likely to be enchanted. So maybe it doesn’t look like a cup at all. I looked it up on Wikipedia yesterday. There are all kinds of theories. You’d be surprised how much thought people have put into it.”
“I bet,” I said. I wasn’t surprised, though.
“Do you think it’s, like, obvious that it’s something special?” I asked Francie on a different day. She and I were warming up at Claire’s Boutique, digging through wire bins of spray-painted gold junk. “The Holy Grail. Like, could it be disguised as a ball of lint or a piece of toilet paper? That seems like it would be unfair.” I palmed a five-dollar package of bangles as I spoke, slipped it in my pocket when I knew no one was looking. It’s better to put things in your pocket rather than your bag if you can, because they’re less likely to try to search your pockets. Everyone’s afraid of lawsuits these days.
“I think whatever it is, it’s beautiful,” said Francie. “The most beautiful thing. But beautiful in, like, a way that youwon’t be able to predict. Something you’d think would be nothing, and then you see it and you look carefully, and that’s when you’re, like, oh my God. I’m pretty sure that’s how we’ll know.”
So we were looking for the Most Beautiful Thing. That was the Holy Grail. The thing you would almost overlook and then, all of a sudden, OMG. I didn’t tell Francie why it was so important to me, but I was determined to find it.
Why we thought it was at the mall, I don’t know. Francie called it a suspicion, but I think it was just the kind of wishful thinking that comes out of shitty circumstance. The J-12 went to Montgomery Shoppingtowne. It didn’t go to the Louvre or Vatican City. You believe what you need to believe. So we searched.
And we stole. The two of us, side by side. Me flanking her every move, stealing right while she stole left. We stole Egyptian cotton bedsheets and bottles of perfume and cheap handbags and more costume jewelry than one person could wear in a lifetime. We stole bras and silver-plated pens and Christmas ornaments. With my hair cropped down to messy roots and my motorcycle jacket on, I floated with Francie, for the first time, as an equal.
The Holy Grail turned out to be elusive, though. Every day, after we were finished, we’d make our way to our handicap stall, where we’d take out all our stuff and examine it, just to see if we had found the Grail without realizing it. One time I stole a hundred-dollar pepper grinder that seemedlike it had promise. There was something about the way it had called to me in Williams-Sonoma, something about the way it glittered under the soft-focus lighting that made me wonder if it was more than it seemed. But upon examination, in the fluorescence of the bathroom, it was just a regular pepper grinder, and not special at all. It was beyond ordinary—definitely not beautiful.
If you had asked me what the Most Beautiful Thing was, I wouldn’t have said it aloud, but secretly I would have known my answer: Francie.
You should understand that she was not exactly a supermodel. I mean, she was beautiful, but she wasn’t. Yeah, she was tall and blond and booby with amazing legs, but there was something a little funny about her jawline—something square and sharp and almost masculine. Her shoulders were too broad; one eye was just the tiniest bit wonky; her nose had a slight hook; and if you looked closely you could see small blossoms of acne under the crust of her caked-on makeup. It didn’t matter. There was just something about her. If you thought too hard about it, she was almost ugly. But then you looked again, and your jaw would drop.
She was a more perfect body pieced together from spares and defectives. From day to day, her appearance was never quite the same. No picture resembled the last. And sometimes I wondered if she was replacing her own parts with things she had lifted, one by one. A rhinestone where her left eye should have
“I bet,” I said. I wasn’t surprised, though.
“Do you think it’s, like, obvious that it’s something special?” I asked Francie on a different day. She and I were warming up at Claire’s Boutique, digging through wire bins of spray-painted gold junk. “The Holy Grail. Like, could it be disguised as a ball of lint or a piece of toilet paper? That seems like it would be unfair.” I palmed a five-dollar package of bangles as I spoke, slipped it in my pocket when I knew no one was looking. It’s better to put things in your pocket rather than your bag if you can, because they’re less likely to try to search your pockets. Everyone’s afraid of lawsuits these days.
“I think whatever it is, it’s beautiful,” said Francie. “The most beautiful thing. But beautiful in, like, a way that youwon’t be able to predict. Something you’d think would be nothing, and then you see it and you look carefully, and that’s when you’re, like, oh my God. I’m pretty sure that’s how we’ll know.”
So we were looking for the Most Beautiful Thing. That was the Holy Grail. The thing you would almost overlook and then, all of a sudden, OMG. I didn’t tell Francie why it was so important to me, but I was determined to find it.
Why we thought it was at the mall, I don’t know. Francie called it a suspicion, but I think it was just the kind of wishful thinking that comes out of shitty circumstance. The J-12 went to Montgomery Shoppingtowne. It didn’t go to the Louvre or Vatican City. You believe what you need to believe. So we searched.
And we stole. The two of us, side by side. Me flanking her every move, stealing right while she stole left. We stole Egyptian cotton bedsheets and bottles of perfume and cheap handbags and more costume jewelry than one person could wear in a lifetime. We stole bras and silver-plated pens and Christmas ornaments. With my hair cropped down to messy roots and my motorcycle jacket on, I floated with Francie, for the first time, as an equal.
The Holy Grail turned out to be elusive, though. Every day, after we were finished, we’d make our way to our handicap stall, where we’d take out all our stuff and examine it, just to see if we had found the Grail without realizing it. One time I stole a hundred-dollar pepper grinder that seemedlike it had promise. There was something about the way it had called to me in Williams-Sonoma, something about the way it glittered under the soft-focus lighting that made me wonder if it was more than it seemed. But upon examination, in the fluorescence of the bathroom, it was just a regular pepper grinder, and not special at all. It was beyond ordinary—definitely not beautiful.
If you had asked me what the Most Beautiful Thing was, I wouldn’t have said it aloud, but secretly I would have known my answer: Francie.
You should understand that she was not exactly a supermodel. I mean, she was beautiful, but she wasn’t. Yeah, she was tall and blond and booby with amazing legs, but there was something a little funny about her jawline—something square and sharp and almost masculine. Her shoulders were too broad; one eye was just the tiniest bit wonky; her nose had a slight hook; and if you looked closely you could see small blossoms of acne under the crust of her caked-on makeup. It didn’t matter. There was just something about her. If you thought too hard about it, she was almost ugly. But then you looked again, and your jaw would drop.
She was a more perfect body pieced together from spares and defectives. From day to day, her appearance was never quite the same. No picture resembled the last. And sometimes I wondered if she was replacing her own parts with things she had lifted, one by one. A rhinestone where her left eye should have
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