“Everyone knows Dan Watson. Just like everyone knows Mr. Carson. Just like everyone knows everyone here.”
“No one knows me.”
“I know you,” said Candy, but both of them knew it wasn’t so. All she knew was that her name was Teresa and that she stood outside store windows for a long time and that the most handsome man in Bakersfield had opened the door to his pickup truck to give her a ride home.
Mr. Carson’s heavy, lopsided footsteps sounded at the entrance to the storage room, and that finally broke Candy away from the aisle. She eased back toward the desk as if she had never carried on a conversation with Teresa, simply going on with the business of the morning, and though Teresa could not see Mr. Carson, she knew Candy’s demeanor had worked. “Oh, there you are,” she heard Mr. Carson say, and then he began discussing a matter for the front desk.
Teresa went back to her inventory. I know you, she kept hearing as she counted out pairs of sandals she remembered having ordered a year ago. I know about you, she imagined Candy saying, and there it was — just the additional word, the single key and the lock turning for a door that revealed everything about Teresa in glaring light: her father gone, her mother following, money scarce, the men below her window whistling. I know all about you, she tried, this time her own voice saying it, repeating it, as she counted out white shoes favored by the nurses at the hospitals, tasseled flats in elderly beige, pink canvas sneakers, dancing shoes with glittery straps and heels as thin as expensive vases. I know, I know, I know, as she wrote her counts onto the salmon-colored index cards, the morning passing along torturously and Candy not saying another word to her.
I know. But Candy didn’t. Here was a pair of shoes like Candy’s, a modest pump, the heel barely off the ground, dark brown and plain, no intricate patterning. Teresa glanced at the price on the box and wondered how much Mr. Carson would reduce it — a single pair left, but maybe she could afford it if it went on sale. Women like Candy purchased such shoes throughout the year, the price not too high for them. Candy had a record player and could walk into that record shop and buy every Ricky Nelson song she desired, a different version of his beautiful face on the sleeve any time she wanted.
Teresa continued her inventory but noted more and more shoes she wanted to buy for herself, taking a single index card and jotting down the styles she would pay attention to later. She held them up for inspection: spectator shoes, stack heels, plain Mary Janes and ballerina flats, espadrilles and pumps. All of these for Candy, all of them purchased for her by the sweetheart boy she was seeing. The noon hour crawled closer, and the closer it came, the more she thought of Dan, the things she could have with him, and she felt an impatience that she didn’t have them already. When she came across a single pair of cowboy boots — chocolate, the left one scratched badly at both the tip and the heel, a ring of delicate brown roses etched around the mouth — she took one out of the box and held it up as if it could be broken. How unfair of Candy to want more than she already had. Teresa glanced at the shoe size and knew it would fit, then checked the other one to make sure they were a matching pair, as she was supposed to. There was only one pair of the boots left, meaning Mr. Carson had sold them well, but this box had been stuck near the top of the rack, its cover a little dusty from waiting.
Teresa held still, listening for Candy before she even knew what she was actually doing. The floor fan had not yet been turned on and she waited for some kind of signal of Candy’s presence in the silence of the storeroom — a shuffle of paper, Candy’s shoes against the cement floor, a cough against the dust in the air, but the place remained quiet. The longer the silence went on, the more Teresa hesitated, and she strained for the bells of the front door or voices or the telephone. Nothing came. The longer she waited, she knew, the greater the chance she would never have the boots.
She stepped off the ladder with the boot box in her hand and walked down the aisle, listening. Candy was not at the desk. Teresa stopped momentarily and listened once more. The clock read twenty minutes to noon; the lunch hour was finally arriving. She bent down to get one of the large paper bags with sturdy twine loops, carson’s printed on both sides. Briskly, she unfolded it, as if she were going about her business, but after one more glance at the beige curtain leading to the front of the store, Teresa slipped the boot box into the bag and walked quickly to the rear exit, the door leading out to the alley and the garbage cans, and there she tucked the bag behind one of the trash bins, inconspicuous, where she would pick it up after work.
It was that easy. When she turned back into the storeroom, it was still empty, Candy nowhere in sight. Teresa was surprised at how calm she was, how she could mask herself in the same way Candy had when Mr. Carson had come searching for her earlier in the morning. She made herself look busy, as if all she’d done was sharpen her pencil and gather more index cards. By the time she ascended the ladder again, Teresa had only the vision of the clock in her head, the small amount of time left before lunch and Dan’s soothing presence.
“Teresa,” she heard Candy call out. “There’s someone here to see you.”
She stood on the ladder, waiting for Candy to round the aisle and find her directly, but Candy wasn’t budging. Her voice came from the front of the storeroom, edged with jealousy.
“Teresa?”
“Coming,” she replied. She shuffled down the ladder and walked toward the beige curtain, where Candy stood waiting.
“You should probably tell him,” Candy whispered, “that Mr. Carson would prefer visitors to wait outside.”
Teresa pulled aside the curtain, and there he stood with his hat respectfully in his hands, Dan Watson in a pair of dark jeans and a plaid shirt he must have just purchased, the creases still evident where it had been folded. She could not hide the smile on her face, the previous evening’s dreaming and the morning’s long walk now wiped away, Dan Watson just as handsome as she remembered him from yesterday, his brown hair wet and freshly combed. The hat, she realized, was a measure of respect — he hadn’t actually worn it, judging by his hair — and when she recognized the gesture, she found herself catching her breath.
But Mr. Carson looked over to her and held her gaze long enough to bring her back to her senses. He stared at her as if she should have known better, though there were no customers in the store.
“Are you ready for lunch?” Dan asked.
“Yes, but at noon sharp,” she answered, almost swallowing her words. “Mr. Carson?” She approached the sales counter, putting her hand on it when Mr. Carson did not look up from his work. “Mr. Carson, this is Dan Watson.”
“He’s introduced himself,” Mr. Carson answered, not looking up. “I knew his father.”
“Yes, sir,” Dan said, a little uncertainly.
“You can go at noon on the dot,” Mr. Carson said, not looking up. He finally raised his head and, without a trace of hesitation, said to Dan, “I don’t like my employees to be picked up at the front door, especially in front of customers. There’s a door in the alleyway.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She gets an hour lunch and cannot be late.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dan. He backed away toward the door, Mr. Carson’s fingers back on his ledger, and Teresa watched him exit.
She was about to turn to the storeroom when Mr. Carson spoke.
“Never again,” he said.