Eve in the City_A Novel by Thomas Rayfiel

Author:Thomas Rayfiel [Rayfiel, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age, Women, Fiction, Urban
ISBN: 9780307415172
Google: JBzNIgkYPn4C
Goodreads: 12520259
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2003-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

“Name?”

“Eve Smith.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-one.”

I kept waiting for some buzzer to go off, for armed guards to invade the little cubicle and arrest me. But the machine kept up its steady beep. Graph paper came out. It looked damp. He made a mark after each answer, then let it collect in a wet curl on the floor.

“I’m just going over obvious stuff. Setting the parameters.”

“The what?”

“The baseline. So we get a sense of what normal is, for you.”

The only reason I thought this might work was because it was all happening by accident. I had started out with a big resolution: to buy clothes. Not used, not borrowed, not hand-me-downs, but brand-new clothes that I alone wanted. Instead of a uniform for work or an outfit for a date, I was going to design a whole new look for a whole new me. I mean, if someone like Crystal, who was at least as confused as I was, could make a bathroom, an entire apartment, that looked and felt so right, then why couldn’t I make myself over into an entirely new Young Woman? Every magazine cover and bus ad seemed determined to offer me these options of what to look like, how to act, who to be. It was only a question of making the right choices.

So I went to Bloomingdale’s.

Now, this is a house of worship, I thought approvingly. Everyone was charged with excitement, looking wildly around, on the hunt, elbowing, jostling aside, like they didn’t want to let the other person get there first, even though they didn’t know what it was they were trying to get to themselves. There were no windows, just like in a church. Because what you call stained glass windows you can’t really see out of. It’s a trick. You think you’re seeing reality because it’s where the window should be, but it’s not real at all, it’s a picture of, say, Jesus, or some words from the Bible, and since you’re used to seeing the world out a window you think Jesus or the Bible is in the world. But they’re not. They’re just pictures. Bloomingdale’s had mannequins where the windows should be. They were the stained glass of Shopping. You looked at them and took them in the way you would the Savior or a verse of Scripture. At least, I did. The dummies and the clothes they wore gave me this clue as to what kind of attitude I should assume. In life.

“All right, I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Answer yes or no. Were you previously employed as a sales-person by the Paris Boutique in Chicago, Illinois?”

“Yes.”

“And before that, did you receive a degree from”—he looked at my application—“the Des Moines Institute of Fashion?”

“Yes.”

I fell in love with a mannequin and decided I wanted to be her. She was reaching out, offering to help, ministering to someone, but at the same time her hip was slouched. She was tall and absolutely unblemished. She wore a white dress with all this detail at the throat and wrists.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.