Slob - Ellen Potter [16]
When I reached Eighty-fifth Street, I almost crossed over to the east side of Broadway. It was an involuntary reflex. I hadn’t been by the store in months, and I didn’t know if I wanted to see it today when I wasn’t feeling too terrific about myself.
I made myself do it, though. I kept walking on the west side of the street. My heart began to race, stomping crazily like the feet of a rabbit that’s been picked up by the scruff of its neck and is struggling to get away.
“Breathe,” I said, just like Mom to one of her callers. “You’ll be fine.”
A stationary store. A hair salon. Breathe. A magazine and smoke shop, the same one that had been there for as long as I could remember. The owner, he—shhh. Breathe.
I made myself stop when I reached the shoe store. I must have looked funny—standing still in the middle of the street like that, not looking at the store I was stopped in front of but straight ahead—because a few people glanced at me. Okay, I said to them in my head. Fine. I’ll look. You’re making me look.
The store was completely different than it once had been, of course. There were the shoes, for one thing. Sleek, expensive-looking shoes for men. Dark and polished. On one wall were sandals and some colorful sneakers, but the colors were odd, like acid green and orange. I didn’t know any men who wore shoes like this. My father had always worn battered canvas loafers.
As always, it wasn’t the differences that struck me so much as what had remained the same. There was the same ancient, white-painted tin ceiling, made up of dozens of embossed squares. There was the narrow door in the back wall, behind the cash register; that was the door that led to a short hallway. On one side of the hallway was a dinky little office. On the other side was the door to the basement.
The walls had been repainted. Of course.
The store was empty except for a balding blond man, very spiffily dressed in a gray suit. He looked a little bored. His hands were in his pockets, and he was staring at a row of shoes with strange, squared-off toes, as though he was trying to decide if he liked them or not, without really seeming to care much either way. He turned away from the square-toed shoes and scratched the back of his neck. The scratching turned into picking at something, maybe a pimple or a scab.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of someone staring at me through the window of the magazine and smoke shop next door. The graying hair was slicked back and oiled with pomade, and I could see the flash of gold around his neck. Mr. Boscana. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him. He’d been sitting at that same stool behind the counter for as long as I could remember. Still, the sight of that familiar face jolted me. I could read a quick series of emotions playing with his features—shock, pity. He collected himself and rearranged his mouth into a wide, warm smile, his white teeth flashing even behind the smudged window. He rose from his stool by the cash register.
In a minute he was standing outside his store, his necklace and teeth flashing in the sun. “Owen! Owen, mi hombrecito!”
I’m a coward. You know that about me already. For the second time in a single day, I chickened out. This time was worse than the time with Mason. This time I heard the hurt in Mr. Boscana’s voice, calling after me as I rushed away down the street: “Owen!! Hang on a minute!”
The liveliness of Broadway now felt like some menacing barricade. I couldn’t maneuver through