genre: vignette

"Where Did I Go Wrong?"

She takes her time, turning over all the sandals checking the price. It's spring and the season's shoes are all just out, so the prices are not ones she'll pay. She takes her time anyway, choosing hypothetically what she knows she'll not have, not now anyway, not soon even. She tries on a few pairs, styles she doesn't like so she won't be tempted to purchase, stilletos and platform flip-flops. He waits. Next she wanders into the 'misses' section, where nothing would fit her and the spring-fling color palate of professional wear nauseates. She runs her hands over the fabrics and holds up various 'shells' in lime green and taupe stripe.

“What do you think?”
“Huh?,” he snaps to. “It's hard to tell on the hanger.”

He immediately regrets the statement, as she plainly sees, so she tries things on mercilessly. She won't come out of the dressing room, calling through the door amused accusations, “How could you have thought this might look good?” He wedges the side of his ass at the base of a jaunty manaquin to sit down. Another man waits similarly for his wife, standing dull of face and resting on his own weight like a long-fenced domesticated animal. Here it is men who are turned to pillars of salt.

She walks right past him on her way to the make-up counter, and he notices seconds later and scrambles to catch up to his designated position: trailing. When he catches up, she turns to him and puts sunglasses on his shirtfront, kissing him on the cheek. "Hold these for me, will you?" Then she tests the perfumes and chats with the ugly women whose job it is to spritz customers. Finally, she heads for the door, letting him off the hook. They walk chastely into the parking lot, side by side at a distance.

When they get to the car, she says, "Can you give me the sunglasses?" He takes them off his shirt, noticing the tags.
“Did you just steal these?,” he looks at her appalled.
“No, you did.” She laughs.

He looks back at the mall, aghast, holding the evidence and quickly realizing the impossibility of going back inside to return them. Would he make up a story about accidentally stealing them or try to explain it, that he was on a date and wasn't paying attention . . .? The absurdity of any version of taking the stolen goods back inside daunts him immediately, and then he wonders further if a security guard isn't even now being dispatched to catch him. He's just gotten his first real job! She's watching his face, laughing harder, until the hilarity of his predicament finally warms her. He hands over the glasses, amused despite himself. Slightly.