You Are Not a Stranger Here - Adam Haslett [69]
“You want to buy her something.”
“Yeah,” Ted says, relieved. “Yeah, exactly. But what?”
“I’m charmed that you would ask my advice,” she says.
They pull off the first exit and into the parking lot of a giant mall, another place not ten miles from the Plymouth Brewster Elizabeth has never seen.
“We will find you the perfect gift,” she says, stepping from the car. “My mother was a great shopper. We would take the train down to New York and spend the afternoon picking out dresses at Bergdorf’s and then we’d have tea at the Plaza and stay the night there and examine shoes in the morning.” She barely recognizes the playful tone she hears in her voice. “I know a good piece of merchandise when I see it.”
“Cool.”
Elizabeth is able to dispense with the entirety of a store named T.J. Maxx in under five minutes. “Not us,” she says, gliding into the sunlit atrium, amazed at how easy it is to be here among people.
“What’s her name?”
“Lauren. But she’s not exactly, at the moment, you know, like my girlfriend.”
“Ah-hah, I see. Yes. This information is helpful. Here we are, good old Lord & Taylor, I think this will do nicely.”
“Oh, yeah, and her family—they’re rich. But what’s cool is she didn’t take a car from her parents, even though her stupid brother drives an SUV.”
“And does she live in a grand house?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty big. Down at the end of Winthrop Street, kinda near your old place. I’ve only driven by it a couple times.”
They arrive at accessories, Elizabeth fighting nervous excitement, recalling suddenly that the Lesters gave her a leather wallet for her wedding, embossed with her new initials. The Lesters, who came all the way from San Francisco and sat in the third row at Saint Andrew’s Church, and danced at the club after dinner: the men in black tie or officer’s dress, the women in chiffon or silk, glittering beneath the chandeliers, champagne on the porch, the sloping landscape of the golf course visible in the summer evening light, all of it just a bit more than her father could afford but what he and everyone wanted.
“A wallet perhaps?” she asks. “Cordovan with a silver clasp?”
“It looks kinda like my mother’s wallet. I mean, she’s got a cool wallet and all, but—”
“Of course, you’re right, we need something . . . contemporary.”
“Do you think it’s stupid to buy her something? I mean, she hasn’t even gone out with me.”
They pause briefly in luggage.
“What is it about her, Ted, what captivates you?”
“Well, she’s only been at school since the beginning of the semester, so she has friends but not really a clique yet. And she’s like an alterna-chick, you know, with her nose pierced, but real small, just a little stud, really tasteful, and her hair’s short and she wears great clothes, I guess like Euro indy-pop clothes. But that’s only part of it. I guess I just want to figure out what’s in her head, you know. Something about her makes me want to figure that out.”
Hester disapproves mightily of the cosmetics department. Strumpets hawking vanity: this is what we have become. A month of humiliation wouldn’t cleanse the body spiritual.
“Days of humiliation went out a long time ago, deary,” Elizabeth mutters, “and besides, they suffer too,” she reminds her old companion, sensing the fatigue in the smiles of the brightly clad women behind the shimmering counters. And shimmer they do, so fiercely Elizabeth wishes she had brought her sunglasses: the way the light hits the polished steel and glass, the glare of the tall orange display of a football player and bride, the picture of an ocean coming at her from the left, the saleswoman’s plucked eyebrow rising.
“Something for the holiday?”
Elizabeth breathes.
“Ted,” she says, suddenly imploring the lights to dim, “why don’t you explain to this nice lady.”
His cheeks flush red. “Well, ah, actually Lauren doesn’t wear makeup.”
Hester has noticed a large sign on the counter announcing a Thanksgiving Day sale for something called Egoiste perfume. Above the picture of the man’s naked torso there is a turkey in one corner