The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [87]
Julianne wasn’t so sure.
Down one level. Across the polished floor. The dazzling sun beckoning from outside the glass door like a promise impossible to fulfill.
They moved as normally as they could, Julianne full of dread, steps leaden, Paisley floating on a mad euphoria.
They almost made it out of the store.
“Miss. Miss,” a man’s voice said.
Both of them turned.
“Are you talking to me?” Julianne asked.
He wasn’t tall, but he loomed: the perfect plainclothes security guard, fiftysomething and graying, a bit of a belly above the belted khaki slacks. Short-sleeved button-down shirt but, considering the weather, no tie.
Blood pounded in her ears, so loud she could hardly hear his answer. “Not you,” he said. “Her. Your friend.” He pointed to Paisley.
With an expression of benign curiosity, Paisley cocked her head. “Yes?”
“Your blouse, miss.” He looked at her hard then, and the sight must have muted his gruffness. He seemed slightly embarrassed. “I don’t believe you purchased the blouse.”
Julianne froze.
Paisley looked down at herself and registered surprise. “Oh, no! You’re right!” She laughed. “Julianne, I bet you didn’t notice, either. We were so wrapped up in Millie’s divorce—one of our friends,” she explained to the guard—“that I forgot to change back into my other shirt.”
The guard watched this performance, skeptical. “You forgot?”
“I’m so sorry,” Paisley said. “I bet my shirt is still up in that dressing room. I’m so, so sorry. I’ll just go back up there and change.”
“Miss, I’m afraid I’ll have to . . .” Then he seemed to reconsider. Pulling from his pocket what looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie, he mumbled into it, then shut it off. He herded them back to the elevator. “We’ll just see,” he told Paisley as he pushed the button. Watching her. Wanting her, Julianne suspected. “Lucky I found you before you left the store.”
“Oh, Lord,” Paisley told him. “This is such a terrible, terrible mistake.”
“Let’s hope so.”
The elevator door groaned open and released them onto the second floor.
The saleswoman, sour-faced now, produced Paisley’s shirt that, indeed, she’d found in the dressing room when she’d removed the clothes they’d tried on but hadn’t bought. “You forgot the shirt you walked in with and nearly walked out accidentally with a blouse worth five times as much?” Her voice rang with irritation, disdain, disbelief.
“Yes, I guess that’s exactly what I did,” Paisley whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Once more, the woman escorted Paisley into the fitting area, gave her the shirt she’d worn into the store, and stood outside until Paisley emerged, appropriately clothed, holding out the not-stolen-after-all blouse like an offering.
“Thank you for being so understanding,” she told the saleswoman, all contrition.
Minutes later, she repeated these words to the security guard, who was escorting them out of the store, all the while undressing Paisley with his eyes.
“Close call,” Julianne said as they moved into sunlight, into a wall of heat. “Polished performance.”
“It was.”
A spike of anger surged up Julianne’s spine. Had Paisley no sense of the danger they’d averted? They were halfway to the car, walking in the full ninety-degree sun, before she realized Paisley was pale and shivering. Noting Julianne noticing, Paisley said, “I’m okay. Just—a little shaken.”
Well, you should be. But she couldn’t make the fury carry to her voice. “For a while,” she said, “I figured you lifted expensive clothing all the time. Now I’m not so sure.”
Paisley attempted a carefree laugh that came out like the bark of a small dog. “The last time I shoplifted was when I was five. I had gotten a little purse for my birthday, and I took it everywhere. Whenever I was in the grocery store with my mother, I’d stand beside her while she was in the checkout line and put a few candy