It’s a Saturday morning and I am shopping with Charlotte. She wants new shoes to wear to Mr. Dupree’s funeral on Sunday, but I know better. She wants to be at the mall so she can walk by Wilson’s Western Wear and let the nonvaliant rake get a good look at what he’s missing. She says they are broken up, but I’m not so sure. She’s put on lip gloss and perfume, and you wouldn’t get made up to go shopping with a twelve-year-old. Even I know this.
First, we go to Starbucks to get a double-shot/heavy foam/latte, though it’s so hot outside I think this might have been a ridiculous/double-insane idea. Ha-ha! Charlotte says she must have black closed-toe sling backs, though I don’t see why. She has a million pairs of shoes already but still wants more. I do not pretend to understand this about her. I yawn. Shopping is only fun if you have money, which I don’t. She slides on the tenth pair of almost identical shoes and I nod my approval.
“So, what’s the real story about Casserole Man?” I’ve been waiting to find out what happened behind the scenes and to see if Lisa’s first-breakup theory is correct.
“I don’t know. He has his moments. I’m not even sure I still think I’m in love,” she says. “The whole chemistry with us is different now.”
“Why?” I ask, which is a single-word question hiding one hundred questions behind it.
She considers a pair of silver sandals. The store lights hit them in full brilliance and you would think they were precious jewels.
“Well, I’m just going to play hard to get, is all,” she says. “He cares about me and I want to see more of it.” From what I saw the other night, there’s nothing more to Christopher than a stupid jerk.
“He is just so in my face, you know. Wants to be with me. Wants to have his hand on my shoulder. Read what I’ve written. Talk about it over an espresso,” she says. “It’s all too tight like an itchy sweater.”
This all sounds pretty peachy to me. Plus, you can always put a T-shirt under an itchy sweater to make it feel better. But since I know she doesn’t want the truth, I leave her to her delusion, which is my new favorite word.
It’s clear that Charlotte is not the expert at relationships I thought she was.
Finn joins us at a square table in the middle of the mall food court. Their mother is coming home from her cruise tomorrow, so he is practicing staying out of her way. I wish the truth was he was there to hang out with me, but no, this is not so. I pretend it is true, though.
I eat a de-lish slice of pepperoni pizza and slurp my Coke, knowing how ungraceful it is, but liking the sound of it just the same. I think it is another side of me that isn’t quite a real woman yet. Before you know it, Christopher has plopped down next to us and is all smiles. He thinks we’ve forgotten about his dark side.
“Charlotte, we’re leaving in ten,” Finn says.
“I’m ready now,” she replies, and then gets up to throw out her trash. It doesn’t dawn on stupid Christopher that he should leave now.
Finn leans back in his chair and gives me a wide smile that goes straight into my heart. I have to look at the floor or it will show. I find a mashed open ketchup wrapper and pretend it is the most interesting object in the world.
“Hello! Earth to Sarah? Are you still in space?”
“What? No.”
“Good,” he says. “I need your help. We have a mission.”
First of all, I would never come to the Vikon El Bazaar Flea Market by myself, even though it is the strangest and coolest mall you’d ever want to see. For example, if you need a fake ID, a puppy, and a pullout sofa, this is the place for you. Finn has boxed up Mrs. Dupree’s books to sell, and this is the place for them, too.
The whole building is a giant maze, and you’d better memorize how you got in so you can get back out. There are so many different booths stacked high with stuff, each one divided by a thin wall made out of white wood. The only thing connecting the shops are chains of multicolored Christmas lights strung up along the ceiling.
When you walk by the stalls, it feels more like you are on display. The salespeople sit in chairs, chewing on toothpicks, just waiting for you to admire a velvet Elvis or a giant pair of white-framed sunglasses so they can say, “How much would you want to pay for this?”
Being with Charlotte and Finn makes me feel confident enough, but I stay close because I am a tiny bit scared by how many eyes are on me. We each carry a cardboard box to the used-book stall. I browse the shelves while Finn makes the deal. I would stay in this tiny library forever, but Charlotte spots a vintage-clothing area and off she goes. We follow her and immediately it’s as if we are inside an old woman’s closet. There are at least five glossy armoires, their doors hanging open like wooden arms. The shelves are draped with scarves and beaded necklaces and brooches with fake diamonds. Shoes lined up on gold, mirror-backed shelves. An old woman’s powdery scent is all over the place.
I run my fingers across a line of clothes. What if these dresses could talk? Did some beautiful young girl with bright red lipstick get engaged in this dress?
And the purses. They are in all colors and shapes and almost look brand-new. Whoever owned them either took good care of them or didn’t go anywhere. My purse always looks beat-up and old, but not in the good way.
It comes to me suddenly how more of Mr. Dupree’s things might end up hanging in this kind of store. Who would want them, I don’t know. What do you do with a person’s things when they don’t live with you anymore?
Now Charlotte has found the mother lode of hats inside a giant ivory-colored armoire. We take turns modeling them in front of a long mirror.
Charlotte has a dark pink hat with a feathery plume coming off it. I have a classic black pillbox, and I know its name only because Charlotte tells me so. It doesn’t exactly go with my shorts and flip-flops, but maybe if I had a simple black dress, I would look like I belonged back in time, standing on a train platform, waiting to be taken away. And then he, whoever he is, would step onto the platform and smile at me. Since I don’t know what he would look like, I insert Finn’s face into the picture, a blue suit matching his eyes so well you could see them across the crowd.
I tell my brain to knock it off and stop pretending I am a movie star. I don’t know why my mind runs away with me.
Finn appears in the mirrored reflection behind us, swinging his arm around my shoulder. Something loosens in me and makes my neck go red. There he is in a gentleman’s bowler hat, or so he calls it.
“You two are definitely going to be arrested by the fashion police,” Charlotte says.
“Or start a new fashion trend,” I say.
Finn decides we should all buy the hats anyway. His treat. He says hats make a woman look as pretty from the back as she is from the front. We’ll wear them to the funeral for Mr. Dupree. Go there in style to make Mrs. Dupree smile. That’s exactly how he says it.