He nodded.
"And she can't be much over forty-five--" The woman's permanently smiling face was turned to Matt but her eyes wandered to Krys with a certain admonishment. "Older lady" was hardly the phrase for one of her and Matt's mother's age, the tone implied. "Had you any idea what you wanted? A dinner suit? A good blazer?"
Krys had been looking around like a kid in a whirligig factory. "A blouse!" she said triumphantly to Matt, lifting her eyebrows in search of approval.
He nodded. "Great idea."
"But nothing polyester," Krys declared sternly.
"We don't carry any polyester," the woman said. "This way."
They wove through racks and glass cases, Matt catching glimpses of foreign glitters. He felt like he was plunging deeper into a jungle of feminine snares, alien and intimidating.
"Her size?"
Matt and Krys exchanged a helpless glance. "Medium," he suggested.
Medium would never do for a salesperson at a finer store. "How tall is she?"
Matt nodded at Krys.
"And the same size?"
He was forced to consider his cousin's daughter as a womanly form. Given her sturdy frame, she probably played ice hockey as well as lusted after motorcycles and the mock-leather bustiers he'd seen highlighted in the teen-punk shop windows.
"Slighter build," he said.
The saleswoman eyed Krys significantly.
"I'm an eleven. Or sometimes a thirteen," she confessed as if forced to.
"Ten, then. For your mother, sir."
They were led to a rack of silky garments, and then the saleswoman left them to the private misery of selection and price comparison.
"Anything too fancy will turn her off," Matt said.
Krys nodded. "I'll try not to swoon over the cut velvet and laces, or the absolutely dishy snakeskin metallic print over there."
Matt eyed the reptilian blouse in question. "Thank you. Well, we know what not to get her now."
"I guess I'm useful as a warning sign: bad taste posted here."
"Not true. But you're younger and can get away with it. Besides, Mom seems too subdued. I want something that'll make her want to wear it."
Krys pulled out an ivory satin blouse dripping old-fashioned crocheted lace. She ran her fingers down the silky sleeve to the frilled cuff, then lifted a small white tag and wordlessly showed it to him. Ninety dollars.
Matt nodded. "For the right blouse." But secretly, he was shocked.
They made a round of the circular stand. "No prints," Matt said. He had read somewhere once, long ago, that Jackie Kennedy only wore solid colors. His mother, he figured, shared the same rigorous taste.
They debated at last between the ivory blouse and a gray one with white satin ribbon detailing. Still muted, neutral, recessive colors, Matt thought with dissatisfaction. She needed ... he wanted ... something that would lure her into the light of the present day. Something for rebirth, something she couldn't resist even as she suspected it was a trap.
His eyes paged through the fifty-some blouses circled like fashion soldiers with their backs to the wall. And then he spotted it ... a swell of color like an ocean wave.
He reached in, drew the hanger off the rod.
"It's . . . pretty." Krys sounded surprised.
He held it up to the light. A modest, feminine article that no woman he knew would wear--not Temple, or Electra, or Sheila at work, or Carmen Molina ... or especially the woman who called herself Kitty. Full sleeves, a tailored softness and yet a sense of feminine frill here and there, more felt than seen.
Krys held it up against herself, a question on her intent, girlish face. Then she frowned. "You have brown eyes. Your mother's are blue."
He nodded, took the blouse from her and smiled like a saint who had found salvation. For the particular blue of this blouse vaguely alternated between aqua and powder-blue, like pictures he'd seen of Caribbean waters. It was a rather indescribable blue, except that he had defined it long ago, and knew it was the one color his mother could not resist liking, from years of preconditioning.
Chessey's had surprised him, and itself, by carrying one blouse, size ten, in true Virgin Mary Blue. His mother was lost.
Krys had been impressed. "A hundred and ten dollars," she whispered loud enough for every passerby to hear when they rejoined the mall traffic, a fancy paper shopping bag lined with colored tissue dangling from Matt's hand like a door prize. "You are a big spender for a religious guy."
"Where do you think all the bingo money went for all those years?"
Krys giggled, reveling in irreverence. The favorite priest was always the least priestly.
"Matt, this is wild, and I don't know if you can afford it, but I know something that would be a knockout on your mother, with this blouse and just plain anytime. I'd ... forgotten somehow that she has those gorgeous pale-blue eyes." Krys pulled his free hand, as if he were a reluctant parent, to lead him into a fine jewelry chain store that occupied an entire corner space. "Can we go in here, huh?"
He nodded. It was fun to edge someone else, and himself, into the light. To be edged into the light, even if it was only the commercial spotlight of Christmas. He began to understand Temple's self-appointed mission.
His mother had been like this before he had loomed on her horizon like a nightmare, he realized. Every woman had. Temple had, and still kept a bit of it as a shield against the disappointments of time. Carmen Molina had been here, or had hoped to be, once when she was very young, but now she was busy interring that memory behind the perimeters of her profession. How would she deal with a growing daughter if she denied her inner sprite? Maybe he should write a self-help book: Finding Your Inner Sprite. Or was that just a secular pseudonym for the Holy Ghost? he wondered.
But inside the promising store, goods lay in dishearteningly similar ranks within their well-lit cases. Same designs, different strokes. Red stones in one, green in another, royal blue in yet another.
Krys skipped the precious rubies, emeralds and sapphires whether genuine or "man-made," leading him to a case displaying jewelry set with purple, amber and blue stones.
"I can help you? Sir. Miss?"
The clerk here was male and from the Indian continent, but his smile was as genuine as the man-made diamonds' glitter was false.
Krys nodded, pointing to the blue side of the display case. "Can we see some earrings, clip style?" Her hazel eyes rapidly consulted Matt, then she continued. "Something elegant."
The salesman didn't hesitate, but pulled out velvet case after velvet case, until six were lined up on the glass countertop.
"The finest blue topaz, in vermeil." His hand presented them as one would introduce a visiting dignitary to a head of state. The clerk ebbed away to a decent distance, so they could discuss prices in private.
"Ver-meal?" Matt asked.
"Gold wash over silver," Krys replied with expert intensity. "Great look, cheaper price. See! Only seventy-eight dollars."
Matt loved the way she threw the word "only" around at a shopping mall. He was feeling like a weird cross between a harried father and a sugar daddy. But he had the credit card, and the clerks were only too happy to press it between the carbon-backed pages of a sales slip as if it were a memento from the high school prom.
Krys tried on each earring, describing merits and flaws. "Pinches." "Too overbearing." "I'd adore these, but your mother--?" "Very classy." "Too matronly." Whether for herself or his mother she never said.
The earrings they selected were large blue topaz teardrops surrounded by silver with gold accents.
As they-- he was paying for it, or rather, the card was, Matt noticed a Plexiglas stand by the register displaying cards of sterling silver earrings and pins. He glanced at Krys's ears with their discreet, for nowadays, earrings in triplicate.