Anyway, she told me to be cool and I don’t feel cool at all.
I mutter something incoherent and totter off to look at a display case of men’s watches, as if I might buy a Rolex. And when I look around, she’s gone.
Freak out. Phineas gonna freak out.
I don’t function so well in these high-dollar department stores. The problem is comprehension, identity, sensory deprivation. I have muddy vision. Brown beige gray black. Everyone in the store is narrowly focused on some unseen prize. Everyone is looking for salvation. If they find the right pair of shoes or the perfect new raincoat they will be saved for an hour, for a day. I can’t see the big picture and so I walk in circles. I get lost. I’m fearful of the salespeople. They lean against marble columns, mute and faceless, pods recharging and when they lay eyes on me they will detach themselves from their stations and come forward with teeth bared.
Can I help you can I help you? Are you okay? they say.
No, I say. I’m only looking. I’m looking for something but I don’t know what.
I don’t understand the layout of the fucking store. The clothes are arranged without regard to season or function. The prices are hidden from sight and it’s certainly shameful to ask. There are too many shoes by far and the suits just frighten me. I contemplate a new pair of pants but can’t bear to try them on. I’m afraid someone will come to the dressing room door while I’m wriggling out of my old pants, sweating, fumbling with a knot in my shoelaces.
The polite knock, the hushed voice. Are you quite all right in there, sir?
It’s brutal. The dressing rooms have become these new world torture chambers. I like to ride the escalators, though. The slow freefall, the mirrors. The escalators go up and down, up and down. I have these childlike fantasies that I am secretly a rubber-limbed superhero who can slide through keyholes and I don’t have to get off the escalator, that I can disappear in the crack between escalator and marble floor and get a brief glimpse of the afterlife below that resembles the dark, stinking hold of a slave ship. I try not to stare at anyone and I successfully disembark before security decides I’m a nutbag.
Eventually I break down and ask someone where women’s shoes might be.
seven.
JUDE SITS IN A BLACK LEATHER CHAIR WITH CHROME ARMRESTS. Legs crossed. She is thin as a spider and she has taken her boots off, her socks. Her naked left foot bouncing. I see a yellow flower in the rain. I lean against a far wall between opposing racks of jackets and watch her. She flashes from psychotic to fragile so fast it’s like watching a strobe light. I don’t know what to do about her, honestly.
Follow her, play the game.
Or walk away and pretend I don’t know her. Tell myself I never loved her.
I stare at her like I want to take her skull off. I put out a fearsome sexual vibe but she doesn’t seem to notice. A salesman with red bowtie and receding hair approaches her, his face faintly flushed. Four shoeboxes in hand. He kneels like a zealot and takes her foot in his hand. Jude’s lips move but I can’t read them. The salesman touches the curve of her foot, the instep. Her eyebrows twitch and from across the room I can see the man’s hands are shaking. I imagine she has said something innocent about male pattern baldness, about men who wear bowties in public and how such men secretly want to be whipped by a woman in leather. She may have said something about his chapped lips or the sorry hygiene of his fingernails. She may have offered to suck his cock. Whatever it was, she touched a bone. Jude loves to touch a bone. The salesman fits her with a pair of green velvet stilettos and Jude stands, she turns a circle and takes a few experimental steps. She’s looking for a mirror and she walks right past me, her right hand brushing against my thigh. I close my eyes and now I hear a man’s voice, a voice full of smoke and money.
Very nice, he says. You have beautiful feet.
I open my eyes. Jude is standing before one of those low mirrors, her legs cut off at the knee. Her legs float away from her body and the green shoes seem to sparkle. She does have beautiful feet and a lifetime ago, I spent a lot of time biting and sucking at them. Jude ignores the man who spoke to her but I take a good long look at him. White male, thoroughbred. Expensive education, manicured face and hands. He holds a long black umbrella in his right hand. He has an arrogant mouth and I’m sure his teeth are perfect. Probably in his middle forties and he looks better than me. He wears a charcoal suit, elegantly cut. Dark gray shirt buttoned to the throat and no tie. Fine black hair shining like metal. Bright blue eyes. I saw this guy’s photo on Jude’s bathroom wall just an hour ago. According to Jude’s notes, this is John Ransom Miller.
Jude ignores him. His lips curve and he blows softly on her hair.
My stomach makes a funny noise and I chew my lip. I feel strange, jealous. On one hand I am positive that this man is about to die, that Jude is about to turn and just gut him where he stands. But on the other, I don’t think so. Jude is acting not like herself and I can see this guy has some hefty mojo, some bad juice about him, and I wonder briefly does he have some hold over my girl.
You are very pretty, the man says. Are you a model, perhaps?
I recoil, unnoticed. I can’t tell if he’s fucking with her, or if he simply cannot see the left side of her face from his vantage point.
Jude turns, slowly, and shows him her whole face. That’s not funny.
His expression doesn’t waver. I don’t mean to be funny.
I’m an actress, she says. Or I used to be.
Really. The man smiles. I’m sure you were very talented.
Oh, my. I don’t know about that, she says. But thank you.
This new Jude is packing a mean bag of tricks and now she whips out an otherworldly mixture of nubile self-consciousness and predatory voodoo. She is suddenly leaning toward the man, her lips slightly parted and I’m irritated to realize I’m getting an erection. The man looks more than a little bothered himself.
Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?
I would, says Jude. I really would. But I have a prior entanglement.
Are you sure? he says.
Yes, she says. I’m afraid so.
Oh, well. That’s too bad.
Jude licks her lips. Too bad, yes.
The man stares at her and I fancy there’s a trickle of sweat along his jaw. But he’s a tough cookie, I think. He reaches into his breast pocket and produces a business card. On the ring finger of his right hand he wears a heavy fraternity ring with a dark red stone. I hear myself exhale. Jude takes the card from him as if it’s a long-stemmed rose.
You should call me, the man says. I have a friend or two in Hollywood.
Lucky you, says Jude.
Are you a spiritual person? he says.
No, she says. Not anymore.
He smiles. I’m a Buddhist, myself.
Jude nods, considering. You must have a great capacity for suffering, she says.
You have no idea, he says.
Tempting, she says. Maybe I will call you, after all.
Yes, the man says. He stands there, rocking back on his heels as if he needs more oxygen.
Goodbye, says Jude.
The man stares at her, mute. Then turns to go. Jude glances down at the card he gave her.
Wait, she says.
The man keeps walking, his back to her.
This is just a phone number, she says. Who shall I ask for?