Maryse Meijer - Heartbreaker - Stories

And because she is barefoot I can’t hear her walking away, she is instantly a ghost, ghosted, STILETTO soft now and shoeless and who knows when she is coming back. I whimper; my ankle is killing me. I need to pee. I could get out — I have to get out — I could stand outside her house, look through her windows, find her face. But I don’t; I stay where I am, pleasureless, inhaling the cold sick smell of car carpet and my own damp crotch.

I ease my phone from the pocket of my coveralls and dial each of my brothers until one of them answers. I close my eyes and say I need a ride, and Carl makes a farting sound with his mouth and says Where are you? I imagine STILETTO’s front door — I imagine knocking — I imagine her letting me in.

I’m here, I say, and then I hang up.

There’s a woman, I don’t know if you know her, she works downtown, she’s a clerk at Kessler’s jewelry store. Men come in and stare at the ropes of silver and gold she lays across her hands; they never know what to buy so they say What do you think? And she always recommends the middle-priced one, so they’ll understand she isn’t just trying to get more money, she honestly thinks this is the best one. They pull out their wallets and put them on the counter, they flip through a stack of cards and rub their foreheads. She wraps what she’s chosen in tissue paper and a box with a shiny ribbon. That makes the men happy, they can barely remember on the way home what she has put inside, but they don’t worry. It’s always a hit, she has the touch, she knows what people are going to like. When it’s slow and there are no husbands or groups of women whispering and looking at their phones the woman leans against the counter, she’s tired, she has one foot wrapped around the ankle of the other as she rubs her tights together. Then someone comes in and she puts both heels on the floor; she smiles and runs her hand along the glass counter looking like she has just come out of a dream.

* * *

How I know all this is I’m watching her. When I moved here with my dad a few months ago I made friends with this girl, Charity, and we started to skip school and come down here almost every week to this coffee place across from where the jewelry shop is. When we sat on the curb to smoke I started noticing this woman in the shop. The store is almost all windows so you can see everything and after a while you get to know the kind of customers who go in and you know which one is shopping for his wife or girlfriend, which one is just looking, which one is bored or whatever and doesn’t care how much something costs. The shop lady smiles at everyone, not in a fake way, but like she really cares about selling all this stuff. She has dark skin, maybe she’s Spanish or Italian, and she wears long dresses and little quilted jackets and some of the jewelry they sell in the shop.

Today I’m downtown by myself because Char’s grounded for ditching school. It’s really hot and the place is crawling with tourists who act like they’ve never seen a palm tree before. This guy comes up to me, some old bum, and he’s all Hey I’ll give you a kiss if you give me a quarter. I tell him to fuck off, and he holds up his arms and says Soorrrrry and he laughs at me and I stub out my cigarette and start walking back to the coffee shop, wondering why the only people who talk to me are psychos or freaks.

* * *

I don’t know when I started thinking about buying something at Kessler’s but it just happened that every time I’d see the shop lady I’d think about doing it. The nicest place I’d ever been in was the Nordstrom’s where Char and I looked for some underwear but there was too much security so we left. I don’t even like jewelry that much, but I’m thinking about it a lot, just what it would be like to go in there and talk to her, to have her show me stuff and then say, Yes, I’d like that one, or No, I’d better not, not today. Finally I just take my dad’s wallet while he’s in the shower and think, Fuck it, why not, and go.

When I walk into Kessler’s the shop lady starts looking at my ripped-up jeans, my hair. I dyed it and it came out kinda orange. But she just smiles at me like it doesn’t matter. I sort of stand around like I don’t know what I’m doing, which I don’t, and she comes over to me and says Hello, can I help you with something?

I mess with my bangs and say My mom is really sick, I want to get her something for her birthday, something nice. The woman makes a sound like she’s sorry about my mom and then she takes me over to some cases where some rings are stuck on velvet fingers.

I take my time, saying something about each one, how the color is nice or I like the way the metal is braided on that one, it looks really good. What price range are you looking at? she asks, and I say it doesn’t matter, I’m not wanting to break the bank but it’s a family gift for my mom so we want it to be special. She shows me a few rings, holding them with a cloth, and she smiles and waits like she has all the time in the world for me to make up my mind. Finally I say Well, it’s between the purple and the ruby one, I just can’t decide, and she says after a little pause You know for an older woman the ruby can be an overpowering stone, while the lighter stones, the amethysts, they really complement any skin tone and are appropriate for everyday wear. I say I hadn’t thought of that, and then I say I want it, will she please wrap it up for me?

It’s over $200 and when she runs the card through the machine I get a sick feeling in my stomach. But she doesn’t even ask for ID. We make small talk as she wraps the ring and puts it into a glossy bag, just the right size for the ring box. I say thank you and she says she hopes my mother gets well soon. As I’m walking out one of those husbands comes in, he’s got a giant bald spot and some nice suit on. Good luck, I say, and he gives me this look like he can’t understand English but I keep smiling, I’m happy for the first time in a long time and when I get to the bus stop I unwrap the ring and put it in my pocket.

When I get home Dad is pissed; he’s like Where’s my wallet have you seen it? And I go, Uh no, where did you put it last, but he doesn’t listen, it’s obvious he’s been freaking out for a few hours. I dropped his wallet in the trash, I felt bad but he hardly had any cash in it and anyway I only bought the one thing on the card, he can probably get it all back from the company when he says it was stolen.

* * *

When Char’s mom ungrounds her we smoke in the park and then go downtown for coffee and Char catches me looking out the window. Why are you always looking over there? she asks and I shrug, playing with the straw in my drink. I don’t know, I say, and suddenly she’s not interested, she’s grabbing my arm with her black nails digging into me saying OhmyGod did I fucking tell you about this shit that went down last night at Josh’s? And I just stop listening.

The thing is, I know the shop lady. I know the different dresses she has, what kind of coat she wears when it’s raining. I recognize her lipstick if another girl is wearing it, a kind of red brown like wet clay. When someone isn’t in the store and she thinks no one is looking she lets her face get tired but as soon as someone walks in she smiles again and the great thing is that her face smiles too.

This is what I’m thinking when this guy comes in and Char’s looking at me like you like him? His hair has blond streaks from being out in the sun and he keeps his thumbs hooked inside his jeans. He’s a surfer and normally I hate surfers but he’s kind of amazingly hot and I ask Char what she thinks and she shakes her head and says he’s too white for her. I want a Mexican, she says, and laughs. Mexicans are fucking hot.