Free Ed King by David Guterson

a damage deposit, and the building was in walking distance of her post-office box. Lloyd Center was a bit of a trek, but the weather was fair, the days were long, and she had time, suddenly, to do as she pleased, which meant reading in bed all morning if she felt like it, sitting in a cinema in the middle of the afternoon, eating in restaurants, and shopping. Diane, settled in, sent Club her mailing address, saying, “Write to me here—I’ve gone a bit south.” A month later, he replied with a postcard from Liverpool depicting, in sepia, its long-ago canning dock. “Scraggy-neck,” it read. “Right enough for the moment. Studying electrical from mail order manuals. Wouldn’t mind putting to sea as a joiner, something in an engine room, thank you please, what I would like is electrical greaser, out of the wind, where it’s snug.” In a second paragraph he asked, “What’s all this with them thrashing up their Negroes? Cattle prods and hoses? God save the Queen, Luv!—Club.”
    Lloyd Center was American and fantastic. At a kiosk, she counted one hundred shops and read a sign claiming that no shopping center in America was larger. There was an ice rink with a viewing balcony. Lipman’s sold fine apparel for women, as did Meier & Frank. Diane spent a lot of time combing the racks, contemplating the displays of fashionable clothing, and trying things on in tiny dressing rooms. Everything was ano-go—even though she was snapping back from pregnancy—but she still liked rhythmically sliding the dresses, skirts, and blouses on their hangers, pulling out a possibility, eyeing it critically, checking the price tag, assessing the fabric, reading the label, and slipping it back in place before rifling, once more, through the rack. If she lingered long enough, a floor clerk might come round to suggest the girls’ department for a proper fit. There were a lot of tucked bodices, and gloves for evening wear, and seersucker suits, and dozens of variations on Jacqueline Kennedy’s pillbox hat, but none of that seemed right to Diane. What seemed right was a look she came across while passing the toy department at J. C. Penney: Blonde Ponytail Barbie, in a maroon velvet sleeveless top and a white satin skirt, complete with glossy lips, painted fingernails, and maroon wedges.
    Three weeks later, costumed as Blonde Ponytail Barbie, Diane sat in the tea shop on the tenth floor of the downtown Lipman’s, eating tuna casserole and, with a pencil, designing a business card on a napkin. A week later, after picking up a hundred freshly printed cards at a stationer’s, she bought a handbag, earrings, necklace, bracelet, and watch. These were of good quality, as was her hairdo—glossy, with bangs—which she’d paid an expensive dresser to put together. On a side street, in her mildewed beater, Diane adorned herself with the jewelry, tucked a dozen of the fresh cards into her handbag, and made a last assessment in her rearview mirror. Then, wearing a straight face, she got out on the passenger side, looking, she hoped, supremely confident.
    Diane walked down Eleventh drawing glances. At the Seward Hotel, with no hesitation, she glided through the door held open for her and sat in the lobby with her legs crossed, as if she belonged there, under the rustic chandeliers, the gilded archways, and the murals depicting the Lewis and Clark Expedition. For a half-hour, she monitored the front desk and the concierge stand, the comings and goings of the bellboys with their carts of luggage, and the Seward’s guests, with their gaiety, fine clothes, and need for taxis. The concierge, in a tight serge suit, with a scarlet face and a walrus mustache, stood at a kind of podium. Diane, after smoothing down her velvet top and brushing at her satin skirt, approached him, half curtsied as part of her act, and said, “Pardon me. I wonder if I might inquire.”
    “British,” said the concierge. “Am I right?”
    Diane snapped open her bag and