly doomed.

My fabulous sharkskin jacket perished tragically in a horrible accident involving cooking oil, furious attempts at blotting, and a futile emergency trip to the dry cleaners that left me shattered and in tears. And Lynn Lara? Well. Lynn Lara labored under the bizarre notion that the infamous fags of Capitol Hill would come gushing in by the bucket-load to gander and gawk at her creepy wax Marilyn—-and, presumably, linger long enough over the vintage ties and drag heels to keep her business afloat. But, no.

Late last fall Lynn Lara disappeared, the doors of her store were locked against her with every little thing still inside—including that damn creepy wax Marilyn—and this rather rude sign was taped to the door:

Week after week, month after month, I walked past the dark and lifeless storefront, and I wondered: What happened to poor Lynn Lara? She who came, and tried, and didn’t? Did she flee in the night? Was she run out of town on a big, fat rail? It’s a fair question in this strange part of the world where a woman alone can end up floating in the Green River…or worse, temping at Microsoft. (Perish the thought.) And what about her prize possession—-that damn Marilyn doll?

Then, just last week, the building’s landlord finally began clearing all of Lynn Lara’s stuff out for good—beginning with the big Marilyn Monroe. Now there’s nothing left of Lynn Lara at all; not a scrap of anything to prove she even existed, or ever sold me a miraculous sharkskin jacket that I loved beyond reason.

Oh, Lynn Lara. What happened to you, really? Where have you and wax Marilyn and your fabulous jackets gone?

I wonder.