I don’t know. Ruth examines a smudged Page Three Girl opened up on the table. I wear color sometimes.
Potato girl persists. Eyes like daggers. You’ve been here twice already, and you’ve worn black every time.
Ruth looks down at herself. She had used her employee discount to purchase a tank top from the store just for that day, and it was not black, it was a dark gray Amanda. But she doesn’t have the energy to debate the point. She looks up at the television. She feels a shock, as if she has been slapped.
I don’t know. I guess I don’t own that many clothes, still looking up at the TV, as if studying it. Phoebe is playing her guitar, long blonde ponytail swinging. All of a sudden Ruth hated Jacket Potato Girl. She hated all of them. She was never coming back. She just had to get through the day.
Navigating the mob. The Jamaican security guard laughs at her frantic expression whenever she scurries by him near the front entrance, arms full of battered clothes, looking like she’s going to run to freedom. Knowing if she came too close she’d set off a medley of warning sounds.
First day.
Can you tell.
He nods his head. Yup.
She sees Alice’s blonde head bobbing towards her in the crowd.
Are you married.
No why would I be married. I’m young.
White teeth. You’re not that young.
No, I’m not, she sighs to herself. I’m not this young. I’m not this young. Not anymore.
Alice reaches her through the crowd. Faces and faces. Ruth, I need you. She bows her head, meek, suppliant. Waves goodbye to her security guard, a wink of two fingers. Sent on a reconnaissance mission in the fitting rooms.
End of her shift. How did I do? A little girl, still wanting to please. Fine, fine, said Alice. We’ll give you a call.
The end is near! The end is near!
She escapes into Oxford Street. In the opposite direction of the crowd she fights her way through. People pushing against her pressing against her. She jabs her way through a river of bodies, a dance of elbows and arms and knees. There is a commotion. She hears the clang of the Hare Krishnas approaching. They are pouring down the street a parade of tambourines and drums. They are gleeful, children, men, women, bodies, bodies, bodies. They are carrying a wizened old man above their arms. They are dancing, clapping, singing. They are handing out plates of sweets to passersby. Tourists are stopping pointing taking their picture.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Ruth turns the other way and begins to follow them, walking on the street. She is taken up by the masses of bodies. She is one of many in the crowds. She is lost in the crowd. She wants to lose herself to lose herself.
For wherever you go I will go…
The end is near! The end is near! Her Oxford Circus preacher.
The crowd envelops her. More bodies, bodies, bodies. The crowd envelops her. She cannot breathe. She cannot breathe. A shudder goes through her. She gasps for breath.
Hare Hare Hare
Save yourselves! Save yourselves!
An immense violence is stirring inside of her amidst the turmoil of the street. A warmth inside. She grows dizzy and weak. She fingers her tiny stub of a ponytail. Oh, to shave it off to shave it all off. To be reborn. To be wiped clean.
If I could smash that thing that houses me inside of myself.
To disappear. A delirious death. She is drunk with this sense of abandon. She throws herself into the crowd. It is beginning to rain, a warm rain. The dingy day now thick with humidity. The robes of the Hare Krishnas dotted translucent. They form a circle. She doesn’t know what she is doing. She is closing her eyes, she is throwing her arms up above her head, she is swaying back and forth, back and forth. She is dancing round and round in a circle. The ecstasy of commotion.
Such joy, such joy, such joy.
I want to go to a church she thinks. I want to sit in a church and let the white light bathe me. It doesn’t matter what church, what religion. It would be best if I did not understand the mumbling pleas directed up high. I want to go to a church and direct my eyes up high and open my arms open my arms up to the ceiling. And scream. And scream. And scream.
FIN
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to: Bryan Tomasovich and his team at Emergency Press, Mairead Case, Dakota Brown, Amy Scholder, Lidia Yuknavitch, Kate Durbin, Pam Lu, Angela Simione, Bett Williams, Gina Abelkop, my
colleagues in the Fiction Department at Foyles Bookshop, especially Tammy Petroff, my mother, and again to John.
The production of
Green Girl
was supported by the Antioch Media and Publishing Center in Seattle.
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