Steve Martin - Shopgirl

“It’s too late,” she says.

“It’s not too late,” he counters.

“It’s too late for me. I have to get up.”

“Come on.”

“I can’t.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“It’s not too late.”

“No.”

“Want me to come over there?”

“It’s too late.”

“I can be over there in ten minutes.”

“No.”

“Wanna meet somewhere?”

“I can’t.”

“We could meet somewhere.”

“I have to hang up.”

“I could come over and then leave early so you could sleep.”

Mirabelle convinces Jeremy that no way, not now, not tonight, not ever, is he getting her in bed when it isn’t her idea, and finally she gets him off the phone. This incident has sullied the events of the evening, and she has to concentrate to get herself back to her earlier buzz.

She putters around the kitchen, remembering this or that about her dinner with Ray Porter, also noting that this was one of the first evenings in a long time that hadn’t cost her anything. She is pleased that she had been her best self, that she had entered a new world and had been comfortable in it. She had given something back to the person who took her out. She had made jokes, she had been wry, she had been pretty for him. She had turned him on. She had listened. And in return, he had put his hand on the small of her back and paid for her parking and bought her dinner. To Mirabelle this exchange seems fair and good, and next time, if he asks, she will kiss him.

Ray Porter’s faithfulness ratio is somewhat different. While he also had a good time, meaning that the evening was charged with little invisible ions of attraction, this does not mean that any devotion is in order at all. What it does mean is that they will have several or many dates, and until something is indicated or promised otherwise, they are independent of each other. But this is such a routine thought for Ray Porter that he doesn’t even bother to think it. He had called her from his car phone with an invitation for Thursday not only because he liked her but also because there is a riddle in his mind. Upon reflection, he cannot tell if the surface he glimpsed under Mirabelle’s blouse was her skin or a flesh-colored nylon underthing. As he weighs the evidence, he decides that it had to be a nylon underthing as what he saw was too uniform, too perfect, too balanced in color to be skin. On the other hand, if it was her skin, then she possesses his particular intoxicant, a heady milk bath he can submerge himself in, and soak in, and drown in. He knows that this riddle will probably not be solved on Thursday, but without it, there will be no Saturday, which is the next logical step in its solution.

He gets in bed, and instead of letting the streams of data pour through his mind, he lets the symbols of sex form their own strict logic. The white blouse implies the skin which implies the bra which implies her breasts which implies her neck and her hair. This leads to her stomach which necessarily invokes her abdomen which leads to her inner thigh which leads to her panties which leads to a damp line on white cotton that he can press on and gain a millimeter of access to her vagina. This access leads to further access and implies taste and aroma and a unification of his self made possible by the possession of his very opposite. This logical sequence is plotted against a series of intermittent days that spread over several months. The entire formula is a function of whether the square inch in question is skin or nylon, and if it is nylon, what then is the true texture of the square inch hidden beneath it?

MIRABELLE STRIDES CONFIDENTLY PAST THEworking 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.