I’d been talking to Salesman John about a sleeper sofa for our newly painted den when a woman slipped into Hip, the name as well as descriptor of a neighborhood furniture store. She was like air whooshing through the door. “Excuse me,” a whispery interruption. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,” a flatlining of fast words.
The woman, spoke to John. She didn’t see me, or chose not to. I could have been an image, a hologram, a statue, pen in one hand, papers in the other, mouth hanging.
Unusual for me not to be noticed. Somewhere in childhood I understood I was meant to make a mark on the world, repair it. And I did, or tried. Was a leader. Had jobs with purpose, causes I supported, people I mentored. People told me, tell me, I have presence. But I was invisible here.
This new customer babbled on, something about sunlight ruining teak tables. C’mon, I wanted to (but didn’t) say to John, we were in the middle of something. He stood behind a gleaming counter, seamless in that ultra-modern way, and glanced behind to the storeroom, looking for help, it seemed. There, a colleague, stacking boxes, smiled out. His braces blued with the florescent light. John himself could’ve been twelve, all blond and shiny-faced.
John should tell the woman to wait (Couldn’t she see he was busy?) He didn’t. I didn’t put my hands on my hips or tap my foot. The Canadian in me was used to being polite. I bit the inside of my cheek, closed-mouthed.
She was slight, this new customer, bird-like, dropped it seemed into layers of clothing, her crumpled woe-some face peering out of a cloth nest. She held a square, hard-leathered purse with a brass clasp—something my mother would’ve carried. Her lips had the faded imprint of lipstick, like my grandmother once at her birthday party, too often kissed.
I waited. I’d also waited for this world of style and aesthetics. Money (lack of it) had kept me from it, not to mention kids (no lack of them) who could slop up a couch in thirty-seven seconds. The years and years not achieving the urbanism I wanted. Too busy making right in the world. Too busy being a divorced mom. Now I finally had the chance to make a nicer home, the capacity to create beauty.
John turned to me. “We’re dealing with a lot here,” he said quietly.
“So this is what I should buy for my apartments?” said the woman who was derailing everything. “The apartments I manage, you know, in that row of new condos, the ones over on Thurman.” She gestured behind her through the window into the rain. “It has to be just right. What would people say if not?”
Maybe there was a bigger sale here. I stood to the side, letting the woman cut in. Actually, it didn’t occur to me to ask her to hold off. I never thought of myself as deferential. I was the over-achiever, the first to raise a hand, to write the report for the team. Canada’s demeanor, my mother’s demeanor, my father’s dominance, my sister’s star status—all shaped my Don’t-Make-People-Angry mindset. This was a different kind of waiting.
John started to answer our intruder. I rustled my papers, cleared my throat like a manager ahem-ing two gossipy staff (I ahem-ed mine daily). The woman raised her hand in an oversized black glove, just the fingertips beige, and waved toward kitchen tables. “What shape is right for my apartments, round or square? Two chairs or four? Leather or microfiber?” At which point she walked in the direction of her aimed index finger.
Low-slung furniture. A black resin angular chair. Cowhide couches with hi-tech skinny legs. Coffee tables of concrete, of acrylic. Over-the-top modern (for me), yet that longing for style hit my chest.
There was sweat on John’s forehead, and he took half-sips one after another from his jumbo tumbler. Maybe he resented the woman distracting him. Maybe he resented himself for not speaking up. We both watched her walk to the other side of the store.
“You never know,” I said. “She could have millions.”
“Oh, no. Not this one. She’s homeless. Houseless, I mean. Uh, unhoused.”
“Homeless!” I stepped toward the counter, put my hands on it as if it were a judge’s bench. “You know her?”
The woman was back before he could answer.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said to John, and promptly left. The automatic glass door closed and a forested silence fell.
“She was in property development, thinks she’s still in property development.” John shook his head as if getting used to this.
“My god. What happened?”
“Our real estate people found her an apartment. Re-homed her.”
“Well, that’s wonderful.” I started to clap.
“But she couldn’t keep it together. Her mental illness, you know. She’s back on the streets.”
My shoulders folded. “Ohhh.”
I looked at John anew. The space he’d given her.
A sleek scale caught my eye, one side high, the other low. John tidied the spec sheets into a block with a brisk tap-tap on the counter. He fastened them with a paperclip made of gold letters spelling the store’s name. How classy. I put the printout in my purse, a suede crossbody with a darling tassel.
I dawdled in Hip. Then outside, I looked left and right. The woman was gone. I couldn’t take on everything. Of course I couldn’t. My stomach eased while my head wagged a finger at me. You bad girl. I turned and walked quickly away. I didn’t want to look back.
*****
Photo: DH
Sheila Rittenberg found creative writing on retirement. She was a Fellow at Atheneum, a masters level writing program. Sheila creates short stories, essays, and flash prose that bring small voices into the world, drawing on irony and humor, the unexpected, and life’s courageous moments. Her work is published in several journals: https://fiction-mostly.com/stories/.
