Vintage Veronica (26 page)

Bill looks worried. “I dunno. That’s what he said they told him. He said he’s got to go get some tests to find out for sure. He made me promise not to tell anyone. I wouldn’t have said anything, except I thought you knew.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“It’s heavy, man,” he says morosely. “I mean, that kid’s been through enough, you know?”

There’s a shout from The Pile and Bill looks around quickly. “Shit, The Pile’s getting picked over worse than usual. Wait, can you hang out a second?”

I nod. Bill goes over to the button and yells, “Clear!” All the Pickers solemnly start to make their way out of The Pile. Bill pauses, as he always does, to make sure everyone is out of the way when he pushes the button.

It’s a funny thing. I’ve heard the chute being emptied from up in Employees Only! hundreds of times, but I’ve probably only seen Bill do it once or twice. Hearing it from above, it always sounds sort of like a giant toilet flushing. I always picture the Pickers gathering around the edge of The Pile, holding their breath reverently, their eyes turned toward the heavens. Wishing that something wonderful, something unspeakably beautiful and rare, will fall from above. Something with the power to transform.

The image always makes me want to roll my eyes because I know only too well what ends up in The Pile. After all, I’m the one who fills the chute with the ripped, stained, hopelessly cast-off rags that no one would ever pay retail for.

You fools!
I always want to yell down the chute.
This is Dollar-a-Pound, for God’s sake. There is no magic here. No surprises. Only junk
.

But standing here alongside them, I look around and I notice something for the first time.

No one is looking up.

Instead, they are talking to each other. Laughing. Comparing their finds. Bill may claim that the Pickers fight over treasures, but that’s not what I see. Instead, I see an old
woman, wearing a plastic grocery bag on her head to protect hair set in curlers, offering a skirt she has found to a younger woman and pointing out that the hem is torn. I see Earl picking his teeth with one of his tattooed hands while an admiring fan shows him the design on her lower back. I see the man with the mirrored sunglasses dragging a chair across the room for a hugely pregnant lady. I see Red striding out of The Pile in his ridiculous tower of hats, leaning his head from side to side to make the pregnant lady’s young daughter laugh.

It’s about the clothes
.

But it’s not just about the clothes
.

And then Bill pushes the button. In a great shushing rush, I hear, then see, the great downpour. It sounds completely different from below. More like sneakers getting bounced around in a dryer. Some of the clothes fall fast—presumably the heaviest items, like winter coats and shoes—and some things flutter gracefully, as if suspended by invisible wires. A stained, filmy nylon lace nightgown that I remember depping floats down. It is so light, it practically dances in mid-air. The little girl, her mother restraining her by her overall straps, raises both of her arms with glee at the sight of it.

And despite myself, I smile.

No surprises. Only junk.

But maybe just a little magic.

I know I should go upstairs.

And eventually, I will. But I suddenly realize that there’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

Cautiously, I wade into The Pile with the Pickers. I take one step, then another, until I’m up to my knees in clothing. I
take comfort in the fact that the Pickers seem absorbed in their task, so I do the same, examining this and that. I find some things I’ve seen before, others I haven’t. I find seven unmatched shoes, four black and three white. I line them up next to The Pile so they look like the keys of a piano.

The little girl tries on the fluttering nightgown over her clothes. I bring her two mismatched shoes and she climbs into them, giggling and holding up big handfuls of her skirt as she clomps in place. Red wades over wearing a new hat on the very top of his tower. It has a broad brim with a small bouquet of plastic daisies pinned to it.

“Nice hat,” I tell him.

“It certainly is,” he agrees.

He looks down at the little girl, who demonstrates another clomp and giggles. Solemnly, Red removes his new hat and places it on the girl’s head. She grins shyly and folds both sides of the hat against her ears.

“Well, I’d best be on my way,” says Red. “Nice to meet you, Veronica,” he tells me. “William!” he yells, waving to Bill.

“No hats today?” calls Bill. Red shakes his head and winks at the little girl. “Nope,” he says.

“Oh well,” says Bill. “Rule Number Four.”

“You’re so right, my brother,” Red agrees. “Not to worry, it’s all good. See you tomorrow.”

His hat tower wobbling precariously, Red saunters out the door. I watch as the little girl giggles and twirls in her new flowered hat, the filmy skirt of the oversized nightgown billowing out. Her dance is one of pure joy, pure happiness, pure trust. There’s a part of me that remembers what it was like to
be like her and feel that way, but it has been such a long, long time.

And yet.

Without checking first to see if anyone is watching or might laugh, I do a little spin, too. Then I do it again, a little faster, my apron skirt fluttering lightly.

It feels so good I do it a third time.

A little while later, Bill wanders over, a bottle of seltzer in one hand.

“Rule Number Four?” I ask him.

“I didn’t tell you about Rule Number Four?”

“No! What’s Rule Number Four?”

Bill smiles. “Rule Number Four,” he announces. “There’s always more hats.”

I give him a suspicious look. “Is that another Sacred Rule of The Pile that’s about the clothes but not
just
about the clothes?”

“Nah,” he says. He takes a long drink, then burps heartily. “There’s just always a lot of hats here.”

“Are there more Sacred Rules of The Pile?”

“You tell me,” says Bill cryptically. “So now, where was I? Did I tell you the part about Lenny’s cancer coming back?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Right. I thought I did. Now wait, did you say Lenny got fired?”

I cringe. How can I tell him what Ginger told me without having to discuss the fact that I saw him and Ginger making out in the stairwell?

“Can I tell you later?” I finally say, returning the wave of
the little girl, who is reluctantly following her mother out the door. “There’s actually someone I’ve gotta go talk to.”

What I don’t tell Bill is, there are actually several someones I need to talk to.

Starting with Shirley.

don’t know why, but I sort of feel like when Bill pressed that button to empty the chute down on Dollar-a-Pound this morning, it dislodged something inside me, too. For the first time ever, standing there with the Pickers, of all people, I had this tiny hopeful feeling.

And now that I’ve felt it, I just can’t shake it. It’s like a stone that I’ve been carrying in my pocket, polishing and polishing it without even realizing. Like something that’s been with me for a long time, but I’ve just never felt ready to whisper it to myself, much less say it out loud, until now.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still about the clothes.

I still love, love, love the clothes.

But no matter what diamonds in the rough my trips to the fleas or my hunts through the consignment bags might unearth, I suddenly know in my heart that the clothes alone just aren’t going to do it for me anymore.

Maybe, as much as I loathe to admit it, I am just a tiny bit like my mom. Maybe I actually do need people.

Not all people.

But some people.

So I go talk to Shirley. We talk for quite a while, actually. Which turns my feelings into a decision.

And yet even though I’ve made my mind up, it hasn’t quite sunk in. I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to get along after I leave Employees Only!

The rest of the morning passes quickly. By lunchtime, I almost go into withdrawal for my beloved iced mocha smoothies. But I’m trying to avoid Zoe and Ginger, so I stay put and pull out my secret weapon: a frozen diet entrée swiped from Mom’s stash in our freezer.

Nonchalantly, I saunter over to the side of the floor where the Lunch Ladies are hunched over their plastic bowls. Several of them glance up at me as I pass. I look away and approach the makeshift kitchen set up at the far wall. There’s a fridge, a double-burner hot plate, and a microwave oven that is currently in use, rotating something that smells delicious. Like Mexican food, only better. A Lunch Lady stands beside it, watching the timer count down. She wears a snug embroidered sleeveless tunic with a wide collar. She has mermans just like mine.

“Is it okay if I …,” I ask her, pointing at the microwave, then at my frozen meal.

“Okay,” she answers.

“Okay. Thanks,” I say.

“The fat acheeni s’baytah,” she says.

“I … sorry?”
Did she just call me fat?

The Lunch Lady points at my box, a stern look on her face. “Chicken Veracruz is okay. But the fettuccine Alfredo is much better.”

I can’t tell if she looks so serious because this is important information or because she’s concentrating hard on her pronunciation. My dad once told me that most Broadway actors can only do two looks: constipated and relieved. The Lunch Lady looks decidedly constipated.

“Ohhh … I’ll, uh, I’ll have to try that one.”

She smiles big, her face relaxing into relieved mode, clearly pleased to have shared this wisdom. So much so that she gets brave and asks something else.

“Where’s you friend?” she says.

“My friend? Oh, which one? The tall one? Or the little one?” I pinch sections of my hair to suggest Ginger’s hairstyle.

The Lunch Lady looks confused.

“The boy,” she says. “Lenny?” She pronounces his name
Lay-nee
.

“Oh,” I say, surprised that she has noticed me and Len spending time together. Even though it’s not actually all that surprising: Employees Only! is one big open space, so the Lunch Ladies and I can see each other’s every move. I just pay
so little attention to them that I assume they do the same. “He, um, he quit.”

“Ohhh. Too bad. Nice boy.”

“Yeah,” I say, more sadly than I intend.

She nods sympathetically and pats my shoulder before returning to her sewing machine. I nuke my lunch and return to my side of the floor, tossing a quick, shy nod in her direction. How strange. My first actual conversation with a Lunch Lady is a hello and a goodbye all in one.

The Lunch Lady waves back, then hoists her mini-fan and crosses herself. I kind of shrug reflexively, silently accepting the gesture. Maybe she’s praying for me, maybe not.

Bottom line is, I can probably use all the help I can get.

I spend the rest of the day in zombie sorting mode, cleaning out file cabinets and sorting through clothes that have languished on my Definitely Should Dep This rack for way too long. When I finish, I compose a note on the back of a blank consignment invoice receipt:

I stick the note in an envelope and lick it shut. A little before five o’clock, I pack up my personal stuff. I mark the envelope with Claire’s name and put it on my desk, dead center. I weigh it down with a coffee can filled with pens and pairs of scissors—the industrial fans have been running on a take-no-prisoners setting all August, and I don’t want to risk having my note end up flying out the window or into the chute or something.

Like I told her in the note, I’m leaving all of Claire’s stuff where it is: the grass skirt on the computer monitor, the bust-of-Elvis lamp. Who knows if she’s ever coming back? Maybe someday she actually will come back. There’s not much of my stuff here: just a handful of weird knickknacks that Bill scavenged from The Pile and saved for me, a few extra pairs of shoes, a mini-umbrella, and my purse. I pack most of it into a shopping bag and shove the umbrella into my purse.