When the exterior doors of the mall open, the senior citizens arrive and start their mall walking. Smelling of antique cologne, they hold their elbows up and appear to be quite complacent as they grind by.
Chloé comes in right about then, Chloé who works at Jitters because she says theres a harmonic convergence right in this very spot in the mall. She says its a sacred place, like Sedona, Arizona. Sweet girl that she is, Chloé gives my nerves a good shaking every day. Sometimes she comes in so yeasty with sex shes just had with her boyfriend that I feel like applauding. She gives off sexual odors like a flower out in the front yard trying to make a statement about gardens, which of course flowers dont need to do. Her shirt says RAGING HORMONES across the front. Shes in love with Oscar now, its gone beyond sex, and Oscar has told her (after consulting me: should he tell her?) that hes in love with her. They look so punk and disreputable, those two, but theyre just a couple of kids, dressed and costumed to affect a menacing appearance.
On this particular day, she comes in and says, So hows it going, Mr. S?
Oh, okay, I tell her. The usual. Monday, you know. I kept noticing those little crosses on the curves on the way here.
Monday! she exclaims. Right. And those crosses. Did I ever tell you I went to school with one of the guys who, uh, got one of those crosses? He was a total asshole. He wasnt even a fun asshole, which, you know, some of them are. Even dead, hes lucky to get a cross. Im sorry. I wouldnt give that guy a shave.
What was his name? I ask.
Bumford, she says. Bumford McGonahy. A loser. With a loser name. Those crosses. Cry my eyes out. He was a mean guy. Guess I should have more sympathy, huh?
She puts on her apron and starts arranging the pastries, like an art project.
Hows Oscar? I ask. What times he coming in?
You should know that, she says. Im just labor. Youre management. She smiles, and then she stops to think. Around one. She stands up straight. No. One-thirty.
We have overhead track lighting, five lights over the service area, and Chloé has a habit of moving back and forth behind the counter so that she appears sequentially under the lights like an actress on a stage. Shes careful not to plant herself in the small shadowy vacant gaps between the lights. Shes star-practicing. She flicks her head to highlight her hair. Shed be breaking my heart if she werent my employee and a kid and Oscars lover, besides.
Do you think, she asks, rubbing her cheekbone, that its bad to do a bad thing if a good thing is going to come out of it eventually?
Beats me, I tell her. Im staunchly stacking franchise coffee cups near the entryway. What sort of bad things?
Well, not way bad, just bad.
Now shes positioned herself behind the display case so that she can see her reflection on it. The glass is at an angle, but when shes under the lights, she can see her face reflected there, although she doesnt know that I know she can. When she stands in exactly the correct spot, she looks down at herself and kisses the air as if her reflection is kissing her, shes that pleased with the stringy unkempt unofficial beauty of herself. No doubt each time she undresses she unwraps herself like a Christmas present. I have a feeling she blesses her body for her various wild gifts every half-hour or so, now that she knows what they are and she can use them.
Well, she says, like putting yourself on display.
I dont follow you, I tell her, having lost my concentration. Ive been setting the copies of the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press on the reading rack. Putting yourself on display how?
Skip it, she says quickly. Shes regrouping. You hear the weather report this morning, Mr. S?
I tell her I didnt.
Mucho thunderstorms and mucho kaboom. Sky evil. Course, whod know in a mall?
Whod know? I agree.
Whats the worst thing ever happened to you? she asks, frowning downward at her purple fingernails. Shes arranging the foods for our sandwiches.
The worst thing? I wait. How come? I come back behind the counter and adjust my managers smock.
Just curious. Yeah. Just curious. She gives me an odd square smile.
Hmm, I say. Hard to decide. I cant think of it. Well, Ill tell you one thing, it isnt the worst, its just that I remember something, at this very moment. Here it is. I straighten up to scratch my eyebrow. One time, in college, a bunch of us somehow got cheap airplane tickets to Paris for a few days. We were hitchhiking once we got there. Anyhow, when youre in Paris, you go to the cathedral, Notre Dame. Big tourist attraction.
She nods.
So the four of us go into Notre Dame. And Notre Dame, you know, is actually a working cathedral. People, supplicants, I guess youd call them, go in there and pray. They have Mass every morning, despite all these tourists milling around. Shes stopped arranging the food and looks up at me. Well, we went in there. We started at the back. In the back of the cathedral you can buy votive candles from some nun or other and light them for a loved one who needs help, and even if youre not a Catholic, you can still do this. And because someone I knew was sick, I bought a votive candle and lit it. I mean, a votive candle looks like a soul, doesnt it? And then I went over to put it on the stand.
Its almost nine oclock, Mr. S.
I know. Were almost ready. I got here early. Let me finish this story. I could see some customers outside our chain security gate waiting for their morning coffee fix. Well, wed been traveling, so I was tired, so my hand was shaking. And these stands they have, theyre thin and spindly, like thin wrought iron, and delicate, because this is Europe. Thats where we are. And because my hand was shaking, I reached down to the holder, this freestanding holder or candelabra or whatever of votive candles, and somehow, I dont know how this happened, my hand caused this holder of candles, all these small flames, all these souls, to fall over, and when it fell over, all the candles, lit for the sake of a soul somewhere, there must have been a hundred of them, all of them fell to the floor, because of me, and all of them went out. And you know what the nun did, Chloé, the nun who was standing there?
She spoke French?
No. She could have, but she didnt. No, what she did was, she screamed.
Wow.
Yeah, the nun screamed in my face. I felt like
You felt like pretty bad, Mr. S. I can believe it. But you know, Mr. S, those were just candles. They werent really souls. Thats all superstition, that soul stuff.
Oh, I know.
No kidding, Mr. S, you shouldnt be so totally morbid. I thought when you were telling me about the worst thing you ever did, itd be, like, beating up a blind guy and stealing his car.
No. I never did that.
Oscar did, once. You should get him to tell you about it.
Okay.
He was drunk, though. She prettily touches her perfect hair. And the guy wasnt really blind. He just said he was, to take advantage of people. It was, like, a scam. Oscar saw through all that. Its nine oclock now, Boss. We should open up.
Right. And I unlock the curtain, and touch a switch, and slowly the curtain rises on the working day. The candles are nothing to Chloé; theyre just candles. I feel instantly better. Bless her.
The processional begins, and we have employees from nearby businesses coming in to get a cup of coffee and maybe something else, a brioche. We turn on the music: cool piano jazz to counteract the Mozart the mall is always playing on their PA system to keep the mall rats out. I look at them all, all our customers, and I smile. I chat them up. Many of them I know by name. But really, Chloés right. Im too morbid. I need to work on it.
For example, when Im conversing with people, checking out the young women coming in and out, these women, even while Im doing these day-to-day things, Im in a reverie. Ill be standing there, behind the counter, and first Ill think about women, possible women who might be my girlfriends or wives or something, you know, the usual fantasies, candlelit dinners, for example, and then, when I get bored with that, Ill think about my own funeral, which always cheers me up. I mean, Ill imagine the church, full of distraught supermodels listening to the eulogy and sobbing. All these supermodels boohooing over my death. And there in front of the church would be someone like whats-his-name, Robert Schiller, the televangelist, the one with the silver hair and the electronic smile, and hed be going on and on about me, shockingly eloquent.
Bradley W. Smith, hed say, and hed shake his distinguished head. No one really understood Bradley W. Smith, except maybe his dog. And, yet, unbeknownst to many, he was a great person
Could I have a double decaf cap, please?
Sure, I say, pulling myself out of my imaginings. Its probably not healthy to maunder through a fantasy about your own funeral. Morbid, as Chloé says. But, as the song says, its a hard habit to break. And its harmless.
Around eleven oclock my next-door neighbor, Professor Harry Ginsberg, comes in, mostly soaked, his remaining hair plastered to the sides of his face. He shakes out his umbrella, the one with the ducks head on it. He then waves at me not to me, but at me in greeting, before he says, Have you seen it outside, Bradley? Really, this is something you should see. He smiles and shakes his head, and raindrops drizzle downward off his face onto the floor.
What? I say.
Skies so dark, my boy, that you cant read under them, and this in the daytime! Go look.
Harry, I cant leave the business.
He checks out Jitters and spies some of my art. I see youve hung The Feast of Love there in the back. Your very best effort. Is it for sale?
No, Harry, its hors de commerce. And its
All at once theres a crack, like someone snapping a whip, and a low roaring, and a strange singeing smell, coming from I dont know where, and Chloé, whos been bussing the tables with the collection tray, looks up.
Didnt you hear? Harry asks me. Theyve been predicting tornadoes.
Theres no weather in malls, Harry, I tell him. Not even tornadoes. Were impervious is that the word? were impervious to conditions.
I should have such optimism, Harry says, opening his mouth and laughing silently, a gesture I do not care for. Impervious to conditions, an interesting phrase. I should have