Slugfest

Twenty-seven

He spun around on the counter stool as if ready for a fight. It wasn’t the kid who’d tried to sneak into the show. It was one of Lauryn Peete’s high school gardeners. The one with the rat.

“Oh, hi. Sorry. I thought you were someone else. The jacket looks familiar. Are you Jamal? Ms. Peete mentioned your name.” The kid said nothing and gave no sign he recognized me so I kept talking. “Some guy left a bag at my booth. At the flower show. He was wearing a jacket very much like that one. From the other side of the coffee shop I thought you might be him.” Still no response. I unnecessarily pointed to the table where Connie and the waitress were locked in an animated conversation. Jamal barely acknowledged, just the slightest move of his chin upward. “Okay, well, you’re obviously not him. I’ll go.”

So far my return to New York had had its ups and downs. This was one of the downs. At least in Springfield if you spoke to someone, you had a good shot at getting a civil answer. Here it was fifty-fifty. I suppressed a disappointed shake of my head and walked back to my table, where the conversation was not what you’d call lofty. It was a retelling of the time Soupy Sales, another star on the Wall of Fame, had come in for lunch. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the first time the waitress had told the story, which was anticlimactic after Soupy’s arrival, but it was comforting to know Soupy was “so down-to-earth” despite his exalted status.

Connie and I ordered, mostly to please the waitress, and when the food came, we dutifully picked at it but left most of it on our plates while she discussed fashion. I listened with one ear but was still fixated on another article of clothing—that unusual jacket.

What were the odds two people at a flower show had enough fondness for Moab that they’d stitch a large, horizontal patch from Arches National Park across their shoulder blades? Unless they knew each other—or it was the same jacket. The phrase “odd crop of entrants” replayed in my head. Jamal left soon after, without a glance in our direction.

The call log on my phone still had the number I’d copied from the message board the night before. I dialed it again. This time the message box was full. Well, if the kid wanted his bag, he’d come back to the convention center. Plenty of things were lost and never recovered and, as Rolanda had said, it was probably just dirty laundry anyway. I had more pressing issues to deal with—my new role as personal shopper to Connie Anzalone.

It was hard not to suck in air when she took out her digital camera, and harder still when she whipped out a second memory card, but they were pictures of her garden and she promised we’d view them only if time allowed. Mercifully there were only 114 pictures of her outfits and accessories, but they might obviate the need for an actual shopping expedition, and when I weighed the time I’d spend evaluating them against the time spent selling Primo’s sculpture, I decided it was a fair exchange.

With the waitress’s vote acting as tiebreaker we outfitted Connie from her existing wardrobe under the watchful eyes of such celebrity fashionistas as Phyllis Diller, Don Rickles, and the aforementioned Soupy. Connie would look slightly less festive than the late great Fabulous Moolah, an outlandishly dressed lady wrestler who loved the food at Andrew’s, but better than all of them, and Guy would be pleased that no additional purchases were required.

As an afterthought the waitress asked what I was wearing. My suitcase was underneath the table, so I heaved it into a neighboring booth, unzipped it, and pulled out Lucy’s red dress. I held it up with one hand on my shoulder and the other on my hip. I half stood and leaned against the back of the leather booth.

“What think?”

The men at the counter were ayes. In fact, all the men were ayes, including the busboy, who was too shy to do more than just nod enthusiastically, which rattled the dirty cups and dishes in the gray plastic tub he was holding but threatening to drop. We had one nay, but it was from a pinched, crabby-looking woman eating a jelly omelet, who said, in between mouthfuls, that it looked slutty. Considering the source we took that as a positive.

“The V-neck is a little deep. I may pin a silk rose there, just for modesty’s sake.”

Connie and Nancy—by this time we were on a first-name basis with the waitress—thought that was lunacy and recommended lots of gold jewelry instead and perhaps a white fox fur to jazz it up. I promised to take it under advisement.

By the time I left the new friends, still chattering, the two hours I’d allotted for Connie’s consultation had been exceeded by forty-five minutes. I was anxious to get back to Lucy’s.

I felt foolish for having run out the night before and dropping $250 on a hotel room, when I had a perfectly good place to crash for free. Nothing that bad had happened so I was going back, but this time I had a decorating plan.

In Connecticut I’d head for a Walgreens. In New York, I needed a dollar store. All I needed to do for the rest of my stay was cover Lucy’s windows, and the quickest way to do that was with inexpensive fabric and a roll of duct tape.

It was what I’d done in my first apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. That apartment was an oversized studio with a wall of windows that overlooked a strip of postage-stamp–sized gardens. It also looked directly into the windows of the building around the block. One unfortunate glimpse of a hirsute neighbor in tighty-whities convinced me that a bed, a stereo, and a full-length mirror did not an apartment make. As my mother would have said, I needed window treatments. That same night, with Lucy’s help, I’d duct-taped cheap tablecloths from the local drugstore over the windows. It was early summer, and I can still remember the dancing ketchup bottles and relish jars on the yellow plastic tablecloths because, after all, what’s a picnic without happy condiments?

I got used to the tablecloths and they stayed up through October until the inevitable visit from my parents, who were horrified to see their only child living in such squalor. It was as if my mother had found me warming my hands over a garbage can fire.

Not far from the Wagner I had seen a bargain store called Dealtown Discounts. It was sandwiched in between an Irish bar and a Chinese take-out place and the window display was filled with stacks of Pampers, school supplies, personal appliances, and plastic flowers faded from the sun.

The home goods aisle had nothing larger than napkins and dish towels, but I was short on time. Making a duct tape quilt to cover the window was out. I prowled around the store in search of seasonal goods. Christmas had passed, it was too early for summer merchandise, and, not surprisingly, St. Patty’s Day didn’t focus on eating as much as it did on drinking, so no tablecloths. Leftover green plastic flutes and leprechaun hats weren’t going to cut it. Neither was the store’s major closeout item and special of the week, a purple fleece blanket with sleeves that for all the world looked like someone had killed and skinned Barney. Time was getting short. Worst-case scenario J. C. would let me get dressed at her place, but I wanted to give it one last shot, so I kept looking.

“Ain’t you going to that party?” It was a young man’s voice.

I spun around. It was Jamal. Had he been hovering, waiting for me to finish with Connie? Did he follow me to the store? The thought set me on edge, and he was perceptive enough to pick up on it. I nodded. Yeah, I was going.

“Don’t look so worried. I work here part-time. I just came to pick up my paycheck.”

I was relieved. His icy manner at the coffee shop had thawed, but not much. Jamal absentmindedly straightened the items on one of the pet food shelves and picked up a box of dog biscuits, shaking it slowly like a maraca.

“What are you looking for?”

I spared him the details of my window treatment strategy. “Tablecloths.”

“Nothing new till barbeque season.” He seemed to be thinking. “Are they for your tables at the show?” I shook my head. I told him I was desperate and didn’t care what the tablecloths looked like as long as they weren’t clear plastic.

“Hold on a sec.” Five minutes later Jamal came out of the stock room with three dusty packages covered with markdown stickers. I peered inside one of the bags.

“Happy Thanksgiving.” There were two large oblongs and a round. They’d do nicely. “How much?”

“Forget it. We’ve already written them off. You’ll be doing us a favor making them go away.”

“Are you sure?” I looked around as if there was someone else I should ask. Some grown-up. But Jamal was sure. He even offered me his store discount on the duct tape so my window treatments totalled about two dollars. I’d have to e-mail my mother—she’d get a kick out of it.

As the cashier rang up the sale, I made small talk with Jamal. I tried to stay away from the subject of the jacket but finally couldn’t help myself. I asked where he bought it.

“Man, I thought you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them. I didn’t steal it, okay?” He stormed off, through a door marked Employees Only, and I was left at the counter with a gum-cracking girl whose entire vocabulary consisted of “un-hunh.”

Just like the rest of them? That hurt.