Retail Therapy

It is two days now since the final blow landed--coming a day after hope, a day of reconciliation. Then words on a screen—those little black symbols in regular font—that leave my life shredded and quiet. My eyes tremble over the page, not daring to stop on any particular word until, finally, that last sentence, those last few words…

Like he used to do, I take to the bed. Sleep the sleep of angels. Dream of shiny new coins, a cool glass of water, music I have never heard before. I am naked between the sheets, the small fan on my nightstand fluttering breezy fingers along my bare shoulders, my neck… And then of course I wake up—morning knocking at my eyelids—and throw two reluctant legs over the side of the bed. Stand up. Stagger down the long hallway and gather the courage to look in the mirror. A new day. And I must put on a mask and ride the waves of heartbreak that wash over me this very long day. Some just licking at my toes, my ankles—and others gathering energy as they rush headlong at me, the wind at their back, and I stand braced for the collision of wave and foam against the sound of my bones breaking. I am glad, and slightly surprised, that I do not fall down this day. That I can stand there with my face to the wind and water and stare those waves down. But what else can I do?

Yesterday Amy says, let’s go to the mall. My guilty pleasure, the mall; my salvation today with a burning heart and battered limbs and no medication. Amy and I take my car, the windows down, a hot, sunny day. She says, I think you will have many lovers. Which is a good thing, I suppose, but those lovers should have been tasted before I met him. I would have known how to love through the prism of many faces, many bodies, all that space. But I did not...

At the mall, Amy and I have lunch, and walk the smooth, cool corridors. We stop to examine, to touch. We laugh—and the first time I do that, I am surprised by the sound that emerges. I remember that laugh rising up from my belly, erupting at the back of my wide open mouth. And I’m surprised to find that it is still there.

We go to Ann Taylor Loft, to Macy’s, to many other stores. At each place: patterns, color, lace. Pretty things that comfort me. I am a solitary woman without the eyes of a lover across a table from me, without a silky cursive fabric hinting at things to come. That will look good on you, Amy says, as I hold up a lavender-colored dress. For a brief moment, I imagine the first time it will come off, the first time someone will slip the filmy fabric over my head and push me onto the bed…

At the register, I recall A Pair of Silk Stockings and become Mrs. Sommers--indulging my own pleasure, my own escape. I buy three summer dresses, two scarves, a pair of black pants, a wispy top, three necklaces, a pair of sandals, one bold purple purse, and a blown-glass bangle that looks like you’re gazing through the eye of a kaleidoscope.

When I drop Amy off at her car, I am not done. I go on to Home Goods, Pier 1, TJMaxx, and K-Mart. Next to the bags of clothes in my back seat, I add a comforter, new bed sheets, curtains, a frilly pink throw pillow, a large sign that says “DREAM,” and a perfumed candle in a delicate frosted glass.

On the way home, I stop for a pedicure—and while my pretty polished toes dry, a woman works discerning hands over the tightness in my shoulders, and down the length of my spine...

Last night I was up until midnight, rearranging my room. I move the bed under the window—the moon at my back, the new day announcing itself gently in the morning. I shake the new comforter out over my old iron bed, hang curtains, light my pretty candle. And Lizz Wright sings I’m confessin’... When I'm finished, it is a new room for a new woman. And you cannot tell that he has ever been here. That he has ever stood looking down at me with want in his eyes and long graceful fingers starting to move.
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