She is on the verge of saying something as they
enter the Levi’s shop, but finds herself so unsettled by the assistant’s
cog: Hey Skunk
that it is momentarily forgotten
ache1 (whispering): They know your name?
Skunk: Well, I am
in and out of here quite a bit, so…
Having separated to browse those sections relevant
to their gender, still ache1 watches him across the shop as his
attention is caught by various items, examining their details, the buttons,
pockets, stitching, and most especially the various labels, as if he was at an
art gallery. She wonders that manifest in such obsession his mind might in some
manner be somehow broken, and too wonders that she does not mind.
They meet at the sale stock rail, hung amongst which
is a short gold dress, reflecting enough of even the shop’s artificial light to make it almost glow, above
which glow the tiny red Levi’s tab stitched into one of the side seams appears to
float. Unique, available only in this single size, Skunk is so distracted by
its beauty he considers buying it for himself, not to wear so much as simply
own. Holding its hanger at arm’s length, he looks beyond the dress to ache1,
as if measuring it against her.
ache1: Oh no you don’t.
Skunk: How about you just try it on, just in the
shop? It might fit.
ache1: What am I now, Cinderella?
Skunk (laughing): What would that make me?
ache1: One of my ugly sist-, no, my fairy
godmother!
Laughs.
Skunk: Proceed,
please, please, and if it fits I’ll buy it for you.
She understands there to be little point in
the protesting against this.
ache1: Okay, okay. Fifty million Levi’s
fans can’t be wrong
the wit of which passes him completely by.
Skunk (mediating): Or we could buy it now, go out to
dinner tonight, and then bring it back in the morning.
ache1: Right, with fucking beer spilled
all down it.
With ache1 in the changing room, Brother
Skunk peruses the items on the shop’s counter, small leather goods, wallets,
keychains and such, and pockets several of the promotional postcards and other
advertising ephemera.
ache1 (exiting, watching herself turn
this way and back in the mirrors): This confirms for me what I’ve always
thought: I have absolutely no shape whatsoever. Whatever shape women are
supposed to be is the exact shape that I am not.
ignorant in this moment of just how she is adored.
ache1: Be honest, Skunk, if this wasn’t a
Levi’s dress, would you still be telling me to buy it?
Pause.
ache1: Skunk?
Skunk (coming to): It looks, the only word… is boxy.
ache1: Boxy?
Skunk: Okay, no…
but having spent too long trying to retrieve
whatever word might acquit him, relents,
Skunk: No, boxy, that’ll have to do.
this to her back as she re-enters the cubicle.
ache1: Try just a little harder, cowboy, I’m
not entirely convinced.
It is only as they leave, empty-handed, she
remembers what she was about to say as they entered.
ache1: I was going to say how much I
usually hate these places, normally back home the staff are all over you and I
end up buying something just to get them to leave me the hell alone.
Skunk (frowning): Did it never occur to you that you
could just walk out?
ache1: That… That, actually, is a
possibility that until this very second had never even crossed my mind.
