Vintage Veronica (5 page)

THUNK! THUNK!
comes from inside the chute. Then a shuffle and kind of a whooshing noise, which tells me the clot has been cleared. Then both his hands emerge, like they always do right before he’s going to pull himself out.

But the next thing I know, they disappear again and I hear this kind of muffled
auggh
noise as his feet start to slide backward. Then he’s gone.

“Oh my God—Len?”

“I’m okay.” His voice is muffled. “I’m just a little—uh, I think I’m stuck.”

“You think?” I say, rolling my eyes for the benefit of exactly no one. I peer into the chute and see only darkness. Holy shit, how far has he fallen? There’s no freaking way I’m climbing in. If a string bean of a guy like The Nail can get stuck, it’s pretty clear what would happen to me.

I consider calling Bill. It’s likely he’d come right up and remedy the situation. But then I’d kind of owe him, and that’s an unacceptable option. I could stick something down for The Nail to grab, like a broom or something. But he is so fragile, it might just poke him deeper in.

“Um, a little help? I’m really kind of stuck.”

There’s no way around it. I stick my head into the chute and tentatively reach one hand into the darkness. Almost immediately I encounter resistance: The Nail’s shoe, a brown-on-brown suede sneaker.

I move my hand farther and wince at the unexpected sensation of his leg hair and bare skin. I take a deep breath, grab hold, brace myself, and pull. At first there is no movement. Then I feel a little shift, though not enough. My hand slips and I almost pull his shoe off.

“Crap,” I say. In goes my other hand. I brace with my tummy and pull, harder this time. I readjust my grip and manage to slide him up a few inches. I wipe off my hands and try again. A little more success.

“Okay. I’ve got it from here,” he says.

I drop his ankle and watch both feet emerge. His hands appear, and this time he is able to brace himself as he backs out. He brushes his bangs out of his eyes, to no avail, and smiles sheepishly.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’ve never fallen into the chute before.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a first time for everything,” I say, my irritation temporarily trumped by my relief. The moment passes when I remember that I touched him. I wipe my hands on my skirt. Yeesh. The Nail skeeves me to no end. The fact that he’s so damned friendly makes him even more annoying.

“So, okay. Chute’s clear, check. Any racks ready to go downstairs?” he asks.

Oh, good. Right. Give him a rack and he’ll leave. Excellent.

“Um, yeah. That one.”

But he doesn’t leave. I don’t know why. He’s supposed to leave. That’s basically the extent of his job: take the racks and leave.
Leave
, I beam at him silently.
Leeeeaaaavvveeee
.

But no, he stays. The next thing I know, The Nail starts to inspect the clothing on my racks, which I’m pretty sure isn’t part of his job. I watch him closely, hating him for being there and poking around, touching what I like to think of as my stuff. The Nail has this way of seeming to be on the lookout for something, which makes me start to wonder about him. Maybe The Nail gets over by looking all meek, but has some sort of racket going. Admittedly, I’m suspicious by nature. But then, when I see him sneaking peeks at labels and running fabrics through his fingers, I think that maybe I’m not so off base.

While he pokes around, I pretend to be engrossed in a shoebox full of consignment paperwork. But out of the corner of my eye, I watch The Nail. He seems drawn to a rack where I keep all the really good finds, the stuff I’m not quite ready to see go downstairs. Sort of my Consignment Corner Greatest Hits, if you will. First he fiddles with the bolo tie on a Western shirt I bagged and tagged the day before. Then he drifts absently to the next item, a real one-of-a-kind find: a campy pair of pink flannel pajamas with an unusual print of frolicking foxes and hounds. He pulls the collar forward with one thin finger and squints at the label. Then he rolls one of the cuffs of the pajama top between his
thumb and next two fingers and closes his thin eyelids for a moment.

I can’t help it; I turn and look right at him. For a second he gets this serene look on his face, almost like he’s dead or something. Then he opens his eyes and catches me watching him.

Before I can look away or say anything, he says, “Do you think I could have these?”

“No!” I snap instinctively, though as soon as I say the word I begin to panic, thinking he’s going to ask me to tell him why not. Thankfully, he nods sagely, accepting my refusal as if he expected it all along.

I should have known he’d want the pajamas. They’re really special and I have lingered over them for a few weeks, not wanting to say goodbye and send them to The Real Deal. They’re from the 1930s, soft as butter and in mint condition. I have fingered the same cuff myself no less than a dozen times. There’s nothing in this world that’s as soft as vintage flannel.

Suddenly I lunge forward and snatch the hanger off the rack. Startled, The Nail lets go of the pajama cuff. The sleeve falls limp.

“Oops, these can’t go downstairs yet. Sorry.”

The Nail nods again and says nothing. Without looking at any of the other items, he takes the metal clothing rack and pushes it in the direction of the freight elevator. The Z-shaped base of the rack stabilizes it, but also makes it list to the side. So he keeps having to stop and reposition himself
as he pushes it along. Occasionally the casters lock up, which slows him down even more.

“Later,” I say under my breath like a curse as I watch him slowly navigate across the floor. Alone again, I realize that my heart was pumping. More than anything, I am surprised by his nerve. Did he actually think I would just let him take the pajamas? That I’d be so charitable as to not know how to say no when the timid little dork asked for something so seemingly minor?

I play and replay the incident in my mind. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would The Nail want my beloved pink hunting-scene pj’s? They’re women’s pajamas, too small to fit him (
way
too small for me, not that that’s really the point) even if he did swing that way, although I can’t imagine that he does. There’s no way a guy like him has a girlfriend. So what would he want with them? Is it possible he knew I wanted them and for some reason that made him want to take them away from me?

By lunchtime I’m totally worked up over this, but Claire still hasn’t shown up, so there’s no one on Employees Only! to tell. The Lunch Ladies are gathered around their table, leaning in and shouting, laughing riotously at each other’s jokes, shoveling food to their mouths like lunch is some kind of raucous Olympic event.

Where IS Claire, anyway?
When the Lunch Ladies start to clear their dishes, I stand up, feeling restless and irritated. Much as I don’t want to, there’s no other choice but to go downstairs and see if any of the Florons have seen her.

One flight down, the door with the cat door carved into it, where I once paused on the yellow brick road before crossing the threshold and ascending to Employees Only!, is right next to the Real Deal dressing rooms. So when I go downstairs, I practically bump into the Floron manning the dressing rooms. Who happens to be Zoe.

After what happened at the Mooks this morning, I’m more wary of her than ever. But there she is, all six feet of her, sprawled across two barstools at the counter that defines the entry to the dressing room area. She’s flipping through a catalog, her legs up and her big fishnetted thighs crossed at the knee. A big pink and black sign above her head warns,
ONE PERSON IN DRESSING ROOM ONLY
! To her right, three pairs of shoes are shuffling at the bottom of a leopard-print dressing room curtain.

I approach her cautiously, summoning up my nerve. “Do you know where Claire is?” seems like a straightforward, and thus safe, question. Until I ask it, that is.

“Beats me,” says Zoe, without looking up. She picks up a flyswatter and pretends to flog herself with it for the benefit of Ginger, who turns out to be slouched down behind the counter, drinking a soda.

Ginger giggles her approval.

“Seriously,” I try again. “Has she called in? She was supposed to be here about a decade ago.”

Ginger comes around the counter, screwing the cap back on her soda. Zoe and Ginger exchange glances. Zoe puts down the catalog and sighs dramatically.

“Look, New Girl,” says Zoe. “I know you just started working here, but there’s something you ought to know about Claire.”

Ginger makes a mournful face.

“Claire’s very sick,” Zoe informs me. Ginger nods solemnly.

“She is?” I ask.

“Yes,” says Ginger. “Claire has a terminal case of …”

“
Cun
-junctivitis!” blurts Zoe.

They both burst out laughing.

“Pinkeye?” I ask, making them laugh even harder.

“Don’t worry, it’s not
cun
-tagious!” adds Ginger. The way she enunciates the last word suddenly clues me in.

“It’s really for the best, all things
cun
-sidered,” says Zoe.

“Yeah, yeah, her
cun
-dition is fatal!”

They try to keep going, between fits of laughter.

“Oh, oh, I’ve got one,” says Ginger, flapping her hands and trying to catch her breath. “They’re
cun
-sidering …”

All of a sudden Zoe straightens up like a prairie dog. “Well, hey, Claire!” she says brightly.

Ginger practically falls over, suddenly busying herself with straightening a rack of gauze peasant blouses. I turn and look around for Claire. In a moment, Ginger looks up hesitantly, then realizes.

“You bitch,” she says to Zoe.

“Suck-ahs!” Zoe doubles over, slapping her thigh.

“Forget it,” I mutter, heading back toward the stairway.

“Hey, New Girl! Wait. Come back!”

“Yeah, we have something to tell you.”

“Seriously, come back.”

“We’re sorry. Please?”

“I have to get back.” I toss the lie over my shoulder.

“No, you don’t,” announces Zoe.
How does she know that?
I pause, my hand on the Employees Only! door handle.

“Come on,” she coaxes. “We won’t bite.”

I stand there, frozen, dreading what I know is going to come next.
Dumb-ass
, I say to myself.
With all the crap you’ve put up with all these years, where do you get off thinking that this job, this store, this world will be any different?

“What’s your name again, New Girl? Vera?” asks Zoe.

I look up, surprised. I can’t believe she’s even close.

“Veronica,” I say.

“Veronica, close enough,” she says. “Come on, we need a word with you.”

I’m still frozen, hand on the door. My heart is pounding.

“Unless you’d rather sit upstairs and wait for your boss with the
cun
-tagious
cun
-dition …”

I can tell from her voice she’s smiling. I turn and nervously return the smile.
Could I run? Just bolt up the stairs, just like that?

“Attagirl,” says Zoe, wagging her finger at me. She yells across the floor at another Floron, “Hey, Gwen, watch the dressing rooms for five!”

“Yeah, right. Five,” says the girl.

“Five, ten, whatever. You owe me.”

“For what?”

Zoe answers with a burst of haughty, knowing laughter.
Then she grabs me by the hand and pulls me forward into the stairwell. Ginger follows, smirking. Zoe doesn’t let go until we’re down on Dollar-a-Pound. Only instead of going to the right, into the back area behind The Pile, she pushes open a door marked
DO NOT PROP THIS DOOR OPEN
! and then proceeds to prop it open with a brick. The door leads to a loading dock where trucks pull up to load and unload bulk shipments of clothing.

“Ta-da!” says Ginger. “Welcome to our salon.” She gestures broadly to the loading dock.

“Someday, all this will be yours,” says Zoe, putting an arm around my shoulder and adopting a fake deep voice. Ginger squeaks with appreciative laughter.

Even with Zoe practically (and inexplicably) hugging me and Ginger giggling like a chipmunk, I’m tense, waiting for the inevitable attack.

I wish they’d just get it over with.

There are no trucks around, so Zoe and Ginger plunk themselves down on the concrete shelf, their legs dangling. Ginger pulls over a cardboard box, reaches inside, and pulls out a tablecloth. She covers the box with the cloth, then produces what appears to be the Mookie’s bag from this morning.

“Donut?” she says, opening the bag and extending the open end in my direction.

Her smile seems genuine, but instinctively I resist.

“No, thanks.”

“Aw, c’mon, take one,” Ginger insists, shaking the bag. “We’ve got, like, a million.”

“No. Really.”

Zoe gives me the evil eye. “It’s because you’re fat, isn’t it?”

“Oh my God, Zo!” yells Ginger. “I can’t believe you said that!”

“What, called her fat?” Zoe says. “Look at her. She IS fat.”

“Zo, I swear, you are such a bitch!” To me, Ginger adds, “I’m sorry she’s such a bitch.”

“That’s right, I’m a bitch,” says Zoe.

Then Zoe unzips this little white furry purse she always carries and begins digging through it. Which is good, because I can’t look at her. I’m actually too shocked and startled to feel the cut of her words. It’s a funny thing about being fat. People will say all kinds of mean shit behind your back and even in your presence, but no one will ever look you in the eye and call you fat to your face. Or at least no one has to me, until now.

While she’s digging, she’s kind of talking to herself. I hear some of the words:
“Fatso, Fatty Patty; Fatty-fatty-two-by-four, can’t fit through the lunchroom door; want some fries to go with that shake? Lard-ass; Buffalo butt …”
But they’re not aimed at me. It’s more like she’s reciting a grocery list or something.

“Check this out,” she says finally, coming up with a small plastic rectangle and holding it up.

I reach for it, but she pulls it back. She pats the concrete next to her, mouthing the word “sit.”

I sit, half expecting her to say “Good girl” and pat my
head. She looks me in the eye and hands me the little plastic thing.