Shopgirl (2 page)

SHE STANDS OVER THE GLOVE
counter, and from her secluded outpost looks far across the hall toward the couture department. When the view is reversed, and a couture girl bothers to glance toward her, Mirabelle looks like a puppy standing on its hind legs, and the two brown dots of her eyes, set in the china plate of her face, make her seem very cute and noticeable. But pointlessly so, at least today. For this Friday is what she has termed the day of the dead, when for some reason––usually an upcoming Beverly Hills dress-up event––the couture department fills with women who are unlikely to notice the slender girl standing at one end of their hallowed hall. They are the Wives of Important Men.

The metamorphosis most wanted by the wives of important men is that they become important in their own right. This distinction is achieved by wielding power over any and all and is characterized by an intense obsession with spending. Without spending, there would be thirty to sixty empty hours per week, to be filled with what? And not only is there the spending itself, there is the organization and management of spending. There is hiring and firing, there is the discernment of what the spending needs to be on, and there is the psychological requirement that the husband be proud of the wife's spending. The range of the spending can go from clothes and jewelry to furniture and lighting, dishes and flatware, and catalogue seeds and firewood. Sometimes it is fun to spend economically. Of course, economic spending is not intended to save money, but is a practice of ethics.

Along with the desire to spend comes a desire to control what is coming back at them from the mirror. Noses are bobbed into a shape that nature never knew, hair is whipped up with air and colored into a metallic tinted meringue, and faces are pulled into death masks. The variety of alteration is vast, except when it comes to breasts. Breasts are made large only––and in the process misshapen––and the incongruity of two bowling balls on an ironing board never seems to bother anyone. In Beverly Hills, young men, searching for young women who remind them of their face-lifted mothers, are stranded and forlorn in a sea of natural-looking twenty-five-year-olds.

Today, as she stares hypnotically at these tribal women, one clear thought emerges to Mirabelle: how different this place is from Vermont. Then, out of the idleness that permeates every day at work, she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She scratches her elbow. She curls her toes, then angles her leg to give her calf a stretch. She flicks a paper clip several inches across the glass of the countertop. She runs her tongue along the back of her teeth. Footsteps approach her. Her automatic response is to straighten up and look like she is an ever ready force in the Neiman's sales team, for the sound of footsteps could mean
supervisor
as likely as
customer
. What she sees, though, is a rare sight in the fourth-floor glove department. It is a gentleman, looking for a pair of ladies' dress gloves. He wants them gift wrapped and could they do that? Mirabelle nods in her professional way, and then the man, sharply dressed in a dark blue suit, asks her opinion on which is the finest pair. Being a sharp dresser herself, she actually does have an opinion on the merchandise she offers, and she gives him the lowdown on smart glove purchasing. There is some conversation about what and who they are for. The man gives her some embarrassed, vague answers, often the case when men shop for women, and in response she suggests that the silver satin Diors are the best. He purchases the gloves with a credit card, smiles at her, and leaves. Mirabelle watches him walk away. Her eyes go to his shoes, which she understands and knows something about, and her inner checklist gives him full marks in all categories. Mirabelle catches herself in the countertop mirror, and realizes she has blushed.

There are a few late browsers that day, and they punctuate the tedium like drops from a Chinese water torture. Six o'clock, and she is down the stairs rather than the elevator, which can become clogged at closing time, and out onto the main floor. Several customers linger at the fragrance counter, a few in cosmetics, surprisingly light for a Friday. Mirabelle thinks the salesgirls in these departments overuse their own products, especially the lipstick. With their inclination toward the heavy application of a greasy burgundy, they look like Man Ray's disembodied lips floating over a landscape of boxed perfumes.

It is six-fifteen and pitch dark on the drive home down Beverly Boulevard. It is drizzling rain, which causes the traffic to move like sludge in a trough. Mirabelle wears her driving glasses as she grips the wheel with both hands. She drives in the same posture as she walks, overly erect. The glasses give her a librarian quality––before libraries were on CD-ROM––and the '89 Toyota truck she drives indicates a librarian's salary, too. The rain splashes on the roof and Garrison Keillor intones on the radio, creating a warm, fireside feeling in this unlikeliest of circumstances. All this coziness sends her into a little ache and she swears that she will find someone tonight to hold her. This is an extremely rare decision for Mirabelle. The last time she was even mildly promiscuous was in college, when it was the thing to do and she was feeling her bohemian oats. She decides that when she gets home, she will pick up the phone and call Jeremy.

IN CALLING JEREMY, MIRABELLE KNOWS
that she is making a devil's bargain. She is offering herself to him on the outside chance that he will hold her afterward. She feels very practical about this and vows not to feel bad if things don't work out. After all, she tells herself, she isn't really involved with him emotionally or otherwise.

For Mirabelle, there are four levels of being held. The first, and highest, is the complete surround: he will wrap his arms around her and they will spoon as he whispers how beautiful she is and how he had been transported to another plane. The odds of this particular scenario unfolding from the youthful Jeremy are slim, in fact, so slim that they could slip out the door without opening it. There are, however, other levels of holding that for tonight would suit Mirabelle just fine. He could lie on his back and she would rest her head on his chest, while one of his arms holds her tight. Third best would involve Mirabelle lying on her back with Jeremy alongside her, resting one hand on her stomach while the other plays with her hair. This position requires the utterances of sweet nothings for her to be fully satisfied. She is aware he has barely spoken a sentence that didn't end in “you know” and then trail off into a mumble since they have been together, which makes the appearance of these sweet nothings unlikely. But this could be a plus, as she can interpret his mumbles any way she wants––they could be impeccably metered love sonnets for all she knows. In fourth position, they are lying on their backs, with one of Jeremy's legs resting languidly over one of hers. This is the minimally acceptable outcome, and involves a commitment of extra time on his part to compensate for his lack of effort.

Coming out of her reverie, which was so specific she could have been a lawyer formulating a contract, she picks up the phone and dials. It rings a few times, and the thought that he might not be home sends a shiver of relief through her. However, just as she is about to hang up, she hears the clatter of the phone being picked up. But instead of hearing his voice on the other end of the line, she hears what she makes out to be Jeremy's TV set filtered through the telephone. She keeps waiting for him to say hello or yeah or anything, but the TV continues. Eventually she hears him walk across the room, open the refrigerator, walk back to the living room, and flop himself down on the sofa. She can hear the laugh track of the television, and a few moments later, Jeremy's vociferous nose-blow. Mirabelle stands there, wondering what to do. She thinks surely he will see that the phone is off the hook. Surely he heard it ring. Now committed, she worries that if she hangs up, she will get a busy signal for the rest of the night, as it is already clear that the phone doesn't lie in the path from sofa to refrigerator, and that that particular route is the only one he will be taking that evening. She presses the speakerphone button and cradles the handset. Jeremy's TV is still present in her house, but at least she has her hands free.

In her small apartment she is never far from the speaker, and she gets out of her shoes and takes off her skirt and blouse, throws on an oversized shirt, and walks around in her underwear. She completes several chores that are left over from the weekend. A couple of times she screams Jeremy's name into the speakerphone, with no effect. She catches herself midscream and thinks how it must look and swears never to do something so humiliating again for any reason, ever, in her life. Then, with the TV still squawking through the telephone, she sits back on her futon and starts to laugh. The laughter causes a few tears to appear at the corners of her eyes, which sets her off on a crying jag. Then a hiccup gets her laughing again, causing her to fall over sideways on the futon, and at one point she is actually laughing and crying at the same time. She finally burns herself out and after resting for several minutes, goes over to hang up the phone. As she is about to press the hope-ending speaker button, she hears Jeremy's footsteps coming across the hardwood, increasing in volume, clearly walking toward the phone. Her hand hesitates. Then she hears the touch-tones of Jeremy dialing the phone. She waits. Suddenly his voice says, “Hello?” Mirabelle picks up the receiver and says hello back.

“It's Jeremy.”

She responds, “Do you know who this is?”

“Yeah. Mirabelle.”

“Did you just call me?” she says.

“Yeah.”

It is at this point that she understands that Jeremy knows nothing about what has occurred over the last twenty minutes. He thinks he has just walked over to the phone and dialed Mirabelle, and she has answered. Mirabelle decides not to ask what happened, afraid that they might enter an infinite loop of explanation. It turns out that he wants to see her that night, so she invites him over and everything falls into place.

Jeremy arrives thirty minutes later and leans against the wall with a slouch so extreme that he appears to have left his skeleton at home. He carries a paper bag containing some vile-smelling fast food, which she immediately recognizes as French fries because the grease stains have made the bag transparent. But at least he's had the courtesy to bring something over, an offering to her for what he is about to receive. Mirabelle hastily constructs a fifth option, which is to get him to simply snuggle with her, so she won't have to put out. This option is hastily discarded because it is the afterglow she wants, and she begins her process of seduction wordlessly, naturally set into motion by the blush of her skin, and the willingness of her legs, and her readiness, which she knows a man can sense. If only Jeremy were a man.

Instead, she practically has to spell it out for him. Mirabelle longs to have a
Wuthering Heights
movie on tape that she can throw on, point to, and say, “Get it?” Jeremy's instinct for lovemaking turns out to be all right, once the idea has been writ large by Mirabelle with oils and candles and incense and music and some two-bit scotch that neither has drunk before in their lives. But because Jeremy fails to fully arouse Mirabelle, her ardor never peaks and she therefore fails to fully arouse Jeremy, resulting in a see-saw condom battle that is waged this way: she works Jeremy up into a nice little erection, but by the time they get the condom on, with its dulling insulation, there is a loss of stature. Mirabelle is not exactly relaxed and wet either, which causes Jeremy's penis to bend and fold as he tries to enter her. Then they have to start all over. She removes the condom, works him up by kissing him on the mouth and stimulating him with her hand. Occasionally, the cat jumps on the bed and bats at Jeremy's testicles as if they were hanging balls of catnip, causing a disastrous delay in the action. Then they struggle with the condom and the cycle begins all over again. This goes back and forth several times, with Mirabelle rubbing him vigorously, then flopping herself speedily back on the bed and spreading her legs instantly, until the inevitable happens again. There are three entities in the room that night, Mirabelle, Jeremy, and an animated penis that expands and contracts like an anesthesiologist's oxygen balloon. Finally, his youth prevails, and Jeremy successfully dwells for a few moments in paradise. The life expectancy of a radial tire: this is the thought that races through Jeremy's mind as he tries to delay his impatient ejaculation.

Eventually, the deed is done and all the thrashing comes to an end. The two of them, not touching, lie there in the shadowy darkness, and everything is silent. The distance between them is awful. But then Jeremy snakes his arm around her shoulder, sliding it just under her neck, and reaches his hand up into her hair and gently pulls her near him. He brings his body in close. Mirabelle feels her perspiration mix with his, and she likes that. Her senses refocus on the room and she smells the vanilla of the candle. She sees herself in the bedroom mirror and notices that her breasts have filled from his touch, clumsy as it was, and she likes the way she looks. Jeremy glistens in the low light. Mirabelle stares into her own eyes. And she feels all right.

Then a terrible thing happens. Jeremy uncoils himself from Mirabelle, stands in his underwear at the foot of the bed, and begins to talk. More than talk. Orate. And worse, he talks in a way that requires Mirabelle to respond with periodic uh-huhs. What he talks about is a range of topics loosely categorized under the heading Jeremy. He talks about Jeremy's hopes and dreams, his likes and dislikes, and, unfortunately, a lot about amplifiers. This includes Jeremy's perspective on amplifiers, and cost analysis, and how his boss's view of amplifiers contrasts with his own. This is the topic that requires most of the uh-huhs, and only by staring straight at him and forcing her eyes open a tiny bit wider, can Mirabelle appear somewhat interested. Unlike his penis, his stream of chatter does not rise and fall. It maintains a steady flow, and Mirabelle begins to question whether William Jennings Bryan still deserves to be known as America's most grandiose public speaker. Jeremy booms and bellows opinions and observations for a full thirty minutes, none of which ever leave the sphere of Jeremy. Eventually, he sputters out, returns to bed, and puts an arm around her, in a position yet uncategorized by Mirabelle that gives her some more of what she wants. Even with the ignoble flailing that took place earlier, she feels as though she has been wanted, and she knows he has thought her beautiful, and that she has made him happy and energized him, and that the expenditure of his energy on her has sent him into a deep, deep sleep.