There are bright plastic sacks laden with trove collapsed in the corner of the dressing room. I gather them. Sears, The Bon, the 3-5-7 Shoppe. Mother Maude’s and Steffie’s bags, full of dresses and shoes and … No. Gay little frocks, and bright sling-back pumps and sun togs and beach cover-ups. Maurie and Steffie would never buy anything so mundane as dresses and shoes. I smile at the thought. Their bags hang on my arms, cut into my wrists as I hurry down the wide avenue of the mall, looking for them.
I am not good at malls, either. Steffie has tried to make me feel at home in them, but it does not work. They are too foreign to my experience. She swims through them as easily as a tropical fish glides through its pebbled and planted tank. But I am constantly distracted, bombarded by their infinite variety. There are too many possibilities, too many things to buy. Usually, I buy nothing simply because I cannot decide what to choose. Steffie selects effortlessly from the racks, tries a dozen garments, and buys two, never worrying that perhaps in the next store there will be a dress even more fetching, slacks even more flattering to her derriere. I envy her that certainty. I know I will never achieve it.
I slow, or try to. The stream of moving people pushes me on, so I continue down the mall. Perhaps I mistrust places where the sun never shines, where time stands still and the weather never changes save for the window displays. I lose all sense of direction, all ability to make decisions. Streams of people move both with me and past me. Sometimes I feel giddy and wonder if I am standing still while they pass. But here I am, at the end of the mall, and it is the wrong end, Fredericks is at the other end of the mall. I about-face and begin the trek back.
I wonder if Mother Maurie and Steffie will be impatiently waiting for my arrival. Or will they order without me, and begin their meal with no more thought than they give to a cockapoo waiting outside in the car? I have been a member of their family for six years. What is wrong with me that I cannot feel toward them as I should, cannot be free and easy as if I were really part of their family? It’s not them. It cannot be their fault. They are always correct, always calm and composed, always kind. Steffie is so polished, so incredibly perfect in all her roles. Today she is the fashion-conscious woman of the world. And Mother Maurie is, as always, perfect in the supporting role of “Steffie’s Mother.” I know I am jealous of them and the easy way they fit into this place. I know they do not intend to make me feel awkward and homely and provincial. But they do.
I am halfway up the mall when it happens. From out of nowhere, a man’s arm around my waist, closing tight, pulling me from the stream of shoppers as easily as a bear hooks out a salmon from a spawning run. He is a rapist, a ritual killer, a mugger, and I am too startled to even speak, and then a voice by my ear says, “Evelyn.”
I have never heard his voice before, so how do I know it? Is it the way he says it or the timbre of his throat that slackens my muscles, leaves me standing in the circle of his arms like a doe poised in oncoming headlights, my smile as blank as the mannequin’s watching us from the display window?
He grins at my expression, his brown curls falling into his eyes, his teeth very white, his mouth wide with mirth. He holds me in the backwater of his arms, safe from the current of mindless shoppers that brush past us. He is taller than I remember, and his eyes a more honest shade of brown. We stand without speaking, and I have the eerie sense of a circle completed.
He leans forward then, his mouth by my ear. His breath is warm. He smells like the summer forest, like wild raspberries and leaf mold, like tamarack trees and high-bush cranberry blossoms. Like Alaska. “I was afraid you had forgotten me,” he says, his voice like the wind through branches. “But you haven’t. Not any more than I’ve forgotten you. I’m still here. If you need me. If you want me.”
“I …” It is all I can manage. The mall is suddenly a cardboard set for a pretentious play. It cannot contain me. I need not act the part that has been assigned me. I could knock over the stucco wall, step out into daylight and wind and forest. Step back into being whole and belonging to myself.
“Come with me,” he urges me. His fingers track down my spine. “Now. Come back.”
I want to. In that instant, I really want to. But a jaw trap holds me fast. Boundaries spring up around me. The mound of laundry left unfolded on the table at the guest house. The refrigerator needs defrosting. Things I should do, things I meant to do, things I must do before I can call my time my own. Commitments. Duties. Things that make me real. Oh, and people. Belatedly, I remember people. I have a small son, a husband. They depend on me. They love me. What would they think of me if I just ran away like this, abandoned my responsibilities? Who would respect me if they didn’t need me? Who would I be, shorn of them? And I, don’t I love them, aren’t they my whole life? How could I even think of leaving them, even be momentarily tempted? The thought shocks me. I’ll tell him all this, tell him I am happy where I am, that there isn’t room for him in my life anymore. That I don’t need him anymore.
“I …” I repeat, choking on the word.
“Come soon, then,” he invites me, sure of my assent. His forefinger touches my jaw, a fleeting farewell.
Then he releases me, and he is gone, blending in with the flow of people. I stare after him. He wears only a denim vest over his bare chest, and cutoff jeans do little to mask his strangeness. His hooves clack clearly on the smooth linoleum of the mall floor, but no one notices him, no heads turn to watch him pass. Only I stare after him as he is borne away by the current of shoppers. I hear his hooves long after I lose him in the rippling tapestry of people.
I close my eyes, try to still the quivering that besets me. Glass cold against my sweating hands, smooth against my back. I realize that I am backed against a display window, leaning against the cool pane. I straighten guiltily. My palms leave their imprints outlined in mist on the smooth glass. The bags of garments have fainted, have crumpled about my feet. Absently I pick them up, smoothing their sides. All my many minds are chattering at once. Someone is hoping that Maurie and Steffie will not notice how crumpled the bags are. Someone else is shouting that he spoke to me, that he uttered my name, that I have finally heard his voice. But the one in charge hushes all of them, tells them to be still. Firmly I tell myself that I have been daydreaming again, silly escapist fantasies to make myself feel important, and that if I don’t hurry up and get down to the restaurant … I am not sure just what will happen if I don’t get down to the restaurant soon, but I have an oppressive feeing that it will be dreadful. The chance for something to be wonderful has come and gone in a heartbeat, and I have missed it. Only the dreadful is left. So I go, sacks swinging with my stride, moving purposefully now, cutting in and out of the crowd like a freeway driver weaving among the slower cars. I try not to think I am disheveled, guilty, musky with secrets. I forbid my eyes to watch for him.
The restaurant is a dark cave that opens up suddenly in the wall of storefronts on the mall. There are no doors, there is only the open space with the rack of menus, the cash register, and a hostess standing guard. Beyond, all is dimness and muted music. The tables are shrouded with deep red cloths, the menus are gilt and scarlet, the place is cushioned with a red carpet. One wall is mirrored, but it takes some moments for me to realize this, to see that I have been scanning the mirrored tables for a glimpse of Mother Maurie and Steffie. The hostess does not approve of me, and makes no attempt to greet or seat me. I am used to such as her. “I’m meeting someone,” I say, and breeze past her, trying in vain to keep my bags from brushing the backs of chairs and catching on the corners of tables.
Just when I am sure they are not here, that there must be another restaurant near another Fredericks, I see them. They are sitting in a booth at the very back, looking cool and chic in their summer city dresses, an advertisement for champagne or lip gloss. I stack the bags against the end of the booth and slide in beside Steffie. I realize I am breathing as if I have run a footrace. I push the hair back from my face and feel the sweat wet on my palm. I don’t believe Steffie has ever sweated in