Hollister
Standing in front of the beach shack entrance to Hollister, Ann looked anything but pleased. She narrowed her eyes at the slatted boards forming the doorway, frown lines coming to life at the center of her forehead. I chewed on my thumbnail, my gaze alternating between her face and the storefront, and waited.
“Well then, let’s get this over with,” she said at last, waving me forward with her free hand. “Go on, Audrey.”
Somewhere between the entrance and the first poster of a shirtless male model on the wall, I wondered if spending too long inside Hollister could kill me. Pausing on the thick rug, I took a breath and felt the harsh, artificially floral perfume climb down my throat and rest there, threatening to send me into a coughing fit if I dared breathe again. I sniffed cautiously. Five steps in, and it seemed that my shopping experience was already headed downhill.
I felt my stomach churn, but I wasn’t sure that it was just because of the perfume.
Ann’s silver-streaked head hardly cleared my shoulder, but she strode to my side with unwavering military authority. Or should I say limped: polio had robbed one of her legs in childhood half a century ago, leaving it stunted and gnarled. Now she leaned heavily on her left side, the protective rubber of her cane scraping the ground with every step. It rarely occurred to me, though, that Ann had a physical disability—when she walked, her cane was not a crutch, but a statement, and when she called, you sure as hell followed.
“Stand up straight,” she snapped. She didn’t even need to look at me. She knew.
I wandered ahead of her through the first room of clothes, my hands in the pockets of my jacket. As I absently scanned a display of monogrammed t-shirts, a sales clerk startled me with a peppy greeting. “Hey there, welcome to Hollister,” she said brightly. She was hardly more than a slim silhouette posing beside the first rack of sundresses, but her teeth caught the meager light and nearly blinded me as she smiled. “We’re having this, like, really cool sale on the bathing suits, so if you head right over there you can, like, totally check it out. It’s two for one, which is like, such a good deal.”
“Uh, thanks.” I squinted through the dim light until I could make out the serrated edge of her shorts, tight against her tanned legs, and the flowing edge of her tank top, which stopped just high enough to expose the blinking jewel on her lower stomach. The sight of her—preppy and sun-kissed and practically reeking of seawater—made me tug my jacket tighter across the breadth of my faded, frayed blue polo. It was a size too big and hung, dress-like, over my orange plaid jeans. Earlier that day, standing in front of the mirror in my white-walled bedroom, this outfit had been the most believably “Betty” combination I could find, but to the girl, whose name tag read either Carey or Carly, it must have seemed as if I’d put myself together in a room as dark as, say, Hollister. Thankfully, if she noticed my disastrous state, she was kind enough not to mention it.
I heard the familiar squeak of rubber against hardwood, and Ann’s voice followed a moment later: “Christ Almighty, it reeks in here, doesn’t it?” This earned a stare from Carey/Carly, who pursed her lips and sniffed deeply, as if to prove that she had evolved the superhuman ability to withstand copious amounts of Hollister’s signature scents. Ann, in her untroubled way, marched past without noticing. I shoved my hands into my pockets and slouched, trailing her into the second room.
Summery indie-rock hummed through the speakers overhead, despite it being the dead of winter. (By winter, of course, I mean the agonizing time of year between November and March when the weather drops from seventy-five to sixty and everyone breaks out their fleece-lined hoodies and bedazzled UGGs). I trailed after Ann, my chin tucked into the hollow between my collarbones. She would pause every few steps, asking, “Do you like this?” and I would mumble a noncommittal response and allow her to toss a garment into my arms.
