Free Retail Therapy by Roz Bailey

Tomorrows, a phenomenon that probably reinforces their resolve to avoid televisions.
    â€œHow’s everything there?” I asked.
    â€œOh, fine. We got a new delivery of firewood, which will probably last us well into next winter. And before I forget, Sally Wallace’s daughter may call you. She’s headed off to New York to try the acting thing, so I gave her your number and told her you would show her the ropes. Her name is Jennifer.”
    Great news: another aspiring actress named Jen who can screw up my latte order at Starbucks.
    Mom went on about Jennifer’s family. Didn’t I remember the family with the four girls who used to canoe together on the lake? Dark hair, all of them, and their mom had moved to Wisconsin from Chicago?
    Not a clue, but I pretended to recollect the Wallaces to move the conversation along. Which was a mistake, since she boomeranged back to the crucial questions: “When do you think you’ll hear about more work? How are you paying your bills?”
    Beep! I was saved by call-waiting, flashing Alana’s cell number.
    â€œMom, I’ve got another call. Do you want to hold?”
    â€œOh, no, that’s OK. I’ll phone you again next week.”
    After a quick good-bye, I clicked to Alana.
    â€œThank God you picked up,” she said, an oddly high pitch in her voice. “I need you now. Can you come?”
    â€œWhat happened? Where are you?”
    â€œI’m just outside Bon Nuit. Can you meet me here right away?”
    â€œSure.” I grabbed my Nine West heels. “But what are you doing there?” Wild thoughts flashed through my head: that Alana had returned to the store after I left an hour ago, that she’d decked the redheaded Marcella, that she’d been handcuffed by security and arrested ...
    â€œI’ll explain when you get here. Meet me in cosmetics, at the Trenda counter.”
    I grabbed a leather jacket, one ankle wobbling in its high heel as I snatched up my keys. Flying out the door, I tried to speculate about what could have happened to Alana.
    With my imagination, that was dangerous territory.

10
    Alana
    W hat’s that notion that a thief returns to the scene of her crime?
    I admit, it felt tacky to be back in the cosmetics department of Bon Nuit on the very same night I’d had the altercation with the sales clerk. What was her name? Martha? Marley? Marchesa?
    Oh, it didn’t matter as long as I never laid eyes on her again. The only thing I cared about was buying Hailey’s favorite shade of Trenda lipstick and leaving the scene before the sales clerk from hell tried another round of thumb wrestling. I never did get my credit card back, but it was OK, since that one was cancelled and Daddy wouldn’t get to the rest of them until tomorrow morning.
    It was already after seven. I had approximately twelve more hours of financial freedom ... and less than two hours until most of the stores closed. One last night of shopping before the bottom fell out of my life, and I was determined to make the most of it. Somehow I knew I had to start my last hurrah by purchasing Hailey’s lipstick; if I could just right that one wrong, maybe it would set some positive karma in motion for me.
    I retraced my steps to the Trenda counter, disappointed to find that no one was there. What is with these clerks? Either they hover over you like they own the cosmetics factory, or else there’s no one in sight.
    By contrast, there were three clerks over at Estee Lauder, two at Ralph Lauren—and one of them was that red-haired clerk. I felt my shiny talons emerge. My nemesis. What was she sounding off about now?
    Had she been fired for her transgression? Slowly, I moved closer. She was still wearing a mint green cosmetics-counter smock, and from the way she was prattling on to her coworker, she seemed in need of some therapy. I sidled within earshot, planting myself behind a watermelon-size bottle of purple eau