Shopping Trip
It was night. You were sitting in the library at your desk. You were staring at your laptop. You Tube.
It was your page. You had posted childhood pictures last year. It seemed so far away.
There was a picture of you sitting on the front steps of a neat, brick suburban house. An adorable little eight year old you in a powder blue sweater, jeans, matching blue sneaks grinning shyly at the camera – mountains in the distance. There was the picture of you – eleven – summertime – standing with your bicycle by a water fountain in the park - a statue of Bhudda behind you. And there was the picture of you at fourteen opening presents on Christmas morning in that little house in California.
Mildenhall, Yokata, Wuerzburg, Vacaville - you sure moved around. But that was life. It was exciting. It was fun. It was lonely.
You were the quiet one, the student, the good girl. You read, wrote poetry, painted watercolors, day dreamed.
But nowhere in your daydreams had been an old Victorian house with an older man who would love you. You couldn't have imagined how he would fulfill the yearnings that had become more and more urgent for you as your young years passed. As you had grown, your need for stability and love also grew and these needs bled into your desires and fantasies. Your quiet, intelligent exterior belied the wild thing that lived inside your skin with her steamy desires and volcanic passion.
You knew I had recognized this wildness immediately and had admired it. I had seen your intelligence and respected it. I had seen your vulnerable heart and fallen for it.
You knew I would never have crossed the boundary between us – our age difference – without your insistence. But you had wanted the boundary crossed. You had wanted it smashed.
Now, thinking back, you could see how I was vulnerable too. I had been lost for a long time – since years ago when you, in your world, were a very little girl living half way across the globe. You tried to imagine what it could have been - what was it that had blown my life apart.
Loss. You knew about loss. And grief. But what a loss it must have been.
You imagined that tacking that little note on the bulletin board in the student center had been a huge step outward for me. You shook your head slowly. What bizarre chance.
You thought about how the fates contrive to fulfill purposes that are invisible to us. You thought about how sometimes we find our own purpose in the morass of randomness and that's the other edge of the same sword. You had found a place here. And soon it would be Christmas.
You glanced back at your pictures. Christmas. You glanced at the anniversary clock on the mantle. Quarter 'till eleven.
You heard a soft rap on the door and saw it swing open. I smiled at you and said, "Ready?"
It struck you how I always knock first – and always the same little pattern – da daaa daaaa / da da da da. An old habit. A show of respect. You smiled back and got up from your desk, leaving the laptop open. Walking to me, you wrapped your arms around me snuggling your nose in my neck as was your habit. Habits – patterns – years in the making. "Yes. I'm ready."
We were going Christmas shopping on a Thursday night at eleven. Crazy.
You bundled up. Your thick wool sweater over your thick cotton blouse over your silk camisole. You pulled on your boots and tucked your jeans into their tops. Stocking-hat, scarf, mittens. And me in my double-breasted long coat, with my wine red scarf, leather fur-lined gloves and Astrakhan hat.
You took my hand. I opened the door. We stepped into the frigid air.
The wind was high and it was blowing the snow. We clamored down the stairs to the car – our driver was holding the door for you. You stopped to kiss me before you slid across the seat, me following.
The car made its way through the winter town, over the bridge across the river. We rode on the highway for a little bit. We pulled into the mall. Empty parking lots.
But the car pulled up to the main Macy's entrance and our driver opened the car door for us. There was a fellow inside the store's glass door who unlocked the door... the store manager. "Nice to have you back, sir. Holiday shopping are we?"
He and I shook hands. "Yes, thank you. And it was so kind of you to open for us."
As we walked through the second doors and into the store. There were a few store personnel standing to greet us. He continued, "Our pleasure. You'll find everything available to you and the young miss." Turning to you he said, "I have arranged for Lynn, here, to escort you. She can take you anywhere you need to go."
Lynn shook your hand. "Pleased to meet you."
"Pleased to meet you too," you said.
Lynn was tall and slender - about five-nine - in her late twenties. She was dressed in a conservative black skirt with a suit jacket - very attractive.
The manager excused himself and one of the staff took our coats and sweaters. "Have fun, darling," I said, "How about we meet in housewares in two hours?"
Lynn said, "Better make it three," and then turned to you and said, "Men."
The two of you beamed at each other and you both laughed. She took your hand and lead you off into the store. "This is really weird," you said, "I've never had a store to myself."
"A mall."
"What?
"A mall, miss. You have a mall to yourself."
"The whole mall?"
"Yes. I can take you anywhere you want to go."
You gasped – "I don't have my wallet. I didn't think of it."
"You don't need a wallet."
"What?"
"You can have whatever you want."
You stopped in your tracks. "I can get anything?"
"Anything at all."
You stood silently. The air system came on; a deep rumble. You could hear a vacuum cleaner running across the expanse of the large store floor.
"Anything."
"At all." Lynn said, and grinned at you.
"What shall I get?" You spoke quietly. "I'll get him a sweater. And a tie. But – he can have anything."
"Yes," Lynn said, "But anything you choose for him will be unique in that you will have selected it for him – it will be from you."
