Читать книгу Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb - George Rabasa - Страница 13

On the biggest shopping night of the year, the mall welcomed me from the grim night into a feast of light and scents of evergreen and cinnamon; the sounds of familiar ditties surrounded me like a giant music box tinkling and chiming. I found myself humming along to “The Little Drummer Boy” as I wandered past the Candle Shoppe, Grandma’s Fudge ’n’ Taffy, the Baubles, Bangles. and Beads Emporium. The massed generations, the kids tugging at frenzied parents, the trailing grannies and grandpas, and the weaving strollers made me yearn for a kind of normalcy that my family, with its eccentricities and small cruelties, could not give me. Shopping bags were filled to overflowing with wrapped packages, their bows and tinsel promising the sweater to end all sweaters, mittens to warm the heart, dolls to awaken the maternal urge, stuffed bears to comfort toddlers, games to screech and buzz their way into adolescent brains. Me, I’d be getting a good warm coat.

I bypassed Field’s to head toward JCPenney at the end of a wide concourse. No classy couture for me, the apprentice shoplifter, but the tired pickings of the suburban lumpen. The crowds were thicker here than at the fancier shops, mostly with adults who make do with knockoffs of last year’s cool stuff so their children can keep up with brand peer pressure. The store felt overheated, the air stale, as if the scents of the season had been lingering since last year. Here the evergreen smells from an aerosol can collided with the perfume ladies in ambush, spritzers poised. I saw one around the bend of the cosmetics counter, and, holding my hands in front of my face, I fled in mock horror: “No, no, please no!” Several people turned to stare, the perfume lady rolled her eyes, I got no laughs.

I did get a seriously dirty look from Pia, who had been waiting, obviously impatiently, for me to show up in the coat department. I know, I know. I shouldn’t have been attracting attention. But when confronted with the opportunity for a little public theater, I couldn’t resist. I flashed her my most endearing grin, but she had become impervious to my charms. She nodded toward the clearance coat rack. “Hurry!” she mouthed. She went back to fingering blouses, acting suspicious, so I could have a free ride out of there. There was no time for hesitating. If I looked around to see if I was being watched, I’d be spotted by security. I would have to make my move, take my chances, claim my prize. The stroll, the turn, the grab, the flight would happen in seconds: one fluid motion, so smooth it’d be over before anyone noticed.

With no possibility of changing my mind, no hesitation or meandering allowed, I wondered that the thumping of my heart did not attract attention. Then, off I was. To the coat rack in four strides, and even before I knew what I was reaching for, my hands flew to a size 14 in violet, an overstuffed poly thing with Michelin Man concentric doughnuts going from hood to hem. Unwieldy and voluminous under my arm, it trailed the ground as I headed for the exit. I couldn’t resist the temptation to turn and look back at Pia to see her reaction, but she was having an animated conversation with a blond woman in a pink cardigan sweater and beige slacks who looked all sunny and cheerful in the midst of this storm, as if life in the suburbs was conducted in perpetual springtime. A neighbor? A teacher from her high school? A predatory lesbian? My mind was brought to the present moment as the clunky antitheft tags elicited screaming beeps from the security posts at the exit. Their sound blared inside my head, its rhythm syncopating with the drumming in my chest. This was easily the most exciting thing I had ever done. A sharp, metallic taste rose at the back of my throat. What a rush. I owed it all to Pia.

I paused outside, on the edge of the vast parking tundra, and realized I had little notion of the van’s location. As far as I could see, vehicles in every direction were jammed together in the dark, their soft forms only hinting at the SUV, the minivan, the Lexus. The wind blew in sudden gusts, and I put on the big violet coat. Its majestic heft and length to my ankles clearly signaled its questionable origins. I began weaving through the parking slots, my earlier agility replaced by a slow, erratic muddle. People brushed by me, some actually shoving me out of their way, anxious to get beyond my presence. The weird kid in a woman’s fat coat without a clue as to where his car was parked was too pathetic to be funny. Who hasn’t been in that situation, searching the Alligator lot for another generic automobile? Laugh at your own peril; boomerang karma has been known to bite the ass within seconds of the mean thought, the insult, the mockery. I buried my head inside the coat’s ample hood, a poofy apparition damned to wander the vast wastes of the Rosedale tundra.

I was lost.