Yes, Yes, Cherries by Mary Otis

Author:Mary Otis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tin House Books
Published: 2011-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

CLAYTON AND PACER stand in front of the Nordstrom’s first-floor elevators. One has orange cones set across where the door should be. The floor has gone missing and Clayton peeks in at the elevator guts before Pacer yanks him back. A man wearing a matching green shirt and pants steps into the elevator with them. Clayton can tell he’s a real elevator man, because he faces the people, not the door.

“How’s business?” asks Pacer, as if he were the man’s boss. Gone is his slidey-mouth way of talking.

“Lost one this morning,” says the elevator man, smiling at Clayton. Clayton listens to people’s voices slipping down the insides of the walls.

Pacer snorts. “Beats the hell out of working on a tanker, let me tell you that.”

They get out on the second floor and Pacer stops to look at a display of rings while Clayton leans against a glass display case. The case is so warm, and inside there is a scarf folded in a fancy way like ribbon candy. The scarf is a soft orange, and it’s woven through with real gold. Clayton is sure of it. He has never seen anything so beautiful. If only he could lie on the display case and just look at it.

There is a piano player next to the shoe department. He lifts his hands when he plays, like the keys sting his fingers. When he finishes, Clayton quietly claps his hands five times as he has been taught in school. More is inappropriate. Pacer tucks his T-shirt into his old khakis and nods to the piano player. He takes Clayton’s hand and they walk toward the shoe displays. A salesman starts toward them.

“What I want to know is why shoes are on one floor and slippers on another?” Pacer says loudly. “I mean, feet are feet.” The salesman turns from them, as if an invisible hallway had just appeared.

“Sir, is there something I can help you with?” The woman is tall and wears a red belt with a big gold lion’s head for a buckle. She carries a silver ring packed with keys, and in the crook of her arm, three clipboards. She does not look at all like Beverly.

“Yes, my son and I are looking for a birthday present for a very special mother.” Mother, thinks Clayton. Close enough. She’s someone’s mother. Could be his. “We are looking for slippers with velvet inlay or satin embroidery, something like that. Price doesn’t matter.”

Then Clayton sees it. The leg. The leg is connected to a body that is slumped beneath a rounder of white raincoats. The leg is about the length of his own leg. The leg is sunburned and wears a purple lace-up sneaker.

“And little roses have to be on the toes, pink ones. Right, Clayton?”

The foot flops right and left, then right and left again, and, absolutely, this is a sign.

“Right, Clayton, right? It’s roses you said.” And Clayton knows that he should say a bunch of stuff about the slippers, because this is part of it, saying a whole lot to people and seeing what will hook them, but he can’t.

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