It's possible to understand how they came to know her. But it's hard to say what they would have thought of her that first day. In Neiman Marcus. Somewhat breathlessly arriving and directly, suddenly with purpose, moving towards the apparel racks. This first time, when neither they nor she knew that she would become a fixture, appearing regularly, though not by the day of the week, nor by the time of the day, but by something in the air... like Mary Poppins. The comparison is apt, and by no means frivolous, because there was something quite fairytale-like about the department store, in general (at least the upper-end ones), and something farfetched about Shawn's emergence and re-emergence in a space-time she never should have occupied, but somehow characteristically, did.
She nervously scrutinized items on one of the racks at first, trying to forget she had just traversed some phantasmagorical boundary between her world and Another, stumbling through the glass double-doors as if they were some gate of stuttering proportion. But now that she was there and the elevator muzak was playing their (her and Neimans) song, she was more curious than anything else, if maybe also a little crazed, about this place and its inhabitants-- animate and inanimate alike. Curious about her relationship to them, and what it would mean to her schema of right and morally wrong, of good and bad modern politics, and taste, or, in other words, fashion (some call it style).
Gradually, she relaxed into bodily habit, fell into rhythm, and browsed like she had been doing much of her life, though usually in very different circumstances (Salvation Armies & Goodwills, as well as the un-Christian thrift and vintage stores, stenched by nostalgic dust, the dead roses of Other glamour, and sometimes swallowed whole by a hungry patchouli). Except that she was now attempting to give the distinct impression to anyone who might be watching that, whatever else she might be doing in the bowels of Neiman Marcus, she was NOT stealing. And, in fact, she wasn't, and had no intentions of doing so, at least not in any
literal sense, which made her presence all the more mysterious.
Could the salespeople have accepted that she belonged there by virtue of the fact of her being there? Probably not. Was her arrival perfectly timed with the magical twilight moment during which the mornings coffee began to percolate the spirits of the employed, and everyones minds were engaging elsewhere?
Unlikely.
Or was it the sheer novelty of the situation that saved her from interrogation? She did not have the orange-red glow of a tanning salon patron, she had not had her hairstyle duplicated from the pages of Cosmopolitan by her stylist, she was NOT rocking a Dolce & Gabbana handbag, and her cell phone was, inexplicably and, yet, without provoking her into a grand tantrum, not getting reception at the moment.
[It's difficult to imagine their impressions because, you see, I knew Shawn from University, I had found her There. I knew of her grasp of Anthropological theory, her Neo-feminist politics, her willingness to disagree with author or student (though rarely professor), how tirelessly she resisted the frustrations of university life. Because, despite all portents to the opposite, stupidity can quite often stand against reason and win, especially in the classroom, by virtue of its own qualities--mainly, its inability to understand, and therefore appreciate, the reason which stood against it. Making oneself understood is always the goal, after all, if you have something to prove. Inventiveness and Eloquence were often her only true Allies in that environment.
I knew that she was intelligent, to the point of edginess, and eager to be tantalized, to be prodded by the ethereal bounty of meaning. I knew how she must have had to scheme to impose this desire on raw actuality, usually constrained to working with what was nearby, ordinary and concrete, and morphing these in her experience of them. She was adept at transforming their disappointing little baldness with her towering personal interest, drenching them from on high in the seductive flavor of a clever understanding.
I knew her socially too, so I knew how she tempted lifes regular architectures to confess their innermost absurdity to this connoisseur of hilarity, and incriminate themselves as well-groomed buffoons. I know that this was possible for her, because I had heard her laugh spontaneously detonate and blow what had seemed to be entirely legitimate circumstances to smithereens, and the many wild anecdotes she told to demonstrate, to those she was befriending, that she could talk the circumstances of daily life into setting off into the wilderness. She could be a simple audacious delight, an energetic funniness that did not rely on its contextShe was always the first one dancing in a crowd. And yet, in spite of all that, she was dishy: she liked to wear high heels for the teeter they imposed, she paid discerning attention to fashions of every culture and subculture that traversed her radar, including the mainstream, she could admit to a few brand name allegiances, and she discussed movie stars and starlets and their big screen manifestations. She was interested in Neimans for all these reasons. The returning to the store would continue for all these, and the eventual happenings would orbit these traits, held together in her being by a personal gravity of selfhood.
But, of course, none of this could have mattered in the least once she was inside, while Neimans was still calling the shots, to the more structured interactions that clumsily or, conversely, with shining practiced eloquence, are executed in the wake of commerce. There was a sacred politeness of service-oriented protocol to conform to, and more or less refined niceties to be exchanged. She was still gathering her bearings, after all]. She was an imposter, for sure, but a curiously disarming one, non-threatening, frazzled and disoriented, maybe, but not crazy by any means.
They might have thought she looked like an art student, maybe a good one, and out of some bizarre reverence the terminally daft feel for the more balmy provocateurs of our species that they can stick this particular label on (and only this one!), were pleased to have her rooting through their wares and skimming their social atmosphere, bringing the shining light of art to their practical lives, in a sense, and this is crucial, finding goodness even among their ranks, as they strived to meet the growing corporate demand for suppliers in the field of relentless consumerism, joining those who aide in the harvesting of the overpriced fashion.
On the other hand, the other shoppers would have certainly ignored her, seen her as an uncertain intrusion and possible hazard, if they allowed themselves to see her at all. She might have been invisible to them at first. But perhaps there was thick tension in the air that day, in Neiman Marcus, while everybody was making their selfish rounds. Shawn might have even begun to perspire a bit, and thought of bolting for the doors, though keeping, through her body movements and well-mannered flipping of the price-tags, an air of nonchalance. But, she would have stopped discerning the prices after the first tag flip, focusing on the bar code instead of the many numbers, which might have actually been her saving grace: the disinterest with pricing putting those around her at ease with her financial status, her ability to make it all seem well within reason.
But it wasn't, and neither was she, not in this moment, not ever, and certainly not there, in Neiman Marcus.
