Shopgirl

gloves

MIRABELLE STRIDES CONFIDENTLY PAST THE working stiffs on the first floor and heads to her sanctuary on the fourth. She takes the stairs two steps at a time, and oddly, she is in the mood to work. She is even thinking of ways to sell more gloves by laying a few out on the end tables and display cases throughout the store. Then she gets to her department, takes her post, crosses her legs at the ankles, and stands there. And stands there. No management comes by all day for her to spill her idea to. There is more for her to look at, however, as the pre-Thanksgiving nonrush means more people pass by her counter on their way to somewhere else. Lunchtime comes, and she has a definite feeling that she has not moved for three and a half hours.

She decides to take a two-hour lunch. This is accomplished through lying. She explains to her immediate boss, Mr. Agasa, that she has an appointment for a female problem and that she tried to schedule it for another time but that this is the only time the doctor can take her. Mr. Agasa stammers while she adds that things are slow and that she has asked Lisa to keep an eye on the counter, and he nods a concerned okay.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“I think I’m okay, but I should be checked.”

And she leaves the store. Hitting the flats of Beverly Hills, she pops into a yogurt shop on the premise that she can have an entire meal for three dollars, and she takes her brimming cup outside and vacations in the sun on Bedford Drive. In the hard sunlight, her hair shines a deep maroon. She angles her wire chair toward the low-rise that houses all the Beverly Hills shrinks, hoping to spot a few celebrities. This is the building where she goes to renew her medication, so she recognizes a few of the nurses and receptionists who file in and out. Next to her sits a woman so repulsive that Mirabelle has to turn her body uncomfortably so as to edge her out of her peripheral vision. The woman converses on a cell phone while shoveling in contradictory amounts of low-calorie yogurt. Her fat droops over the chair and hides all but its legs. Her hair is brassy from chemicals designed to make it look golden, and her smoker’s face has a subtle gray cast. However, what she speaks about on the phone is in fact quite gentle. She is concerned about someone who is ill, which makes Mirabelle squirm a little over her lie to Mr. Agasa. The woman speaks, stops, then after what must have been a long speech by the person on the other end of the line, says,

“…just remember, darling, it is pain that changes our lives.”

Mirabelle cannot fathom the meaning of this sentence, as she has been in pain her whole life, and yet it remains unchanged.

Just then she sees the heartthrob Trey Bryan enter the shrinks’ building. Trey Bryan is hot as a pistol, which qualifies him for immediate psychoanalytic care. She had seen him once in Neiman’s buying what looked very much like doilies for his girlfriend’s shoulders. She has witnessed heartthrob shopping many times, and she knows it is a ritual that is very refined. It requires a girlfriend who, if not already famous, is comfortable with becoming famous. She has to look bored, and therein lies the purpose of the shopping trip: the heartthrob must dance around laying gifts at her feet, trying to lift her spirits. Mirabelle could never figure out why the receiver of these gifts is so bored. Mirabelle loves to get gifts.

An important part of the celebrity-couple shopping ritual is that the two shoppers appear exclusive; their world is so extraordinary, so charged, that their movement through the regular, unexclusive world scatters little dew-drops of diamonds. Mirabelle had once waited on such a couple, when she stood in at the Comme des Garcons section, and felt her own transparency. It was as though she were a chalk outline of herself, animated by an inferior life force.

Today, though, with her extra hour and fifteen minutes, and the sun beating down on her in spite of it being November, she decides to visit the competition and check out the glove departments at a few other stores. She can at least empathize with other sad, lost girls who stand in solitude behind their counters. Her first stop is Saks Fifth Avenue on Wilshire Boulevard, where she sees an impression of herself standing vacantly in the lonely distance, hovering over merchandise that no one wants. She says her name and identifies herself by job description, and the clerk is so excited to have someone talking to her that Mirabelle considers offering her a Serzone to level her out.

Next stop is Theodore on Rodeo Drive. This is a hip, sexy store and features gloves so youthful and spirited that Mirabelle longs to deal in them. She can imagine the coolest people coming to her, swapping fashion tips as they try on the merchandise. To take advice from her current customers would be fashion suicide, unless she somehow wanted to be mistaken for fifty.

As she drifts around Beverly Hills, she finds herself a block from La Ronde. This arouses no particular emotional response, it is not “the place where they rendezvoused,” but it does make her feel less like an outsider in Beverly Hills. She has actually eaten in one of the actual restaurants, which is what 90 percent of the out-of-towners roaming around this afternoon haven’t done. She wanders into the Pay-Less and buys sanitary napkins, because she needs some, and because it will reinforce her lie to Mr. Agasa should he see her purchase.

She goes back to Neiman’s, where Lisa tells her that someone has been looking for her. “Who?” asks Mirabelle.

“Well, I don’t know, a man.”

Mirabelle assumes it is Ray Porter. Perhaps canceling. She will call her message machine at her first break.

“What was he like?” Mirabelle asks Lisa.

“He’s a man, over fifty. Normal.”

“What else?”

“A little overweight. And he asked for Mirabelle Buttersfield. By name.”

Ray Porter is not overweight and would not ask for Mirabelle by her last name, which she is not even sure he knows.

“He said he’ll come back,” adds Lisa, vanishing toward the stairwell.

Mirabelle slides back into her berth behind the counter. She stands there a minute and is suddenly struck by an overwhelming wave of sadness. This causes her to do something she has never done at Neiman’s: she pulls out a low drawer in the counter and sits on it for several minutes, until she recovers.