Chapter Thirty-Three
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ellison asked Jamie to go shoe shopping. He knew Jamie’s weekends were free, since he’d recently been dumped. Chloe had done it a month before their anniversary, when Jamie was in the midst of planning a trip for them to Puerto Vallarta.
“I didn’t want you to buy plane tickets, since those are hard to cancel,” Chloe explained.
Jamie had liked her when she said this; as had been the pattern with other girlfriends, he’d never liked Chloe more than when she was breaking up with him.
He’d been reminded of all her good attributes, the most attractive of which was that she no longer found him desirable.
“I don’t like shopping,” Jamie said to Ellison.
“What? Who doesn’t like shopping?”
“Why don’t you take Lee? I don’t know anything about shoes.”
“But you’re the one I’m friends with,” Ellison said.
Friends. Jamie supposed he and Ellison were friends, although he wasn’t certain how that’d happened; he hadn’t made any friends in a long time.
Ellison had a way of badgering—if he asked what you were doing that weekend and you said you were busy, he would ask why you were busy and then question your answer.
“Errands?” Ellison would say. “And those are going to take all day ?”
It was like he simply didn’t abide by the normal rules of social engagement.
Jamie had always loathed shopping; as a kid, he’d been dragged to the mall with Lee and Joan, who seemed to possess infinite endurance for pawing through racks of clothing.
They would move through store after store, holding up dress after coat after sweater: What about this one?
Does this look good on me? Okay, but does it look better than the other one?
No matter what Jamie said, they were never satisfied with the answer.
And now he was having to go shopping again ! As an adult! When he had complete authority over his time!
Even worse: the boutique Ellison wanted to visit was an hour north, in San Francisco.
And somehow Ellison had finagled it so that Jamie was driving.
There was stop-and-go traffic the whole way.
“I brought you because you project a certain presence,” Ellison announced once they had finally parked and were inside.
“What presence?” Jamie asked quietly. They were the only customers in the store.
He could tell the place was expensive: the interior smelled heavily of jasmine, and the walls were a checkerboard of glass and resin.
Each pair of shoes was displayed on a small pedestal and lit from below, as if it were precious jewelry.
“Just something about you. The air you give off. Moneyed. Cultured. Though I wish you hadn’t worn that T-shirt today. Yuck!”
The saleswoman returned with the shoes Ellison had requested.
On the walk over, Ellison told Jamie he’d called the store in advance; he wanted to be sure they had his size.
“Oh, these look perfect ,” Ellison said when the saleswoman opened the boxes.
He waited until she walked away before trying them on.
The first pair were wedge heels made out of green patent leather.
Ellison raised his foot and tried to pull down his pants hem so it draped over the shoe.
“I like the look of these,” he said. “Although they’re so chunky.
Really, I’m just trying them on for fun.
It wouldn’t be a good use of my budget.”
“So you’re getting the other pair, then.”
“I’m not buying anything.” Ellison took a lap around the carpet. He stopped at the mirror. “Surprisingly comfortable. You can feel the quality of the leather. It’s hard to find good patent.”
“Then why not get them? What are we here for, otherwise?”
“So I can be prepared ,” Ellison said. “For sale season. You really have no idea how much these things cost, do you?”
Ellison apparently thought nothing of having Jamie drive nearly three hours round-trip, simply to try on a few pairs of shoes. After they left the boutique empty-handed, Ellison said he was ready to go home. Jamie was determined to do something else to justify the drive. “Let’s get lunch.”
Jamie made Ellison walk with him until he found a bakery, an upscale one with a French name, where he purchased a ham sandwich.
Ellison, who had nursed a glass of ice water while Jamie ate, bought a bag of chips from a hot dog cart on the way back to the car.
“I worry about your mother,” he commented as they drove.
Ellison had a way of burrowing into the plastic bag that drove Jamie crazy.
After each bite, he crumpled the bag’s top, vowing not to eat any more, only to open it again seconds later. It made a tremendous amount of noise.
“You’re always worried about Joan.” Ellison was constantly fretting that people were after Joan—random crazies, perhaps, or angry former customers, perverts or rageaholics Joan had told to scram and never return.
“No, it’s different ,” Ellison insisted. “She’s loopy sometimes.”
“She’s getting old. Older people can be loopy.”
“Your mother isn’t that old. And she’s forgetting things.”
“I forget things,” Jamie said. He was beginning to be irritated by Ellison’s insistence on the matter; it was as if he wanted to prove that he cared more about Joan than Jamie did.
There was the sound of the bag uncrumpling again, and Ellison leaned back and tipped the crumbs into his mouth.
“The other day we were getting ready to close, and she came in and said she couldn’t find her car,” he said, wiping his fingers and then folding the empty bag and shoving it into the cupholder.
“She said it must have been stolen, because it wasn’t where she left it.
I went out with her, and we pressed the key until it beeped.
The car was right in front of the café, Jamie.
Everyone makes mistakes, but she was flustered.
Joan said she didn’t want to drive again, that she was sick of it.
She said she was going to sell her car and take cabs everywhere. ”
“She loses her temper like that sometimes.”
“Does she? I’ve never seen it.”
“She’s my mother. I’ve seen her at her worst. If she got impatient with you, it means she’s comfortable.”
“Well, I guess you do know her best,” Ellison said.
Silence. Jamie tried to work out why he was so annoyed with Ellison.
Well, he is annoying, he thought as he merged onto the freeway.
Ellison was always asking for little (and sometimes big) favors and talking about Joan; he observed her with an intensity that seemed to border on paranoia.
But there was something else bothering Jamie that he couldn’t quite place.
“Sour worm?” Ellison asked. He’d brought a bag from the snack jars in the café.
“Thanks.” Jamie pulled one and wiped the sugar onto his pants.
He played back in his head something Ellison had said about Joan, the bit concerning the car.
As long as Jamie could recall, Joan had loved to drive; she never complained about driving, even on long trips through Oregon and Washington.
She adored each of her vehicles and took care of them with the tenderness afforded a baby.
And yet she’d told Ellison she didn’t want to drive again, which Jamie knew she didn’t mean—it was just something you said when you felt foolish or flustered.
But the thing was: Joan was almost never flustered. Nor was she foolish.