Viveca takes a fall

If you've followed my column for a while, you might know I own two mannequins... Viveca and Margot. You might also wonder what brought me to host these two striking ladies in perpetuity? Many years ago, knowing my fascination with them, my former partner gifted me the vintage and effervescent "Viveca." She came from a women's clothing store in downtown Keene, The Quality Shoppe. When it was closing in the '90s, they sold off all their mannequins. I named mine Viveca after a character played by Jane Fonda in the movie "The Morning After." Good movie if you get a chance. Viveca has lived in all three houses I've owned. She has a big antique dome-top trunk filled with her wardrobe, comprised of mostly donated items from friends... including a wedding dress I once tried to dye black. Probably seven years ago, I brought home a friend for her... Margot. I bought her from my friend, Jacquie, when she was closing her boutique, Renaissance Room, in Depot Square. Margot is a sitting mannequin, so I popped her right on the baby grand piano (that never gets played) in the salon. Viveca and Margot are not exactly the best friends I hoped they'd be. All they ever do is give each other blank stares. When I realized the room I call the salon needed to be cleaned out and renovated, I gave the two girls a gander. Viveca had been standing on top of the piano for about 10 years. In the same purple dress, poor thing. Margot sat at her feet, her pouty expression understandable given the number of years she'd been wearing that dusky green gown. And I could see traces of mouse urine and droppings across the back of her bare neck. My goodness, it's a wonder nobody had called the MCS on me with their horrible neglect. I had a moment. It seemed my love of mannequins had faded a bit. What else could explain my treatment of them? Should I just donate them along with all the boxes of antiques and auction items in my effort to reclaim the room? But where would they wind up? Despite their icy disposition with each other, perhaps they are a bonded pair and shouldn't be separated. I finally decided their departure from the house was not going to happen. I would refresh them just like I was doing to the room. I was glad when the painters took Viveca down off the piano because she's a heavy girl. Unfortunately, they put her back up when they were done. Joe and I lowered her once more to the floor. She stands a bit precariously on a glass platform with a rod up her backside. One foot is lifted so only the toes touch the glass. Her left arm is posed behind her back while her right arm is extended, reaching. Years ago, I'd put a string of Christmas lights in that hand for fun during the holidays. Joe and I were out in the kitchen when we heard her fall the first time. Quite the crash. Truth be told, she'd fallen a few years back and lost her index finger. I couldn't find it anywhere among all the boxes in the room. Other than that, she was OK. This time, her hand broke into three pieces, revealing some newspaper stuffing inside. I took her whole arm off, laid some paper down on the piano top and went to work superglue-ing her hand back together over a couple days. Finally, she was back together and the folks who were taking all the donated stuff also found her finger, so she was whole again. I was starting to think about how I could refresh the two ladies. I ordered a couple new wigs and costume-quality outfits... a '50s blue halter dress with polka dots and a simple black sheath. In the meantime, I wondered how I could clean Viveca's beautiful but dusty long red wig. I walked by her, moving her bangs out of her glass eyes that stared at me. It wasn't five minutes later when I heard her fall again from another room. She fell hard. This time, her resin hand was smashed beyond repair. I unscrewed it from her arm, leaving a stump with a metal plate exposed. I remember an old TV movie about a young girl losing her leg and a therapist insisting she accept and embrace her stump. More determined than ever, I searched on Ebay for vintage mannequin hands. You know what? There's a ton of them online! Not strictly all true store mannequin hands. Some are jewelry displays; some are for artists to practice drawing. There's some weird stuff out there, too. You can buy anything online today. The only problem was that different mannequin manufacturers use different connection devices on their limbs. I got two hands in the mail. Kind of fun to open that box... and could tell I wouldn't be able to simply screw this transplant hand onto Viveca's stump. I went to work on it. It took a couple of different sessions with screwdrivers, plyers and a vice to literally crush her old hand's wrist to release the old metal plate with its mechanism. Viveca's got a new hand now. Is it perfect? No... but she's getting used to it. I wrapped a black ribbon around the connecting hand-to-arm seam because it's not as tight as I would like. She's in her new outfit and wig. Like many of my past Christmas trees, I'm going to discreetly wire her to the wall. I don't want to go through this whole thing again. Her dress came with fun, heart-shaped sunglasses which she's proudly wearing as I type this. You see, one of her glass eyes shifted a bit in the last fall. She's a little self-conscious about her new lazy eye.