Rose of No Man's Land

by Michelle Tea

  I didn’t know whether to agree or not. Sometimes people ask you your opinion on things like that, but then when you agree with them they get all pissed ’cause you’ve insulted their mother. I just shrugged.

  She was all stressed out ’cause she’s a lesbian and she didn’t want to be with my dad and she was going to leave him and go and live with all these other lesbians in Vermont but then boom she got pregnant with me and so I guess she thought that meant she’d never get to be a lesbian. So she smoked a ton. I think it stunted me. I was a preemie. I lived in a little tank for like a month.

  Wow, I said. Did Your Mom Ever Get To Be A Lesbian? I asked her. She nodded and threw her cigarette into the Dumpster. It was still burning. A thin stream of smoke slunk up from inside.

  Give me yours, she commanded, and I did. I had to resist the urge to smell my fingers because I’m sure they smelled just so unbelievably gross. You don’t even smoke, do you?

  I shook my head. My day had been filled with lies, I figured if I had the option to get out of one of them I should take it. Well, if you ever want to try it again let me know and you can try again, Rose offered generously. I love to smoke. She took a big drag off my cigarette. My mom is a lesbian right now, she said. But she still smokes a ton. She never stopped being stressed out. I guess it’s really stressful to be a lesbian.

  I Bet, I nodded. I hadn’t really thought about it. I didn’t know any lesbians besides maybe Bernice, but I wanted to let Rose know that I was cool about her mom being one. I’m Not, You Know, Racist Against Lesbians, I told her.

  You mean “prejudiced,” she told me. You’re not prejudiced against lesbians. Racist is against like black people or Puerto Rican people.

  Oh, I’m Not That, Either.

  Rose nodded and more smoke gushed out of her mouth. She nodded and shrugged and exhaled all that smoke at the same time.

  No, But A Lot Of People Are Around Here, Right? I asked. You Know? But I Don’t Think I Am.

  That’s cool, she said. I’m like a quarter Puerto Rican so I can’t be racist.

  Oh, I nodded. Cool.

  Rose took a thick drag off my cigarette and flung the smoking butt into the Dumpster with the other. I think I’m subconsciously trying to burn this fucking place down.

  Really? I asked. I admit I was sort of taken aback and flustered by Rose’s general attitude. I know that I can be very abrasive, but Rose was coming at it from a different angle. It had never occurred to me to burn the mall down but now I was wondering why not.

  Thanks for the jewelry, she said, jumping down from the Dumpster and wiping sooty rust flakes from her ass. The khaki shorts she wore were so baggy they looked like they would slide right off her if the knobs of her hips weren’t there for them to hang onto. You were so sharp with that, that was cool of you. I was going to explain everything but then Bernice showed up.

  Yeah, I Know, I said, and thought about telling her I was nervous, or about making a crack along the lines of, Yeah, nice of you to assume I’m sympathetic to thieves, but Rose was plowing straight along. She had her own internal agenda. You could see it even as an outside spectator. There was a lot going on in there.

  Anyway, there’s a bunch of us who work here and we just give each other shit. It’s cool. It’s like an underground economy or something.

  Really? I asked.

  Yeah, it’s like the only good thing about working here. It’s cool, though. Come by the Clown on your half hour and I’ll hook you up. Then Rose smiled, something she hadn’t done yet. I hadn’t noticed she hadn’t smiled until it happened, and it was like watching a scrap of material become twisted into a beautiful bow. Rose’s face lit straight up and I swear, maybe I’m just horribly a copycat but it made me light up right back, smiling big enough to break my face, and then Rose said, See ya, and pushed through the glass doors and back into Square One, and I was left by the Dumpster smiling like a dork.

  Fourteen

  Do you smell that? Bernice O’Leary’s nose was flexed upward. Her nostrils flared and contracted, flared and contracted, as she huffed the air. And then I realized that Bernice looked like one of those dogs with the hair that you pin up with little barrettes. I swear. Something about the shape of her nose, her underbite, the way her floppy, overgrown hairdo begged to be secured back from her face. I shook my head at her, wondering at the state of my own hairdo. It had been windy out behind the mall. I touched it carefully.

  I smell cigarettes, Bernice crinkled her nose and sucked another gust of air up her powerful little nostrils. Trishy, you don’t smoke, do you? She looked horrified.

  No, I Don’t, I said, and I was being honest but the truth felt like a lie for like the third time today. Maybe that was the way of the working world. Always slaving away under the boss man or woman, waiting to get axed. It makes a person nervous. I was all nerves, and my continued abstinence with the foodstuffs plus my run-in with nicotine had me actually trembling a bit.

  But I smell cigarettes. I can always smell a cigarette. Were you with Rose just now? I nodded my head. Out back, by the Dumpster? I nodded again. Oh, Trishy, she sighed. Sometimes it’s not enough to just say no. Sometimes you have to say no to people too. Do you know what I mean?

  Like, Not Hang Out With Rose? I asked. Bernice nodded.

  Trishy, we have a certain image here at Ohmigod! She held up her hands to ward off my protest, but I was mute. It’s not even up to me, girl. It’s in the training manual. It’s in all the company material. It’s the same at every store, all across the land. Go into an Ohmigod! in New Hampshire, same thing. Go to one in Boston. Go to California — I guess I don’t really know if we have any way out there but, like, in Maine there’s one, and it’s the same thing. It’s a place with standards. It’s a fun place for fun girls who know how to have fun without indulging in the seamier, adult pleasures. I mean, so-called pleasures, right? Because is it really pleasurable to smoke a cigarette? I shook my head. It’s not! Bernice agreed. Is lung cancer pleasurable? This was one of those rhetorical questions, the kind you don’t have to answer, my favorite questions. Anyway, Trishy, girls who work at Ohmigod! don’t, you know, drink alcohol, or smoke anything, and they keep good conduct outside of the mall. Conduct with boys. You know what I’m saying, girl? Was Bernice asking me if I was a virgin? Was she telling me that virginity was a job requirement for Ohmigod!? The store that launched a thousand skanks? The store that sold shirts that were little more than shredded-up slashes of polyester strategically placed across boobs?

  I didn’t have a real orientation with you, Bernice explained, because you’re just temp, and I figured, you’re part of Kim’s gang so you already know what we’re about here, but…she stared at me and her face shifted. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here, huh, Trish? I took a breath. But I think that’s one of our shirts…she trailed off, staring at my chest. She smiled. “Baby.” I loved that line. So sweet. I had the one that said “Bootylicious.” All the glitter fell off, though.

  I’m Sorry, I said. I wasn’t sure where this was going.

  Trishy, you and me need to lay out some rules. Even though you might only be here for like another few days, we want to uphold the Ohmigod! code, right, girl?

  Yeah.

  Stay clear of Rose. She’s sweet enough, but she’s on the road to nowhere, as they say. Bernice chuckled. I actually didn’t know “they” said that. I thought it was a song or something. You seem like a real nice girl, one of those girls that are nice to everyone, sort of a bleeding heart type of person, would you say?

  I Don’t Think So, I said. A bleeding heart?

  That’s what I’d say, as an outsider looking in. It’s a real sweet way to be but it’s also not very realistic. You really can’t be nice to everyone, girl. Some people, you’re nice to them and they’ll take you right down with them. You think you’re just giving someone a smile and then wham, before you know it you’re part of a bad crowd. So watch out. Stick with the girls you already got, like Yolanda and all them, ’
kay? I nodded my head. I’d been nodding quite frequently as there wasn’t much I could do really but just sort of bob my head at the incredible things coming out of Bernice’s mouth. The nodding was making something happen inside my skull. I swear I wasn’t nodding violently or anything but it was like I’d shaken something loose inside my brain, and all these little black spots were sprinkling over my eyes like gothic confetti. My vision was being totally vandalized by some new nodding-induced neurological disorder. I got sort of dizzy and tried to lean up against a rack of clothes to take in the rest of Bernice’s monologue, which at this point really sounded like the whaaa whaaa whaaa whaaa whaaa whaaa whaaa on Charlie Brown cartoons. So I attempted to lean against what I thought was a sturdy rack but I sort of missed the rack part and leaned into the dresses that were hanging off the rack and I went down. I hit the linoleum in a pile of shameful confusion and fuchsia-dyed cotton. And Bernice was on top of me and the lights were a seizure in the ceiling above me and she was saying, Have you eaten today? Have you drank enough water? And I was able to spit out a feeble no and then Bernice was gone and it was just me and the vivid lights and then she was back with a palmful of chocolate.

  This is so weird, she said, peeling the delicate foil off the kisses sort of frantically. Because Kim would get sick if she didn’t eat too. So we kept these candies under the register for her. There’s a few bags of stuff if you don’t like these. Do you like Twix? I think there’s a bag of Twix back there.

  These Are Great, I said, and they were. The chocolate felt like too much for my mouth, it seemed to come alive as it melted, grew thicker and sweeter and oozed into my teeth, it glued my mouth shut. I swallowed and Bernice popped another onto my tongue. I dug into it. Bernice was nodding. She patted my hair. She brushed it gently with the tip of her pinky. Poor Trishy, she said, and began unwrapping me a third kiss. And I’m not sure if it wasn’t a more serious neurological freakout happening in my head, because when Bernice said that to me, I swear I almost started crying. My eyes just flash-flooded with a stinging sensation and I felt this gaping ache, as if my empty, empty stomach had elevated itself up to the region of my heart. Oh my god. I was splayed on the floor of Ohmigod! in a douche-bag costume being hand-fed chocolates by Bernice O’Leary and I was tearing up. I swallowed the last morsel in a giant gulp and got to my feet. I wobbled and Bernice put her hand out to steady me and I recoiled. I’m Fine, I said, Thanks. I sounded bitchy. Bernice withdrew her hand and looked wounded. Her palm was full of tiny shreds of silver. Are you sure? she asked. Yeah, Yeah. I was shaky, definitely, but I was up. The chocolate helped. I wanted more. I totally wanted a Twix. I Want A Twix, I said. I still sounded bitchy. I don’t know what it was. It was like I didn’t have the capacity to speak in much more than caveman grunts or something. My starving body had shut down all unessential programs, like the “tone” program that moderates the way you speak to people. Out the window.

  They’re under the register, way in the back, said Bernice. She was pouting like a real sourpuss. I turned to carefully walk the glistening linoleum path that led back to the register, flanked by the flutters of skirts and racks of jeans misted with fine glitter, jeans that were prefaded in the knees so you can have that one-million-blow-jobs look. And once you’ve gotten yourself together, please wash up in the bathroom. Because you really smell like a big cigarette.

  Fifteen

  Under the cash register, in the cluttered cubby that held the candy, I discovered Kim Porciatti’s cell phone like Columbus discovered America. It had been there for a while and wasn’t mine but I took it anyway. I had dragged out the bags of snack-sized chocolates and was just fiddling around under there, being a bit nosy, snooping. Not so much to look at — some cardboard boxes filled with rubber bands, paper clips. A banded stack of cards with Ohmigod!’s explosive pink and purple logo on them, “Bernice O’Leary, General Manager” printed in pink type beneath. Stacks of register tape and a baby blue feather duster clumped with frizzy dust bunnies and other sneezeables. And back behind it all, the shiny silver bundle of Kim’s small phone. All folded into itself like a space-age rolypoly bug. Crouching low, I flipped it open. It was stuck with glittery stickers that said “Kim” in different colors and styles, plus a faded Neoprint sticker of Kim herself, all smiles. The phone’s electronic face was dull, dead. I hit some random buttons but nothing happened. I’d never held a cell phone before so I didn’t know how to make it work. Nothing I did made it light up. I was so excited to find this thing. Being in the mall all day had made me materialistic. I swear. It’s easy to be down on everything when you’ve barricaded yourself in your bedroom, snacking on endless greasy bowls of ramen, living the simple life. Just a few hours spent in the belly of the shopaholic empire had changed me. I was embarrassed to be so impressionable. It’s not like the clothes at Ohmigod! had begun to appeal to me, I wasn’t totally brainwashed. It was more like — I wanted to participate, somehow. I wanted in on the action. I was all hopped up on strobing fluorescent lightbulbs and I wanted a cell phone. I grabbed Kristy’s purse — she’d made me take it because the sheen of its pink iridescence exactly matched the glitter in the BABY design on my T-shirt. It was a small purse, built to hold not much more than a tiny phone. All I had in it were my house keys and a couple dollars. Kim’s cell phone slid in snug and looked right at home. The pink plastic purse breathed a sigh of relief. It was complete, it was emotionally whole, a cell phone resting in its belly. I zipped it up and sunk my hands into the candy bags, rose from my squat with bite-sized chocolates falling from my fists and there was Bernice.

  Didya wash up? she chirped. I thought for a moment that maybe this was what having a mom was like, working with Bernice. Someone to butt in to your business, inquire about the state of your hymen, boss you, tell you what girls you couldn’t hang out with. I felt a swell of appreciation for my good ol’ Ma, at home on the couch, never bothering herself with classic Ma worries like pregnancy and substance abuse. I could prance right in the door with Rose in tow, Rose could yank stolen goods from her sack, and detail the elaborate scams that brought them to her and Ma would nod and ask Rose to bring something back for her. She’d turn to me and ask why I wasn’t an awesome thief like my new friend. Then she’d go back to worrying about her liver.

  Bernice leaned in and took a sniff. I’m Still Fortifying, I told her. I tore into a Twix and crunched heartily. It’s true that rising from squat to standing had made the dark spreckles swell at the edge of my vision. I knew better than to starve myself like this, but it had been an exceptional day. Twix crumbs cascaded down the front of my shirt, mingling with the glitter. I held the half-chomped bar to my supervisor. Would You Like A Bite? I offered, and Bernice smiled. She liked me again. It didn’t take a lot. I remember Ma complaining about the work world. You gotta kiss a lot of ass, and kiss it all day long, she’d griped, and then made a squishy kissing noise with her lips. I guess I was kissing Bernice’s ass. It wasn’t so bad, really. I gave her a big smile and she smiled right back. I’d seen on Oprah once that women tend to mirror other people, like imitate whatever expression you shoot at them. It’s very subconscious. I don’t think I do it, but for sure Bernice O’Leary is a mirror maniac.

  In the Ohmigod! bathroom I lathered my hands with some melony Softsoap from the pump on the sink. I made big, thick suds. I scrubbed the hell out of my nicotine fingers. I scrubbed and scrubbed like an obsessive-compulsive person. I made the water wicked hot and gritted my teeth through the steam, blanching the grody tobacco stink away. I hate to be such a wuss, I really do. I would like to be badass and free, you know, clambering around Dumpsters, thieving and smoking and being a deliberate fire hazard like Rose, but it’s not so much my style.

  Don’t you smell like a piece of candy, girl! Bernice beamed at me. She was by the register with a pile of clothes she’d collected from the floor of the communal dressing room. I was so grateful she’d gathered the castoffs herself. I was pretty sure one of my duties here at Ohmigod! would be creeping in
to the communal dressing room with its shadowy corners and infinitely reflecting walls, retrieving the ill-fitting items shoppers leave scattered across the floor. Surely at some point I would have to complete this task, but I was psyched that I didn’t have to right then, what with my poor health. I hate that communal dressing room more than anything. I mean, I hate it so much it’s like a phobia for me. It makes me real neurotic. I’m scared of it the way tiny brats are scared of the dark. One of my first memories is Ma dragging me and Kristy in there with her, back when I was so small and the store was something different, it was called Joanie’s or something and Ma shopped there sometimes. She was trying on bathing suits and so were all these other women, all of them in the dim lights and the crazy, fun house mirrors. A flashing eternal reflection of boobs and skin. The whole environment really freaked me out. And on top of it I’m crammed into this doorless cubicle with my own naked mother and all her naked-mother smells and strange hairs, and Kristy’s no help because she’s like totally transfixed by the mirror, even then, just gazing at herself and making faces and laughing like a miniature madwoman, and I swear I had a panic attack. It was all too much for me. I started bawling and screaming and Ma got pissed, pulled off the bathing suit, which I recall was an orange one-piece that cut high up her thigh, pulled her jeans back on, and dragged us from the shadowy room. I shrieked and then Kristy shrieked, upset that she had been yanked away from the glory of her own reflection. And communal dressing rooms only get worse as you get older. Then the weird childhood creeps merge with more teenaged concerns about your body and your clothing and what you can or can’t afford and the lousy condition your underwear might be in. Not to mention the bodies, financial status, and lingerie of the other girls. Honestly, if I’d considered the communal dressing room at the time, I probably would have nixed this whole job scam right off the bat, and I planned on going in there as little as possible. I wondered even if Ma’s doctor at the free clinic would write me a note verifying I have a mental illness about the space and getting me off the hook with it forevermore.