She just wanted to get hired.
. .
Moms brought their babies — lots of baby portraits. (Everything was called portraits and portraiture.) Family pets even. On Saturdays, families came in for their formal sittings. On Sundays, they came after church, & Jacquie got that feeling of real Americana. She thought, in 100 years, her work would be featured at flea markets & yard sales, anon family portraits, circa early 21st-century. Young couples sauntered in, cholos & cholitas, fewer though than Jacquie would have thought. They were almost always at the store shopping for something else. They’d pass the photo studio & the girl would get the idea and not let it go until her boyfriend caved.
The manager was one of those dream homos — shockingly ascerbic, hilariously brilliant, borderline heartbreaking homely. Shaved head, big butt, tender heart. (“I cry at the drop of a pillbox hat,” he told her. “Make that an Isabella Blow hat.”) They began to lunch together in the mall, telling stories from their lives, stock shards & bravura fragments typically kept on reserve for a crush, or a simpatico new acquaintance; the broken pieces soon conflating into the unwashed picture windows & stained glass one risks sharing with a veritable new friend. Such as: before coming to Sears, Albie worked for an online company that turned photo submissions of pets/family into large, hangable prints in the style of Warhol & Lichtenstein. Such as, he spoke reasonably fluent Japanese, courtesy of an older man who took Albie as a lover when he was just 14. (They were together 10 years.) He was 38 now, & a widower. His husband Francesco recently died of AIDS, & Francesco’s grandmother was a famous black panther, which Albie thought ironic, in that Francesco was an albino. (Albie honed and exploited the albino-Black Panther routine through the years to great comic effect.) Albie was HIV-positive himself, coming up on 23 years…
Fragments & shards.
Jacquie came clean, telling him the whole certiwikifiable truth & nothing but, ending with the confession that once upon a time she was a celestial body (but no more), one of those shooting stars fated to arc across diurnal skies, consigned to perpetual underexposure. Albie surprised her by saying that he already knew, because he was required to websearch all job applicants. “There was something about you,” he added. “You remind me of Anne Sexton! But I’d have looked you up anyway. I look everyone up.”
Of course he does. Because that’s what people do — they look you up. Everyone looks everyone up, that’s what she should start doing.
No — too late.
Suddenly, Jacquie felt old, uncertain, unsophisticated.
Undernourished, underwater, underexposed.
Washed up & washed down.
That most pitiable thing:
A performance artist without a concept.
… menopausal Sears employee.
A familiar fog rolled in & clung to her coast.
. .
— I got your note. And I’m sorry that I haven’t been more present.
— That’s OK.
— No, it isn’t. Because we have a lot to talk about. First of all, how are you?
— Fine.
— Are you really?
— Yeah — why…
— You’re going through changes in your body. Any changes in your head?
— Like what?
— I don’t know. It’s not my head.
— Sometimes I feel really sad. Then sometimes like I am so happy. That I’m going to have this baby. & being a mother scares me? But I think it’s something I’ll be really good at?
— (Smiles) Is that a question?
— (Smiles) No. It’s a statement? (They laugh) It’s a statement.
— I got a call from — is it Eliza? Hirschorn?
— The social worker.
— Is she the one who works with all the parents? Of the girls who are expecting?
— Uh huh. She’s really nice. I mean really nice.
— Good, good, that’s great. How many girls over there are expecting?
— Just Marisol. She’s six months… last year there was I think three. No! Four. Yeah there were four. Remember Toleda?
— From Salvador? Those big green eyes? What happened to her?
— She had a little girl, I think. No! A little boy. She went back. To Salvador.
— I talked to Rikki’s dad.
— You did?
— We’ve had several conversations. I’m off tomorrow, and we’re having lunch.
— Cool. Is his mom going?
— I don’t know. I don’t think so.
— How’s Rikki.
— He’s good.
— Can you bring him by this weekend? For lunch? Because now he is definitely in my life! I want to know him. We’ve hardly had a conversation. Is he smart? His father’s smart.
— O my god, Rikki is so smart.
— Not that it’s a prerequisite… it’s all about the heart. Does he have a good heart? Is he a good man?
— He’s got a really big heart. O my god, he is so generous.
— Terrific.
— So how’s it going? I mean work.
— Fine. Work is fine. Your note said you wanted to talk.
— Okay. I — yeah. I wanted—
— Sorry to interrupt but are you going to tell your father?
— I guess. Maybe. You mean, now?
— Yes, I mean now. Have you thought about it?
— Kind of. It’s not like he — I haven’t talked to him in like, 3 months.
— You do what you need to do. I’m not advocating either way, but that’s his grandchild. If I talk to him, I certainly won’t discuss it without your permission.
— Oh my god, please don’t!
— OK, I’m done.
— Mama, I wanted to ask you… it’s just something — you know, we can talk about it another time.
— What is it? (Reeyonna looks down at carpet/stressed out) Jerilynn? What’s going on?
— Well I’ve been thinking. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, &—I’ve been thinking about how we’re going to live, Rikki and I, when, when the baby’s born. You know, where we’re going to live——
— (Doesn’t know where this is going) Okay?
–& I thought we could get an apartment, we could get an apartment that’s like really close, or not too far away. . ….
— You’re going to need a lot of help, Jerilynn, I don’t think you realize——
— . . . . because if I just keep living here & Rikki keeps staying at his house, I totally know what’s going to happen from watching all those Teen Mom shows——