The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [84]
The next day, thick tongued and thirsty, head throbbing and eyes rebelling against the light that poured into her kitchen as she poured Honey Nut Cheerios into bowls for the boys, she thought, What a damned fool I made of myself. She was too physically sick to dwell on her mental illness just then. Too sick to contemplate the different, single life she knew she was never going to have.
The following morning, Paisley called and said, “Get a babysitter tomorrow. We’re going shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“Wear decent clothes. I’m taking you to Novella.”
Novella was a snottily upscale department store. A customer who arrived in jeans, even good designer jeans, would be ignored long enough to sense that she had been rebuked. Paisley and Julianne both wore good linen slacks, summery blouses, and jewelry that in this heat they normally would have saved strictly for an “occasion.”
“What do you need?” Paisley asked as they rode up on the mirrored elevator. “Pants? Tops? A whole new fall wardrobe?”
“Fall? Is that another word for paradise? For nirvana? Isn’t that a couple of centuries from now when the kids go back to school? Too far away to think about fall.” Julianne marveled at how much she sounded like a normal, sane person, even though she stood so far from herself that she might have been watching on closed-circuit TV.
“Okay, no fall clothes,” Paisley agreed, just as the elevator doors opened onto the sight of fully outfitted mannequins in rust-colored wool, standing among a sprinkling of colorful autumn leaves. “But I bet the summer stuff is marked way down.” Grabbing Julianne by the hand, Paisley dragged her across the polished marble floor toward the sign reading Misses and Juniors and guided her to the sale racks.
“See, what did I tell you?” Flipping through the selections without apparent regard to anything except size, she seized an armful of hangers, a bright array of blouses, shorts, capri pants, and sundresses in every style and color.
An elderly saleswoman in a dark dress, shades of Julianne’s great-grandmother, escorted them to the fitting room. Julianne assumed she and Paisley would divide up the clothes and take adjoining cubicles, but Paisley said, “Oh, these things are huge,” and pulled Julianne in with her.
Huge was almost an understatement. The dressing room was as large as many bedrooms, fitted out with three-way mirrors, wall-hung pincushions for the alterations staff, and two plushly upholstered benches for children and friends. Paisley hung the clothes on what looked like jewel-encrusted hooks. “Okay, Julianne, take your pick.”
Inside her miasma of confusion and self-loathing, the sight of the lush surroundings where they could pamper themselves by trying on overpriced clothing they wouldn’t need for a year seemed almost obscene. A woman who could imagine herself intent on harm as she carried a knife to her child’s room didn’t deserve luxury. She deserved . . . what? For a moment, literally, she couldn’t draw breath. She sat down on one of the benches, opened her mouth and closed it, like a fish pulled from water. Then, with a great gulp, she drew air into her lungs.
“Julianne, what’s wrong?”
Embarrassed, Julianne shook her head. Her mouth was desert dry, her heartbeat a storm. “Nothing. Really. Nothing.” She meant to defuse the awkward moment with some clever comment, but nothing came. Paisley did it for her. Shedding her slacks and blouse without embarrassment, she said, “Come on, then. We’re here to shop.” She grabbed a full-skirted sundress festooned with oversize flowers and ferns, pulled it over her head, and turned to Julianne with an exaggerated frown. “Not really me, is it?”
“Only if you go for the tourist-who-took-Hawaii look.”
Paisley plucked another dress from its hanger and thrust it at Julianne. “Here, try this one.”
Julianne wasn’t sure she could. But somehow she did, her limbs leaden but obedient.
“That