Spotted Lily by Anna Tambour Page B

had to. The women who wore lipstick where I grew up thought of this as Mecca. I came here when I had first arrived and needed clothes, and it was where I still bought them, whenever I had to. Dependable as Monday, the staff were wrinklies uniformed as mourners, the look never changed, and the vast halls either echoed, or on pension days, filled with muted clucks and the swishes of support-hosed legs against pleated wool skirts.
    I brushed past the doorman, to be hit with a dizziness attack. The displays were unrecognisable. The vast hall was still mostly empty of shoppers, but one flaunted a bare midriff. I rode the escalator up, only to be let down again. The whole store reeled crazily in an attempt to go 'youth'. Musical chairs had been played with the stock. The only good thing was that it hadn't worked in terms of bringing in trade. I would have gone elsewhere if I'd known where, but I didn't. Even if I had known, there wasn't time.
    I didn't bother looking for underwear. It was hard enough to find where they'd moved the department with the jeans and T's. Dangerously close to kick-out time, I found it, now nefariously musicked to confuse, and fashionably jumbled. Salesgirls aspiring to be chicks hung around the place like cheap perfume. One came up to me and asked me what I wanted. Coward that I was, I answered. 'Black jeans and T. One each.'
    'One more purchase, Pam,' she announced as she walked away from me, the bitch! I waited by the till as she rummaged through the mess piled on two tables. She was efficient, though, as in less than two minutes she returned with clothes over her arm, and threw them on the counter, flashing their blackness at me as she unclipped the tags and shoved them in a bag while Pam punched stock codes into the register, and the both of them planned the night they were going to have, beginning in a few minutes—the only acknowledgement of me being a 'sign here please' from Pam, and from her salesgirl accomplice, the final flick-off—a smile as painted on as an Indian statue and the odd command, 'Enjoy your things,' both tossed so casually that if they'd been spit she was directing towards me, they would have hit Pam.
    I stabbed them both with my cutting reply, or would have if I could have thought of one. Desirée certainly would—but I slunk out.

    ~

    It took bloody forever getting home. A taxi would have been a treat, but impossible to flag at rush hour. If there was a technique, I'd have to learn it. But then again, I reckoned that Desirée would have a limo, though upon consideration, that could be worse than a bus if you have to wait for the limo to come when you call ...
    By the time I got back to the Restonia, I had a dull headache, my socks were sticking to my toes in my hot Docs, and regardless of their orthopaedic pretensions, the arches of my feet sent shooting pains up my leg. Jim opened the door with a smile that looked surprisingly genuine.
    I gave him a half-smile, embarrassed about my teeth, and rushed back up to our suite. The entry was bare, its horrid shard-glass table removed, but nothing had been put in its place. Humph!
    My bedroom door was closed as usual. I opened it to find my every request fulfilled, except for the flowers. And in addition to instant coffee, there was a jar of what smelt like fresh-ground in the fridge, and a little plunger pot on a table—a round table with a white linen tablecloth, embroidered with forget-me-nots! The two cups and saucers matched the tablecloth. I could see through the china! I had forgotten to order a chair, but there one sat—the only one in the suite—comforting as a bap bun. And the bed was so astoundingly luxurious and snowily white (with little sprigs of embroidered white flowers), that I didn't know what to do first. Bathe, change, agonize over tea? or coffee? or change my clothes?
    Then my stomach gurgled, and a bubble of bile erupted into my mouth, prioritizing me without my needing to agonize.
    I took my purchases to my