Rose of No Man's Land (11 page)

Oh, don’t be confused, we’ll do this together!
Bernice chirped, and arranged herself behind me at the register. I had a sudden, stark fear that she was going to lift my arms for me and place them gently on the appropriate keys. What would I have done? Surely I would have just allowed her to. I was weak with hunger and now a sort of fear, because if the girl told me she was taking something and I, the guardian of the goods, did not stop her, then really I was stealing it, right? Did it matter that I didn’t get to keep
the rose pin? I wouldn’t have wanted it. But the technicality of this exchange really baffled me. Charles Manson didn’t kill all those people in the sixties but he like allowed them to or something and now he’s in jail for the rest of his life, going crazy with a swastika tattooed on his face, so clearly there are instances where you can get in wicked bad trouble for a crime even when someone else, not you, committed it.

Hit Sale
, said Bernice who was, thank god, not touching me. She pointed a finger at the orange Sale key. The register registered .99. She talked me through the rest of the sale.
Trishy’s new here at Ohmigod!
, Bernice explained.
It’s her first day. She’s helping me out ’til Kim returns…they were good friends. Are good friends! God…
Bernice stuttered off. Rose raised her eyebrows, which were skinny and inky on her forehead, as if they’d been sketched on with a calligraphy pen and then smeared. Whatever was sitting so oily on her face had a smell and it reached my nose and triggered a chain of growls in my stomach. Rose smelled like food. The way you smell when you’ve been sitting in a diner for a while, the steam from the deep fryer sinking into the weave of your clothes, your hair, your pores.
Bummer
, Rose said to me and it took me a minute to understand she was talking about Kim Porciatti, my supposed dear friend, and then it took me another minute to realize she was shitting me.
How is Kim?
she inquired, and I responded, Uh…and Bernice piped up,
That’s a dollar-five, hon. Oh don’t you girls worry about Kim, okay? You think about happy stuff, all right? She’s going to be just fine, back here in no time, right Trishy?
And to that I nodded. Rose’s
hand plunged back into her sack of plunder. She fished around the bottom, coming up with a succession of pennies, all stuck with lint and bits of twigs or something, maybe tobacco. She plunked one, two, three, four, five pennies into my palm. I liked to hit the button that popped the register open. It was a triumphant sound, and I enjoyed the automatic way the drawer of money slid out toward me. I smoothed the crumpled dollar and placed it with the others, dropped the pennies in their little compartment. I pushed the drawer closed.
The receipt?
Bernice prompted me, and I tore the paper from the machine and handed it to Rose.
Thank you
, she smiled.
I work —
she started, but Bernice cut in —
Rose works over at Clown in a Box.
Rose grimaced. She swung her bag off the counter, the strap sinking into her bony shoulder. She grabbed the wire bracelet and jammed it onto her wrist. It actually looked good there. It seemed to be imprisoning the skin and bone beneath it. The leftover beads rattled when she waved at me.
Come by on your break or something
, she said. I Was Just About To Take My Fifteen, I said, glancing at Bernice. And then Rose said,
I’m on my half hour
, and that’s how I wound up choking on a cigarette in the parking lot with Rose, instead of getting something to eat to level out my blood sugar. I know that from a health perspective it was not a smart decision, but in terms of my original summer plan — to meet someone, to make a friend — it seemed like the right thing to do.

I fucking hate the mall
, Rose complained. We were behind it, just beyond the back door where employees lugged out bulging bags of trash each night at closing. Rose was sitting on the roof of one Dumpster, her knees drawn up to her chin, the arm bearing the wire bracelet clutched around her legs like she was holding herself together, the other clamped around a cigarette. She had drawn the pack from her bag and let loose a string of mouthy curses as she pulled out broken cigarette after broken cigarette, tossing them to the ground, where they lay snapped, bleeding shreds of tobacco. Eventually she found one that was torn at its top, and she ripped that bit away and fired up the cigarette with a plastic lighter.
Oh I’m so rude
, she rasped, and tipped one out of the pack for me. I held it, broken, staring
at it. I thought, I should really eat some food, and Rose said,
just tear that part off
, and I did what she had done, I tore the busted top and leaned it into her lighter. Then I choked. A lot. Because I don’t smoke. I’m repulsed by smoke. Smoke reminds me of all things Donnie, all things nasty and to be avoided, and yet I was unable to refuse Rose’s offer. She looked at me curiously and hauled herself up the side of the Dumpster, kicking off a flutter of rust with her sneaker. I mostly just held the cigarette for the duration of my fifteen-minute break. Held it and grew neurotic about it stinking up my fingers, how my fingers would feel contaminated now, for the rest of the day. How they would turn a sickly yellow like Donnie’s cigarette fingers. I looked at Rose’s fingers. They seemed okay.
You must like it
, she said, looking off into the parking lot.
Working at Ohmigod!, hanging with Kim. Kimmy. That’s what Bernice calls her.
I nodded, studied my cigarette. I really didn’t know what to do with it. The smoke curled up and wafted over to my face, so I held it away from my body.

Bernice Ruins Everyone’s Name Like That, I said. She Calls Me Trishy.

That’s not your name?
she asked.

No. It’s Trisha. Or Trish.

Which one do you like better?

I Don’t Know. I Don’t Care, I Don’t Think.

I’m trapped
, Rose said, exhaling a big cloud of smoke. She flicked her ashes into the space where the Dumpster opened to receive its trash.
I fucking hate “Rosie,” but I hate Rose too. I hate one-syllable names. It’s like you’re not there, really. They don’t really stick or make a mark. If I were you
I’d go with Trisha. Trisha sticks, it’s got two syllables.

I Never Thought Of That, I said. I Like The Name Rose.

I’m going to change it to Alexandria when I’m eighteen
, she said.
That’s just three years from now.

You’re Fifteen? I asked. I was surprised. She seriously looked like twelve years old, thirteen tops. She was small, both short and scrawny, and she had that same sort of bratty swagger as the younger girls I’d fought with earlier. Hers was a grubbier version, though.

Here’s what I think
, Rose began.
I think smoking really does stunt your growth. Because I started smoking when I was I think eleven, and my mom smoked when she was pregnant with me. Isn’t that fucked up?

I didn’t know whether to agree or not. Sometimes people ask you your opinion on things like that, but then when you agree with them they get all pissed ’cause you’ve insulted their mother. I just shrugged.

She was all stressed out ’cause she’s a lesbian and she didn’t want to be with my dad and she was going to leave him and go and live with all these other lesbians in Vermont but then boom she got pregnant with me and so I guess she thought that meant she’d never get to be a lesbian. So she smoked a ton. I think it stunted me. I was a preemie. I lived in a little tank for like a month.

Wow, I said. Did Your Mom Ever Get To Be A Lesbian? I asked her. She nodded and threw her cigarette into the Dumpster. It was still burning. A thin stream of smoke slunk up from inside.

Give me yours
, she commanded, and I did. I had to resist the urge to smell my fingers because I’m sure they smelled
just so unbelievably gross.
You don’t even smoke, do you?

I shook my head. My day had been filled with lies, I figured if I had the option to get out of one of them I should take it.
Well, if you ever want to try it again let me know and you can try again
, Rose offered generously.
I love to smoke.
She took a big drag off my cigarette.
My mom is a lesbian right now
, she said.
But she still smokes a ton. She never stopped being stressed out. I guess it’s really stressful to be a lesbian.

I Bet, I nodded. I hadn’t really thought about it. I didn’t know any lesbians besides maybe Bernice, but I wanted to let Rose know that I was cool about her mom being one. I’m Not, You Know, Racist Against Lesbians, I told her.

You mean “prejudiced,”
she told me.
You’re not prejudiced against lesbians. Racist is against like black people or Puerto Rican people.

Oh, I’m Not That, Either.

Rose nodded and more smoke gushed out of her mouth. She nodded and shrugged and exhaled all that smoke at the same time.

No, But A Lot Of People Are Around Here, Right? I asked. You Know? But I Don’t Think I Am.

That’s cool
, she said.
I’m like a quarter Puerto Rican so I can’t be racist.

Oh, I nodded. Cool.

Rose took a thick drag off my cigarette and flung the smoking butt into the Dumpster with the other.
I think I’m subconsciously trying
to burn this fucking place down.

Really? I asked. I admit I was sort of taken aback and flustered by Rose’s general attitude. I know that I can be very abrasive, but Rose was coming at it from a different
angle. It had never occurred to me to burn the mall down but now I was wondering why not.

Thanks for the jewelry
, she said, jumping down from the Dumpster and wiping sooty rust flakes from her ass. The khaki shorts she wore were so baggy they looked like they would slide right off her if the knobs of her hips weren’t there for them to hang onto.
You were so sharp with that, that was cool of you. I was going to explain everything but then Bernice showed up.

Yeah, I Know, I said, and thought about telling her I was nervous, or about making a crack along the lines of, Yeah, nice of you to assume I’m sympathetic to thieves, but Rose was plowing straight along. She had her own internal agenda. You could see it even as an outside spectator. There was a lot going on in there.

Anyway, there’s a bunch of us who work here and we just give each other shit. It’s cool. It’s like an underground economy or something.

Really? I asked.

Yeah, it’s like the only good thing about working here. It’s cool, though. Come by the Clown on your half hour and I’ll hook you up.
Then Rose smiled, something she hadn’t done yet. I hadn’t noticed she hadn’t smiled until it happened, and it was like watching a scrap of material become twisted into a beautiful bow. Rose’s face lit straight up and I swear, maybe I’m just horribly a copycat but it made me light up right back, smiling big enough to break my face, and then Rose said,
See ya
, and pushed through the glass doors and back into Square One, and I was left by the Dumpster smiling like a dork.

Do you smell that?
Bernice O’Leary’s nose was flexed upward. Her nostrils flared and contracted, flared and contracted, as she huffed the air. And then I realized that Bernice looked like one of those dogs with the hair that you pin up with little barrettes. I swear. Something about the shape of her nose, her underbite, the way her floppy, overgrown hairdo begged to be secured back from her face. I shook my head at her, wondering at the state of my own hairdo. It had been windy out behind the mall. I touched it carefully.

I smell cigarettes
, Bernice crinkled her nose and sucked another gust of air up her powerful little nostrils.
Trishy, you don’t smoke, do you?
She looked horrified.

No, I Don’t, I said, and I was being honest but the truth
felt like a lie for like the third time today. Maybe that was the way of the working world. Always slaving away under the boss man or woman, waiting to get axed. It makes a person nervous. I was all nerves, and my continued abstinence with the foodstuffs plus my run-in with nicotine had me actually trembling a bit.

But I smell cigarettes. I can always smell a cigarette. Were you with Rose just now?
I nodded my head.
Out back, by the Dumpster?
I nodded again.
Oh, Trishy
, she sighed.
Sometimes it’s not enough to just say no. Sometimes you have to say no to people too. Do you know what I mean?

Like, Not Hang Out With Rose? I asked. Bernice nodded.

Trishy, we have a certain image here at Ohmigod!
She held up her hands to ward off my protest, but I was mute.
It’s not even up to me, girl. It’s in the training manual. It’s in all the company material. It’s the same at every store, all across the land. Go into an Ohmigod! in New Hampshire, same thing. Go to one in Boston. Go to California — I guess I don’t really know if we have any way out there but, like, in Maine there’s one, and it’s the same thing. It’s a place with standards. It’s a fun place for fun girls who know how to have fun without indulging in the seamier, adult pleasures. I mean, so-called pleasures, right? Because is it really pleasurable to smoke a cigarette?
I shook my head.
It’s not!
Bernice agreed.
Is lung cancer pleasurable?
This was one of those rhetorical questions, the kind you don’t have to answer, my favorite questions.
Anyway, Trishy, girls who work at Ohmigod! don’t, you know, drink alcohol, or smoke anything, and they keep good conduct outside of the mall. Conduct with boys. You know what I’m saying, girl?
Was Bernice asking
me if I was a virgin? Was she telling me that virginity was a job requirement for Ohmigod!? The store that launched a thousand skanks? The store that sold shirts that were little more than shredded-up slashes of polyester strategically placed across boobs?

I didn’t have a real orientation with you
, Bernice explained,
because you’re just temp, and I figured, you’re part of Kim’s gang so you already know what we’re about here, but…
she stared at me and her face shifted.
I really don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here, huh, Trish?
I took a breath.
But I think that’s one of our shirts…
she trailed off, staring at my chest. She smiled.
“Baby.” I loved that line. So sweet. I had the one that said “Bootylicious.” All the glitter fell off, though.