SOCIETY THE KARMIC JACKET

Imagine this scenario: you go to an auction benefiting a good cause, AIDS. Designer denim jackets by the likes of Christian Lacroix, Bob Mackie, Claude Montana, and Victor Costa are on the block. You plan to buy nothing, but wind up in a hot bidding war for a jacket-and you win, at a cost of $7,500. And you don’t have the money. All that-and something far more surprising-recently happened to one Dallas couple.

Michael Galvis, an oil investor whose business has taken some roller coaster dives and climbs of late, and his wife Jeanann were persuaded by neighbors to purchase tickets for the benefit auction held by the Design Industries Furnishings Foundation for AIDS (DIFFA). “We went with zero intention of buying anything,” recalls Michael. “We brought no money. not even a checkbook.”

But by midnight, the excitement of the auction had begun to affect the Galvises. so they got a friend who was a DIFFA board member to vouch for their prospective bid.

They wailed and watched. Nothing really seemed appealing to them until a jacket by Bob Mackie. Cher’s famous fashion designer, came out. The jacket, which has sequined horseheads complete with mane on each shoulder, electrified Jeanann. She had to have it.

As the furious bidding escalated, the Galvises’ self-imposed “ceilings”-$3,000, then $4.500-failed to contain their lust for the jacket. Finally, there was just one survivor besides the Galvises. He bid $7,400, they upped it to $7,500. and the rival folded. The jacket was theirs.

Immediately afterwards, the audience stood and applauded. “Strangers were thanking us, and they had tears in their eyes. We knew we’d done something good.” Michael says.

They’d also done something expensive, and the next morning the satisfaction of winning was replaced by the sobering fact of buying a $7,500 blue jean jacket with money they didn’t have. “We fell terrible,” says Jeanann. “Things have been going okay for us. but $7,500! We wondered what we were going to do.”

At his office the next morning Michael was understandably distracted. Then about noon, the phone rang; his ecstatic wife had wonderful news. Minutes before, Jeanann had checked the mail and found a letter from the U.S. Treasury-her 1987 tax re-fund. The amount, to the penny, was $7,500.

“It seemed like divine intervention.” Jeanann says, and it’s hard to imagine anyone would argue the point.