Haven Kimmel - The Used World

“Hey, how’s about you follow the rule about keeping your feet on the floor.” Hazel tried to sound casual as she grabbed Finney’s coat belt, which was untied and slipped free.

“What I want”—Finney turned and reclaimed her belt—“is to go up, up to the sixth, Women’s Lingerie. Then I want to come down, down, stopping on every floor. Last is the jewelry counter. If I have twenty-seven minutes I’m going to use them.”

Below the girls, the black-and-white-tiled ground floor of Sterling’s Department Store spiraled around the square jewelry counter, so that from Women’s Lingerie, looking over the railing, Hazel knew she would feel an urge to jump. “Women’s Lingerie it is,” she said, taking Finney’s arm and heading for the elevator.

The folding metal door of the elevator closed, cagelike, behind them. In the red velvet interior the air was warm and close. The elevator operator hummed along with Bing Crosby’s Hawaiian Christmas song, which both Hazel and Finney hated. Jerry Hamm, that was the name of the man sitting on a stool in front of the elevator’s controls, but Hazel didn’t acknowledge him, nor did he look at her. He was a patient of her father’s, and there were countless rules of conduct that applied to meeting a patient in public, or at his job. Finney knew him, too, of course, but she ignored him, leaning against the back wall to watch the numbers light up above the doors.

In Women’s Ready-to-Wear, in Household Goods, in Infants and Children, Finney had asked, “Do you want this? Is this on your list?” No, Hazel had answered, and no. Finally, walking toward the jewelry counter with only four minutes to spare, Finney asked, “What do you want for Christmas?”

“A book. I don’t know, something I can keep. Nothing frivolous.”

Finney took a deep breath, rolled her eyes. “I worry about you, Hazey.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I do. I worry that any day now you will tell me you want to write short stories or romances, and then you’ll turn to strong drink.”

“Will I abandon my Christian principles?”

Finney considered the possibility. “You will.”

“Will I die young and tragically?”

“That’s not funny.” Finney ran her fingers over a dozen strands of freshwater pearls, took one off the metal rack and held it to her throat.

Hazel fastened the necklace, gently lifting Finney’s hair. “This looks beautiful on you.”

Finney looked in the square mirror on the counter, turned her jaw to the right and the left in a way that would have never occurred to Hazel. Finney’s camel hair coat was down around her shoulders and her long neck looked more vulnerable than ever, with the pearls lying pale and imperfect against her skin. “I’m not a pearl person.”

“Hmmm. What kind of person are you?”

Finney took three steps away, didn’t answer.

“Anyway, what do you most want for Christmas?” Hazel asked, just as Finney stopped before a display of gold chains.

“Oh, look at this.”

In a blue velvet box were two chains, each chain holding half a heart. On the inside lid of the box were the words MAY GOD WATCH OVER US WHILE WE ARE APART, and carved on the heart itself, ME FROM THEE. Hazel lifted the left half and warmed it in her hand as Finney did the same with the right.

“Do you think,” Finney whispered, leaning close to Hazel, “that he will ever buy me one of these?” She whispered, it seemed to Hazel, because she had lost her voice, like a girl in a fairy tale. It was only a matter of time before a hunter came after Finney’s real, beating heart, or until her legs became the tail of a mermaid, and she vanished. No, the man in question would never, never buy Finney such a necklace; the possibility did not exist on planet Earth or within the bounds of time and space. “Maybe he will,” Hazel said, turning away from the display. “Your four minutes in jewelry are up, Miss Finnamore Cooper.” She used the old nickname as a distraction, but it failed.

“I will be blue until I die,” Finney said, sighing.

Hazel’s stomach knotted into a fist, and she could taste at the back of her throat the coffee they’d had at lunch. She reached into Finney’s bag and pulled out her muffler, wrapped it around Finney’s neck as they walked past the great Christmas tree beside Sterling’s revolving doors. “Bundle up,” she said, tucking the end of the scarf into Finney’s coat.

Finney smiled, said, “You do the same.”

They’d grown too mature for hats, so they walked close together, heads bent against the bitter December wind, across the street to the parking lot and Albert Hunnicutt’s late-model, sleek black Cadillac. Tomorrow Hazel would return for the necklace, she knew, and she would give it to Finney signed with her own name. Hazel would never pretend it had come from someone else. Finney would accept the gesture as she always had, for years and years now, as long as Hazel could remember. Finney would wear her half of the heart as if it mattered to her as it did to Hazel, and only someone who really knew her, only a best friend, would see the unease and disappointment on her face. It was just metal, after all, and probably hollow at that.

“Admit that you’re a brat.”

“ Captain Brat.”

“ General Brat.”

Hazel and Finney tormented little Edna until she was nearly in tears—this happened every time they baby-sat—then gave her what she’d asked for.

“I’ll tell Mama,” Edna said, sitting at the kitchen table, a TV dinner cooling in front of her.

“Tell her what?” Hazel asked. “Here’s your Bosco. Drink it fast or you can’t have it at all. It’s almost bathtime.”

“I’m not taking a bath.”

“Tell her what, Edie?” Finney stood behind Edna, combing the girl’s blond hair with her fingers.

“Tell her that a boy calls.”

“It’s not a crime for a boy to call and anyway he doesn’t call for me. So you’d be getting Finney in trouble and you love her. Think about that.”

Edna took a drink of her chocolate milk, pushed away the foil tray with her uneaten dinner. “I’m not taking a bath.”

“But you are. And what about that chicken leg?”

“I’ll tell Mama you smoke a cigarette once. When her and Daddy was gone.”

“Yeah? Is that right, Edie?” Hazel picked up the washcloth from the edge of the sink and threw it on the table. “How about if I tell Mother about the letter your teacher sent home last week, the one I signed so you wouldn’t get in trouble? How about if I tell Mother that you got caught stealing a cap gun from the Ben Franklin and I got you out of that one, too?”

Edna sat very still, one hand in her lap and the other around her Mickey Mouse Club cup. She was small for eight—almost nine—with the facial features of a much younger child. Staring at her, Hazel couldn’t see at all who her sister might turn out to be. Edie’s chin shook and her gray eyes filled with tears, but it was not to Hazel she apologized. “I’m sorry, Finney!” she said, jumping up and spilling her Bosco all over the table.

“Great. I’ll just clean this up for you,” Hazel said, using the washcloth she’d thrown at the child.

“Come here, Edie,” Finney said, holding out her arms. “Don’t cry, I’m not mad. You just don’t want to take a bath, right? It’s cold in the upstairs bathroom.” Finney held her on her lap, using her sweater to wipe Edie’s face. “Come on, we’ll go upstairs, I’ll wash behind your ears and brush your teeth and we’ll call it a night. Maybe mean old Hazel will bring you some more milk.”They stood and walked toward the back staircase.

“Nice,” Hazel said to the empty kitchen. She dropped Edna’s frozen dinner in the trash can, poured more milk in her cup. “Thanks a lot, Finney.”