“Try it on, let me see it on you.”
I bet I could get more for it if it’s still in the packaging, thinks Sarah, but how could she insult him? It was a generous gift, more than she probably deserved for answering a few phones and ringing up credit-card charges. She rips open the plastic with her fingers and slips the scarf around her shoulders. And it was heaven. Of course. Her shoulders felt a warm pressure from the weight of the scarf, and when she rubbed her cheek against it, it was soft and comforting like the sound of someone’s voice, a crooner singing a love song. She rises, walks to the mirror near the front door—the colors suit her perfectly, particularly the mood she’s in today. There’s the wine tint to her cheeks, as if someone had just pinched them, the gray in her green eyes, the auburn highlights in her hair, all swirling around next to this beautiful plum scarf. Her whole body is so warm now, everything about her feels more beautiful and spectacular.
She hears Morris in the background saying, “You should do nice things for yourself. You should take care of yourself. Little things. Like this.”
No way in hell is this scarf going on eBay. She has to keep it. She is in love with this scarf.
6.
AFTER SHE leaves Morris, she walks up to Houston and hangs a right, then a left onto Avenue C, which will always feel like no man’s land, no matter how many new condos they install. Years ago, when she still lived in Boston, people would tell her to stay away from Avenue C whenever she visited New York. She would visit with her high-school boyfriend, the one who got her pregnant, then weeks later ended up in jail for dealing drugs (Last she’d heard, he’d high-tailed it to Maine to avoid two separate sets of child support payments. A heartbreaker from start to finish). At the time, though, he was just a normal, totally fun stoner dude, and they would drive down on the weekends and stay with an aunt of his. She lived on the top floor of a town house in Chelsea with two gay men (“We’re the sitcom of the future, you wait and see,” one of the roommates said), and welcomed the youth of today with wide open arms and a glorious décolletage in full bloom. Sarah Lee loved to press up against her, what a joy it was. It made her boyfriend a little uncomfortable when he hugged his aunt, Sarah Lee could tell by the seriousness of his lips, straight and narrow and tight, but she was free to enjoy the embrace. She had read somewhere that people should get ten hugs a day, so she would take them when she could get them.
“That’s your first problem right there,” her boyfriend had said. “Reading articles. And your second problem is believing them.” But he had hugged her all the time anyway, and secretly liked that Sarah Lee tried to understand the world around her in a different way than he did, which was usually through a cloud of pot smoke.
His aunt took club drugs in great quantities but never shared. However, she did tell them what part of the park to go to for dime bags if they had shown up empty-handed, and which bars were unlikely to card (all of them), and what parts of the city were safe. Avenue C wasn’t on the list, neither was Avenue B for that matter, and Avenue A, barely.
“You two stay away from that park after dark,” his aunt had said.