The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [89]
Boo’s Bubble was nice.
They stopped at an intersection and waited for the light to change. When it did, they looked carefully both ways and hurried across four lanes of traffic and a short parking lot and onto the sidewalk of—
“Highland Park Village,” Boo said.
They were standing outside a store named Polo/Ralph Lauren in a fairyland place Pajamae had never imagined existed, fancy cars lining the sidewalk shaded by little trees and fancy white women getting out of those cars followed by pretty little white girls looking like princesses and giving her second and third glances like they had never seen a black person their whole lives, and leaving behind a smell so sweet that Pajamae breathed it in several times and was reminded of the old fat ladies at church each Sunday morning—only these ladies weren’t fat and they didn’t gush over her and pinch her cheek. The white women and white girls just hustled by and into the store, the cool air from inside rushing out, making Pajamae’s face feel like it did when she stuck her head in the freezer to cool off, as she often did down home in the projects.
Boo said, “Do y’all have shopping places like this?”
“We don’t have any place like this.”
When she and Mama went shopping, it was generally at yard sales and the Goodwill store, not someplace where she couldn’t begin to pronounce the names, and sometimes one of their neighbors would get a good deal on sneakers or stereos or TVs and sell them right out of his car trunk, at real good prices ’cause the stuff was a little warm, Mama would say, although Pajamae was never exactly sure what she meant. And before school started each year, Mama would work extra and Louis would take them to buy her school clothes at the JCPenney, but it wasn’t like this.
“Where-as,” Pajamae said.
They walked down the sidewalk in the shade of the awning, Pajamae feeling like it was Christmas, checking out every window display, fancy clothes on skinny mannequins wearing makeup, and past a kid’s store—
“That’s Jacadi Paris,” Boo said. “My closet is full of clothes from here.”
“Does this stuff cost a lot?”
“Mother bought them, so they must.”
When they arrived at a store called Calvin Klein, Boo said, “Britney was here a few months ago.”
“Britney who?”
“Britney Spears, the singer. Everybody went crazy.”
“White girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. We don’t listen to white girls down in the projects.”
Boo shrugged. “I don’t listen to her up here either.”
And on they went, past stores named Luca Luca and Escada and Lilly Dodson—“Mrs. Bush bought her red party dress here, when George W. got elected the first time,” Boo said—and Banana Republic—only they sold clothes not bananas—and they crossed the parking lot and got ice cream cones at Who’s Who Burgers.
They walked outside and Pajamae stopped short. A bad feeling swept over her small body: the bald man in the black car was driving by slowly and giving her a creepy stare. She got really scared, and Pajamae Jones didn’t get really scared easily.
“Boo, that man’s following us.”
“What man?”
“That man who just drove by, in that black car. See him? The bald guy?”
Boo laughed. “This is Highland Park. Nothing bad happens here.”
Boo tugged on her arm and Pajamae followed reluctantly. They walked past more stores then went inside a store with the same name as the old wino with no teeth who lived three apartments down. Harold.
“This was my mother’s favorite store,” Boo said.
A saleslady was on them before they made it five steps, and Pajamae thought at first she was going to run them out. But the lady smiled and said hi like she was really happy to see them. She was very pretty for a white girl, with hair that bounced