Retail Therapy

by Roz Bailey

  “Listen, Marcy ...” Alana growled.

  The clerk pointed two fingers an inch from Alana’s face. “That’s Marcella.”

  Alana shrugged. “Who knew? Now sell me the lipstick. Carnation Fucking Kiss.”

  Marcella drew a deep breath through her nostrils, as if it was all too tedious to bear.

  “Give me the lipstick,” Alana went on, “plus two summer makeup kits. And throw in one of those pedicure pooch pillows. My niece will get a kick out of it.”

  I expected another rebuttal from the clerk, but instead she picked up Alana’s card and turned to the register. “I am selling you this under a lot of duress,” she said as she scanned the card, then moved the wand over the purchases. “So don’t think you can come back here and complain that this lipstick makes you look jaundiced, because I’m warning you.”

  Alana rolled her eyes dramatically. “Consider us warned.”

  “Ha!” Marcella scanned the card a second time, then pushed a button on the register. “Is this your Bank of Freedom card?” She turned back to us. “Are you Alana Marshall-Hughs? Got some ID?”

  “Who wants to know?” Alana demanded.

  “The credit card company.” The clerk grinned as she tapped the card on the counter. “Bouncy-bouncy!”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous.” Alana cut around the side of the counter and lunged toward the clerk. “Give it to me. Give me my card. I’ll ring it up myself.”

  “You can’t be back here!” The redhead lowered her head bullishly. “That’s it!” She gestured to a clerk at a nearby counter. “Courtney! Call security.”

  “Yes, call them!” Alana said, closing in on the shorter clerk. “I’ll need them here to carry you off after I rip that lipstick out of your hands.”

  “I was selling you the damned lipstick! It’s not my fault your card is cancelled.”

  Paralyzed by a mixture of shock and amazement, I stood at the counter watching the two women. I’d never seen Alana act this way, but then, I’d never seen her credit denied.

  “Give me that lipstick,” Alana growled.

  “I’ll give it to you.” The clerk held it back, back, back. “Just as soon as you pull that stick out of your ass!”

  Alana reached over for it, but suddenly Marcella ducked and dove under Alana’s arm, lunging forward. I think she was trying to race ahead but she tripped and dove into the floor.

  My friend couldn’t stop her momentum in time and fell right on top of her. Together they were a squealing pile of designer shoes, fine fabrics, and manicured hands.

  “Where is it?” Alana lifted her head enough to grope the floor. “Give it to me!”

  “Ladies? What’s happening here?” A heavyset guard trotted up, his belt jingling. He paused when he saw the puddle of feline fury. “Someone hurt here?”

  Alana sat up. “She won’t sell my friend her lipstick!”

  The clerk pushed herself up from the floor and smoothed her hair back. “She has no credit,” she said, pointing at Alana. “And she”—Marcella pointed at me—“looks jaundiced!”

  Another guard appeared, a female, who seemed equally confused. The heavyset guard shook his head.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” I told them. “It all started over a tube of lipstick.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the female guard said. “Sometimes it happens that way.”

  Really? Did they often have altercations over lipstick? Fistfights over exfoliants?

  The female guard moved behind the counter. “Nobody hurt, right?”

  No answer.

  “Marcella?” The guard helped her up. “Back upstairs. They’ll be expecting you in Human Resources.”

  The other guard motioned to Alana. “And you’ll need to come with me, miss.”

  “Where are you taking her?” I asked, feeling a little worried. I’d never been involved in a department store infraction before.

  “Just escorting her to the door.” The wide man with the rather large walkie-talkie on his belt seemed to have a slight lisp. “This way, ma’am.”

  “My coat and packages are in the coat check,” Alana stood her ground. “I’m not leaving without them.”

  “Of course.” He gestured toward the balcony. “After you.”

  She turned her pointy-toed Dolce & Gabbana shoes toward the broad stone steps and walked with dignity. I have to hand it to Alana: even in a cat fight, she had class.

  A shriek came from the rising escalator, and I turned to see the redhead looking back at us. “I never forget a face!” she shouted. “I will never sell you that lipstick.”

  Alana turned toward the escalator and cocked an eyebrow. “We’ll see about that,” she said. “We shall see.”

  7

  Alana

  The Collington is a social club, one of my parents’ favorite places to dine. While Daddy is uncomfortable flaunting his social status, he’s quite at ease with the envelope tip system at the Collington, and equally pleased that the club was founded by families of diverse ethnic backgrounds. On any given night, you’re bound to run into local arts patrons, doctors from India, businessmen from Asia, scientists from all over the world, and a handful of city politicians. That’s the boring part.

  The good news is that the food in the dining room is decent, the family members of the aforementioned prestigious men usually can hold their own at the bar, and the club has built one of the better swimming pools in New York City. Not that I’ve used it much, but Hailey and I keep promising ourselves we’re going to start.

  I left the little gifties for Mama and Daddy in the coat-check room, then straightened my Chanel suit. As I crossed the rose-patch pattern of the dining room I could see that my parents were already ensconced at their favorite table, Daddy with his Chivas and soda, Mama with her vodka martini. Of course, Mama noticed my new plum suit immediately, commenting on it even as she pulled me into a hug.

  “Is that Chanel?”

  I kissed her cheek and nodded, touching the fake fur on the lapel.

  “Of course it is. And it’s perfect for you, Lanny.” Her eyes glimmered with pride as she patted my shoulder.

  “Thanks, Mama.”

  “Chanel?” my father rumbled. “How much did that cost me?”

  I tilted my head slightly, letting the long ponytail of baby dreads fall to one shoulder. I wanted to chastise him because he hadn’t paid for it at all since he’d let the credit card bill lapse, but I held my tongue, having learned long ago that, above all else, my father valued and demanded respect.

  Instead, I played Daddy’s little girl. “Oh, Daddy, you have a one-track mind,” I said, reaching over to hug him. “Did you miss me?”

  One side of his mouth twitched up like an angry bulldog’s. “How can I miss you when I’m bombarded by credit card bills suggesting a widespread path of decadence?”

  “Ernest ...” My mother’s voice held a warning.

  “Yes, yes, I missed you, but we must go over the rules, Alana. Certain rules of order we all must abide by in civilized society.”

  I sat down and shook the linen napkin open. “May I order a drink first?”

  That took the wind out of his sails—at least for the moment.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Sit.” He summoned the waiter and I ordered a greyhound—grapefruit juice and vodka. While Daddy fished out his reading glasses to study the evening’s menu, I motioned for the waiter to make it a double. The man smiled at my gesture of desperation, then hurried off.

  Mama reached across the table and tapped my hand. “I’m dying to hear, how was Europe?”

  “Spectacular. I was there to help Pierre launch his new line of gowns.” When Mama squinted, I added, “You remember Petey from Harvard? Pete Brown?”

  “Skinny little thing?”

  We giggled together, recalling some of Petey’s antics one summer at my parents’ house in the Hamptons. We had decided to throw an impromptu luau, and for the occasion, Petey quickly fashioned mumus out of shower curtains, grass skirts from a b
roken wicker chair, gaudy necklaces from large plastic shower curtain rings. Mama had laughed heartily over his creations, but my father had been thoroughly unsettled to discover the shower curtain missing from the master bath.

  The waiter took our order then disappeared, and the light conversation continued. As Mama and I caught up on news, I began to relax. Maybe this dinner with the ’rents would actually be enjoyable. After all, my mother totally got what I was about, and she adored the way that I held up my friends, providing an occasional lift for Hailey, endless support for Petey, fabulous neckties for Rory, and streams of baby gifts for Carla, Joyce, and Nayasia, my college friends who now had little droolers of their own. Now that I thought of it, I was pretty darned benevolent. Maybe I should incorporate myself—the Alana Foundation. Yes, I liked the sound of that, and wouldn’t Daddy be proud?

  “Oh, look, Ernest, the Schnabels are here,” my mother said as she cast her gaze over her martini glass. “I wonder how their show went? And I think that’s Dr. and Mrs. Chin in the corner. I hear they returned from the conference in Stockholm. Sadie Williams says they stayed in an ice hotel in northern Sweden. Wouldn’t that be fascinating, Ernest?” Mama’s brown eyes were dreamy, full of adventure and wonder.

  I guess I’m my mama’s daughter.

  My father squinted as if the concept of a hotel made of frozen water did not compute. “But, Rose, what about your sabbatical?”

  “Oh, I meant down the road,” my mother said, but my radar was on the word “sabbatical.” “Mama? You’re taking a vacation from NYU?”

  “Actually, I’m taking off next year to do a research project on reading comprehension of urban youth. An unpaid sabbatical, and I’m quite excited about it.”

  “That’s great, Mama. Where will you travel for your research?”

  “Lots of exotic places,” she said. “Rosedale, Flushing, Murray Hill, the Grand Concourse.”

  I blinked, liking the wispy feel of my new mascara. “Aren’t those neighborhoods in New York City? Oh, right! I get it.” Had she said something about not getting paid? That sounded dumb, but I didn’t want to be the one to point out the downside, since Mama seemed so enthused. “I’m really excited for you, Mama.”

  My father cleared his throat. “Which leads me to my agenda issue this evening. With your mother’s lack of income next year, I’ve asked the accountant to take a look over our family budget and the results, I must say, were quite shocking.”

  “Now Ernest,” Mama warned, “you promised not to be dramatic.”

  Dread hit me as I sat back in the velvet chair, feeling like a character in a movie scene. “Oh, God! This isn’t the part where you tell me the family fortune is gone! That you’ve lost it all to gambling or bad investments or identity theft or something.” I pressed a manicured hand to the faux-fur trim of my suit. A financial crisis ... this was the worst kind of news.

  “Of course we haven’t lost it all!” my father snapped. “You’ve been watching far too much of Hailey’s soap opera if you think I would be so foolish with our financial stability.”

  “What your father means to say,” Mama went on, “is that we all need to do our part to cut down unnecessary expenses. And Lanny, your spending has increased quite a bit.”

  Cut down? Cut down! I needed more—an increase! These people were insane. They couldn’t be my parents ... it was all a bad dream.

  8

  Alana

  Somewhere during the veal chop and broccoli rabe, I managed to soak up the information that our family was not going bankrupt—except in Daddy’s mind. That knowledge calmed me a little, though I must admit my parents’ surprise strike had unnerved me. For the moment, I decided to hide in my baked potato and let them ramble on while I prepared a counterstrike.

  “Don’t you ever miss your friends from Harvard?” Mama asked me. “Do you think of returning there?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but no, Mama. I see my Boston friends all the time. Love Beantown. But Harvard wasn’t my thing.”

  Daddy had been the first to recognize the huge mistake he’d made in sending me off to Harvard, a university set in a lively cosmopolitan area with thousands of merrymaking college students and twice as many shops and boutiques. In the spring of my sophomore year, when my credit card bills surpassed the hefty price of Ivy League tuition, I was yanked back to New York. Despite a tearful breakup with my Harvard man, I’d been relieved to come home, realizing that Manhattan had all the nightlife of Boston, without the term papers.

  “I just wondered,” Mama went on. “We’d love to see you finish school, Lanny. I was thinking that if you had more to do, you wouldn’t spend so much time shopping.”

  “Lord knows, I’m trying to save money here. I don’t want you returning to Harvard,” Daddy started.

  A good thing, because that’s not going to happen, I thought as I added a dollop of sour cream to my baked potato. My friend Rory had told me that potatoes are disaster food on the Zone, which I find astounding. This innocent root vegetable that comes from the earth, its skin loaded with minerals? What kind of rhetoric is that?

  “However, isn’t it about time that you consider completing your degree?” Daddy continued, prodding.

  “Most of your credits would transfer,” my mother added. “You could attend NYU or Columbia.”

  “Or City College,” my father said with emphasis. It was his alma mater, the college that had launched him into law school, and if I had to hear one more time how he rose from humble beginnings to preside over a federal courtroom, I was going to fling my baked potato over to the Schnabels’ table. “It’s time, Alana. Enough dillydallying. You need to complete your education.”

  Education? Conventional school was the furthest thing from my mind. I figured Mama had that area all sewn up with her doctorate and her niche teaching students to write at NYU. No reason to tread on her field of expertise when mine was so different. The city was my playground. Retail stores were my classroom. Shoe displays, jewelry cases, and clothes racks were my learning tools. “I don’t think so,” I demurred. “Conventional schooling was never my thing.”

  “Perhaps you need to make an adjustment, then,” the Honorable Ernest Marshall-Hughs ruled in a surly voice. “In today’s world, you’ll never get ahead without a college degree.”

  Never get ahead? Didn’t he realize that I was miles ahead of the pack? Half the girls I went to high school with now toiled in boring office jobs dressed in off-the-rack sportswear from crummy little chain stores. You know that brigade—the girls who wear sneakers to work, eat a yogurt out of a bag for lunch, and spend their weekends house hunting in the suburbs with their husbands-to-be. Please! How could my own father not realize I was destined for finer things?

  “If it makes you happy, I’ll think about going back to school,” I said. “Somewhere down the road. Right now, I’m so busy, I barely have a minute to squeeze in a hot-stone massage.”

  “Busy doing what, pray tell?” Daddy’s jowls roiled with anger. “I ran into Cravitz last week and he told me that you were no longer employed at their firm.”

  Mama shot me a strained look, a desperate “don’t tell him that I already knew you quit!” plea. I glanced back down at the remains of my baked potato as Daddy rumbled on about the work ethic he’d learned growing up as one of five children in a three-bedroom house in Great Neck. “When was the last time you worked a full day?” he asked. “An honest day of labor?” I wanted to tell him of the late nights I’d spent helping Pierre prepare for his Paris show, but apparently the question was rhetorical, as he was deep into a “value of hard work” lecture.

  His disapproval made me feel small, which was completely unfair because the law firm of Cravitz and Rutter had been a very poor match for my skills. First, they expected me to sit at a desk all day, a very cheap desk made of pressboard that snagged my skirts, ruining a Missoni dress and a navy Chanel suit. Then there was the phone, which never stopped ringing and inevitably delivered the annoyed, harried voice of som
eone who wanted to yell at me because they could. After two weeks, those angry people had me twitching and shifting at my desk, which made me snag my skirt even more.

  “I’m sorry you’re disappointed, Daddy,” I said respectfully. “But honestly, I hated every day at Cravitz and Rutter. I spent the whole day looking for Mr. Cravitz’s reading glasses! They refused to bring in a cappuccino maker. I got blamed for every little thing, and the days stretched on like blackstrap molasses.”

  “I see.” He folded his hands on the table and eyed me as if I were a criminal. “In that case, why don’t you tell me what you’re planning to do with your life, Alana.”

  Let me tell you, as I stared down at my cold broccoli rabe and heard the imperious tone in my father’s voice, I realized that I could not verbalize an answer he would find acceptable. Forget about the Alana Foundation, or my skills at shopping for the perfect gift, or my endless support of friends and family.

  “You don’t understand what I do, Daddy,” I said quietly. “My life is dedicated to making people happy. I work hard at that. I’m an independent woman, and I think I do a pretty good job of taking care of myself.”

  “You’re right, I don’t understand you,” he admitted. “What ... what is it that you do all day?”

  I reached for my water glass, my hand slipping over the condensation. “I am all over town.” I took a sip. He was waiting for more. “I have appointments.”

  “For job interviews?” Daddy pushed.

  “Salon appointments,” I clarified. “A girl’s got to get her hair done.” Across the table Mama was nodding, thank God. “And I shop. It’s sort of a ritual for me, finding the perfect gift. In fact, I got you both a little something this afternoon. Oh, and Daddy, I found the best Dolce & Gabbana briefs for you at a funky little store in London called Foundations. It was so cute!”

  “Underwear!” my father gasped, turning to my mother. “She’s spending my money on underwear!”

  “You don’t have to be snarky about it,” I said, a little hurt. “I’m an excellent shopper, not just good—excellent. I get a charge out of snatching up a new design before anyone else has even heard of it. And then there are the sales. You have to be one of the first ones into the store if you want your pick of discounted merchandise, and I’m vigilant about that.”