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By Root 667 0

and tried to catch sight of himself as if he were looking at a stranger. He tried to see, in the transparent reflections of himself walking against racks of blazers and halter tops and Italian-style dinnerware, what other people saw when they looked at him. Were his shoulders hunched? He tried to straighten them, but this thrust his chest out in a way that disquieted him. In the window of Fairweather hung a sweater that looked as if it was the colour it had been when it lived on the sheep. It was a woman’s sweater, but what made it a woman’s? He went into the store to touch it. He pulled the neck to see the size. It was size eight. A salesgirl asked him if she could help. He felt embarrassed. He wanted to know what the sweater would look like on him.

“Have you got this in a larger size?”

“What size would you like?”

“How do the sizes work?”

“Well an eight is about my size.”

“I need it for someone bigger.”

“Are they big-boned or are they tall?”

“Tall.” Wayne was guessing now. He suspected the salesgirl did not want to say the word fat. He was not fat.

“You can bring it back if it doesn’t suit. You have to return it within fourteen days, unworn and with the tags attached. Would you like to try a twelve or a fourteen?”

“Fourteen.”

Wayne wondered how the salesgirl would know if a garment had been worn. He wondered how long you had to wear something before the fact of your having worn it would show. He paid for the sweater and went into a shoe store. Women’s shoes were small. But it was not just that they were small. They had insubstantial soles. He picked up a black pump. It was light as a piece of toast. He couldn’t imagine standing in it without the whole thing crumbling. He was five feet nine and weighed 150 pounds, and he knew there were women of that height and weight who were considered normal women. But these shoes did not seem to him to be able to support his weight. Were male pounds denser than female pounds?

A clerk saw him standing with the shoe in his hand. He saw a woman’s lace-up walking shoe on a bottom shelf. It looked more promising, but still, the toe was tapered.

“Do you have this shoe,” he asked, “in a size ten?” Wayne remembered that when they were children, Wally Michelin’s feet had been the same size as his own, but the sizes on their shoes had been different.

“We have up to forty-one in European sizes. That’s about a ten. It depends on the make.”

“Can I see it?”

She brought the shoe and with it a green shoe Wayne liked. It was the colour of birch leaves, and he bought the pair. In Suzy Shier there were plain skirts with a back slit that came just past the knee, but he could not bring himself to buy a skirt. Behind the skirts were pants made of the same material: women’s slacks. What made them women’s? He held a pair and regarded its seams. They were flatter than men’s seams. Women’s slacks were held together much more lightly. He paid twenty-nine dollars and hoped they would not fall apart. A sign proclaimed a three-for-ten-dollar special on ladies’ trouser socks. It said they were a staple in any woman’s wardrobe, and Wayne bought some.

He wanted to change in the washroom but knew he couldn’t go in the men’s toilets to do this. There was a washroom whose door had a blue wheelchair painted on it, and when he opened the door he saw this was just one room, with a toilet, sink and mirror, and he went in. He put the sweater on, and the slacks and the green shoes. He put his old shirt and jeans and work boots in the Fairweather bag and the shoe store bag. He stayed in there for a long time and checked that the door was locked. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was shaven and wearing the slacks and the shoes, but it was still impossible for him to tell whether he looked anything like a woman. He suspected he did not. The only way he could see how the shoes looked on him was if he raised his knee very high and rested one foot on the platform in front of the mirror. There was a small heel on the shoe, half an inch, and it did look like a convincing slope, his foot sloping into the green leather