She Who Shops

by Joanne Skerrett

  She thought of her conversation with Rainee. Not once had she brought up Lana. It was strange, but Weslee was glad to not have to talk about her former friend.

  She ran across the street to the salon on Columbus Avenue.

  She was relieved to find the salon almost empty. Most people were recovering from the holidays, she figured. Her stylist, Heather, had gotten lucky. She showed the other stylists her engagement ring. Weslee did her best to ooh and ahhh along with the other women. She was happy for Heather, who had been with her partner for over ten years, and they had two children, so the ring was long overdue.

  Yet Weslee couldn’t help but feel a little envy. When is it going to be my turn, she pouted inside.

  “Girl, so what did you and that fine man of yours do for the holidays?” Heather asked.

  “Oh, he was stuck in London on business. But he’ll be back tomorrow.” Weslee tried to sound as optimistic and upbeat as she possibly could.

  Heather frowned. “Well, I hope you at least went out and partied.”

  “Oh, sure. I went up to Killington with a few friends. We had a great time.”

  “Hmmm. I’m not a skier, but I hear it’s nice up there,” Heather said.

  Two hours later, Weslee left the salon and walked up Columbus Avenue in the frigid afternoon air, her hair bouncy and fragrant. She was glad she was wearing the new coat her mother had gotten her for Christmas. It wasn’t anything she would buy for herself, especially now that she was still trying to repair her decimated savings. It was a navy blue full-length wool coat with a fur collar. Terry had called it an old-lady coat. But it sure was warm, and it would look sophisticated with the high-heeled Via Spiga boots she had found on sale at Marshall Field’s on the Magnificent Mile.

  Even though she had officially sworn off her short-lived fashionista phase, she found that she couldn’t go back to her old clothes. They didn’t excite her anymore. The Gap white shirts and black pants that had taken her so many places now looked drab and boring. She found herself picking up fashion magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store. Her family had commented on her fully made-up face when she had come home on Thanksgiving.

  “Boston must be treating you really well,” her father had said, raising his eyebrows.

  “It’s that new boyfriend of hers,” Terry had teased.

  Weslee knew that it was that, and it was Lana, crazy Lana, too. Despite all her flaws, she had forced Weslee to look at herself in another way. And Weslee couldn’t lie; she felt more confident, more beautiful in her new clothes, in her bright red lipstick, in her suede boots. But she didn’t miss Lana.

  The streets were fairly deserted. That was fine with her. She hoped Saks would be pretty empty, too. That way she could take her time and rifle through the sale rack and find something that hadn’t been wrinkled by too much handling. She knew Duncan had something really special planned. She wasn’t sure what, but whatever it was, she wanted him to melt when he saw her.

  She turned onto Clarendon, and there was William.

  “Are you stalking me?” William flashed his Chiclet smile.

  “No, are you stalking me?” Weslee was surprised. Well, he did live around here somewhere, she remembered. But William was the last person she had expected to run into.

  “What’s up, FloJo?” He had called her that a couple of times. She wasn’t sure if she liked it.

  “I just came from the beauty salon. I’m going shopping now.”

  “I see. Is this one of those pampering days you women talk about?”

  “You got it.” She wanted to ask about Megan. “What are you up to?” On the way to see her, no doubt.

  “I was working at home, but then I got this craving for grits, so I’m heading down to Mike’s.”

  “Oooh. I love that place,” Weslee said. Mike’s Diner was the greasy spoon of the South End that drew everyone from local street thugs, upscale gay couples, and social-climbing single women to politicians, doctors, and everything in between. It was the place to go when you wanted to get an entire week’s worth of calories in one huge, delicious breakfast surrounded by hip and not-so-hip people.

  “Wanna come?”

  She hesitated.

  “Come on,” he urged. “A quick bite to eat won’t mess up your hair.”

  She smiled. “I guess not.”

  The restaurant was crowded all the way from the counter to the very back of the small dining area, but they managed to get a small table near the window overlooking Washington Street after just a short wait.

  Weslee drank coffee as she waited for her South Ender breakfast, a corned-beef hash omelette with home fries and wheat toast. William drank orange juice and waited on his grits, sausages, and pancakes.

  After they had caught up with their work and school lives, Weslee could feel the tension in the conversation. So she said the first thing that came into her head.

  “So, how’s Megan?” Ugh.

  “Megan? Oh, she’s fine. She flew back to New York today.”

  Oh, long distance. Hmmm.

  “Do you guys get to see each other often? With the distance and all.” Double ugh. She felt like she wasn’t making the right impression. She wanted to sound nonchalant, but she worried that she sounded as if she was leading an interrogation.

  “Well . . . Yeah. We’re both pretty busy, so it works out.”

  She had made him uncomfortable. “I understand. Duncan’s pretty busy, too. He’s coming back from London tomorrow.”

  He looked at her with a question in his eyes. “You’re still seeing him?”

  “Yes. Why?” How could he not know?

  He was silent for a minute. “Oh, I just thought . . .”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Weslee began to feel a little irritated. “What did you think, William?”

  The food came.

  “Listen, I don’t want to talk about Duncan. How’s the running going?”

  “It’s going well. But I want to talk about Duncan. Do you know something I don’t?” She didn’t quite know why she was getting angry.

  “Weslee, I haven’t seen the guy in a couple of months. I heard some things, that’s all. He’s not representing us anymore.”

  “He’s not? He didn’t tell me that.” What in the world?

  “No big deal. He couldn’t give us the time we needed. It’s no big deal. Besides, he was only doing it as a favor to me for a short time.”

  “I see,” Weslee said. “But have you spoken to him lately?”

  William raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. He attacked his grits.

  “Is there something going on that you can’t tell me?” she asked.

  “No, nothing at all,” William said, keeping his eyes focused on his plate.

  Weslee sighed. She wanted to believe William, yet he was acting so suspiciously, as if he were hiding something.

  They ate silently.

  “Hey, maybe when things calm down, we could all get together. You know, you and Megan and Duncan and me.”

  William looked up from his plate. “Weslee, I like you. I liked you the first time I saw you at that party. You’re a special person, and that’s why I’m going to tell you this. Talk to Duncan. Find out where his head is and what his intentions are before you get hurt.”

  Weslee lost her appetite. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not going to say any more than what I just told you, Weslee. You need to talk to Duncan.”

  She looked at him and saw in his eyes that he meant what he said. She would hear nothing else from him. She got up and put on her coat.

  “You know where to find me if you need to talk,” he said.

  She left the restaurant, puzzled. What would be the right thing to do? She wanted to go home and call Duncan right away, but he’d said he would be busy all day and wouldn’t be reachable.

  William, she fumed. Weslee wanted to kick herself for agreeing to have breakfast with him. Her mood was completely ruined. Ins
tead of strolling happily on the deserted city streets, she walked quickly, her face tight. A dog walker pulled the leash on his dog closer as Weslee approached, but she didn’t even see them.

  She talked to herself. How could he? All the time she thought he was OK with the way things ended with them. He had said he was. But apparently he wasn’t, because he was trying to ruin things between her and Duncan. The nerve of him! Right after I tell him that I want to be friends with him and his bony girlfriend, she fumed.

  With bulldozerlike fury, she cut a wide swath through Saks and Neiman Marcus in a matter of hours. She stopped in the Theory boutique first. Yes, those one-hundred-sixty-dollar T-shirts. She’d need those in eggshell and khaki. And of course the long khaki skirt with the slit up to here. The Andrew Marc calf-suede pants? She couldn’t think of anything else worth her three hundred dollars. She loaded dresses, skirts, and blouses over her arm, her eyes scanning the racks for something. Something else to buy. But the anger wouldn’t go away. So she went to the jewelry department. Pearls. She would need another set. A multistrand silver necklace with cultured pearls caught her eye. David Yurman! She recognized the name from a Vogue ad. Or was it Women’s Wear Daily? It didn’t matter. She bought the nine-hundred-fifty-dollar necklace without blinking, and on a whim asked the salesgirl to include the six-hundred-fifty-dollar bracelet. She then marched off to get shoes, which she could never have enough of. She told the clerk to set aside four pairs of Materia Prima pumps—the same style in black leather, black suede, tan, and pink. They were two hundred forty-five dollars each—a veritable bargain, she told herself. By then she was almost panting. She didn’t know how desperate she appeared to the salespeople who eyed her warily as she darted in and out of the fitting rooms, her arms overflowing. Her single-mindedness didn’t allow her to see herself whirling about the store like an addict desperate for the next fix. All she knew was that she was angry and that she wanted. She didn’t know what. But she wanted it bad.

  She was still stewing when she got home. She threw the shopping bags on the couch and picked up the phone.

  “Mom,” she said.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” her mother asked. Weslee launched into the story of William’s unrevealing revelation.

  “Don’t get upset until you find out the whole truth from Duncan,” her mother said. “Don’t go getting yourself all crazy over something that may be nothing, child.”

  “But what if it’s something?” Weslee began to think back on all the occasions when Duncan had seemed so dark and moody and quiet. Maybe he is hiding something.

  Her mother couldn’t calm her fears, and she hung up feeling even more frustrated after her mother urged her to “Just come home and decompress for a while.”

  She sank into the couch.

  “Aaargh! Why does everything have to be so hard?!” She looked at the multitudes of shopping bags strewn about the living room floor. The cab driver had gawked as he’d helped her carry them up into her apartment. They’d excited her then, these bags, and the thought that she’d have so many new things to wear into the infinite future. But now the bags on the floor stared up at her like hungry sharks swimming about her feet, and they gave her a sinking feeling. What in the world did I just do? What is wrong with me?

  Then the doorbell rang. It was almost six-thirty P.M.

  “Who is it?” she said into the intercom.

  “It’s your man.” It was Duncan.

  “Duncan!” Weslee shrieked. “Oh, my goodness. I’m a mess.”

  “Who cares? Buzz me up,” he said in his hoarse, sexy voice.

  She was wearing the same sweater and jeans she had worn all day, and her hair was flat from lying on the couch. “Give me a minute, honey.” She gathered up the shopping bags and stuffed the ones that would fit into her already overburdened closet. The others she stuffed under her bed, in the kitchen cabinets, and under the bathroom sink. All the while she kept asking herself why. I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not like I’ve committed a crime. This is my money that I’m spending. But still she hid the packages, not wanting Duncan to see this side of her that she herself barely recognized.

  She ran to the bathroom to do a rush job on her face and hair before buzzing him up.

  “What happened? I thought you couldn’t leave until tomorrow,” she said as he entered her apartment. Gosh, he looked so handsome, she thought. He was wearing a long wool coat and a navy blue pinstripe suit. Her favorite. He looked tired, and somehow that made him sexier to her—just knowing that he came straight to her from the airport after his long flight.

  “Nick said they could take care of the deposition. Jackson’s going to be fine. I told them I had to go see my lady.” He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply, then began to undress.

  She was able to brush aside thoughts of William and her misgivings about Duncan as he led her to the bedroom. She tried to slow him down, but his urgency overwhelmed her. “Babe, I missed you so much,” she said breathlessly as he pulled off her sweater. He only groaned in response as he quickly unhooked her bra and pushed her onto the bed. She tried to hide her disappointment as he only pulled her jeans down halfway and quickly moved inside her. I wasn’t even ready, she complained inwardly. Minutes later, it was over.

  Afterward they lay silently. It was night, and the apartment was dark. She was so glad to have him back despite the fact that he was so obviously stressed and tired. His rush to seize her body had just shown how much he missed her, she thought. This man loves me, would cross the ocean just to make love to me. This explanation soothed her worries and calmed her disappointment that he had not been his usual loving, giving self. I’m sure the next time around will be a million times sweeter, she thought.

  “I ran into William today,” she said, snuggling even closer to him.

  He tensed. “Oh, what’s he up to?”

  “He’s got a new girlfriend. Megan.”

  “Good for him.” Duncan yawned.

  “Babe?”

  “Mmm-hmmm.”

  “Is there anything I need to know? About us?”

  Duncan tensed again. “Like what?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe we should just talk about where things are going?”

  He was silent for a couple of minutes. Weslee had almost begun to think that he had fallen asleep.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Well. I . . . I’m just wondering how you feel about us. You know.”

  He sighed. “Doesn’t the fact that I left London a day early to be with you tell you all you need to know about how I feel about you? About us?”

  She felt like an idiot. Why was she doing this to him? Of course she knew how he felt. He was right. She was a fool. He’s told me he loves me, she thought, so many times and in so many ways. She hoped he would just forget she ever asked him anything. She clenched her fists under the cover. She wanted to kill William for putting doubts in her mind. “I know.” She tried to move even closer to him, but he didn’t respond. “I just missed you so much. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed and got up. He clicked on the lights in the bathroom and shut the door.

  She wanted to die. He was angry. When he became angry, it could last for days. He was so moody. What have I done? she thought. She wanted to run into the bathroom and get on her knees and apologize and make everything right again.

  “So what exactly did William tell you?” He stood in the doorway of the bathroom. His eyes glowed in the dark of the bedroom.

  “Nothing,” she lied. She was panicking. She could see the outline of his jaw clenching against the light in the bathroom behind him.

  His eyes had turned dark, and his eyebrows knit tightly together in a frown. “Nothing?”

  “Duncan, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have even brought this up.” She walked over to him, but he flinched away when she tried to touch him.

  “I can’t believe you’d ask me a question like that,” he said, anger rising in his voice. “All the time we’ve spent t
ogether . . .” He shook his head. He began to get dressed. “And you go behind my back and discuss me with another man.” The tenor of his voice scared Weslee.

  “Duncan, I’m so sorry, baby.” She was crying now. “I didn’t mean to. I just ran into him.” She was pleading with him to stay. But he put on his shirt and then his shoes as she stood there helplessly, naked. “Duncan, don’t go. I’m sorry.”

  He slammed the door on his way out of the apartment.

  Chapter 20

  Duncan was moody the rest of the week; his calls were infrequent and short. And that romantic dinner she’d daydreamed about for weeks had never materialized. She’d forlornly returned the red satin Catherine Malandrino dress to the store. She’d bought it especially for that occasion, and she couldn’t stand to have it in her possession anymore. That night he’d left, she had cried herself into a sleepless stupor, resolving never again to bother him with her petty insecurities. She needed to be more confident in his love for her, she decided. Men like Duncan were easily irritated by spineless, nagging women. Like me, she’d thought. She needed to be more like Lana. Nonchalant and aloof. Let him think I don’t care much for him, and that will make him want me even more. Though the dividends from that strategy seemed to be delayed in their payout, she was still holding out hope, willing her fingers not to dial his office number or cell phone three or four times a day. It was agony in its purest form, and she hated herself for being so emotionally off-balance.

  She knew he was burying himself in work. He would stay at the office until nine and sometimes ten at night, then come over. They would make love, and then he would go to sleep, waking early the next day to go to his place to change before he went back to the office. He barely spoke to her.

  Weslee had stopped trying to get through to him. She knew she had messed up, and she didn’t want to make him even angrier than he already was. His coldness was killing her, though. The way he would make love to her was so impersonal. Even when they were at their closest, it felt as if he wasn’t there. It was more like she was serving as a stress-reliever, a way he could get physical release. It broke her heart, but she was too afraid to turn away from him. He wouldn’t even kiss her good-bye in the mornings.