The Forest

Standing beneath the skylight the floors above me painted in sunlight and awash with people, I read the green banner just above my head. It has a credit card on it with the words, “The Mall of America Credit Card. More Ways to Be You.” Behind this one and in front of it they wave over and over out of sight in both directions saying, “More Ways to Be You, More Ways to Be You…” I press my nose to the glass, but I promised myself that I would not go in. The fierce and sour colors, the dry air and the thousands of buzzing mouths sucking it like thirsty fish. I step off the escalator and immediately the slow, heavy, surge of bodies wipes me up and we walk along the long hallway with the dazzle of the skylight high, high above our heads.

“No Emily! Mommy is not going to buy you one more thing!”

The little girl has sparkly makeup on her eyes and on her lips so that they look like ripe fruit, and her cheeks are smeared with rosebud. The pink, plastic bag says, “Libby Lu” and there is a small golden crown over the first “L”. The girl makes her mouth into a lip-sticked “O” and the little eyes are brimming as her mother pulls on her hand. I think I’ve seen this before. I was once a painted sugarplum squeezing the hand of a trapped, gray-eyed womyn. I tried to soak her with so much love like pouring rain.

“Why so sad mommy? Don’t go away.”

Stay with me. You should have stayed with me.

“Mommy!”

Poor, painted little sugarplum. The mother hoists the screaming child onto her hip, but I would like a new face and I can’t stop to watch. Now I stand in front of the glass with the bare stick flesh sprawled behind it. Bits of lace and leather pulled tight onto plastic hips with jutting, plastic pelvic bones. What I wouldn’t do for a body like an iron string. Now my palms cup the fullness of my own hips, now they slide down their slopes onto the swelling of my belly.

This is the sadness coming home again. I have the heaviness of flesh pulling me down. I decide to buy a new body too.

“Miss may I ask you something?”

He waits for me in front of a stand all pink and purple with bottles of cream that are supposed to make people new skins. Sniff, sniff there is perfumed air cooling my nostrils. I can remember my mother asleep in the bathtub. The tops of her knees are shining through the fragrant piles of soft, slippery, soap bubbles and one damp arm lies heavy over the side. Lips parted, eyes open to frosty ceiling.

“Wake-up mom. Wake-up. Wake-up mom. Wake-up mom. Please.”

What was she looking at?

What large eyes he has straining beneath arching eyebrows. I don’t stop because he smells like my mother, but I don’t think he sees her sleeping on my shoulders.

Another escalator ride and I can look over the handrail at the floors below and see glistening heads and below them wandering specks. The ripples of spicy laughter from some throat deep down and the sideways glance of a man with an eye patch pulling at my skin. Me? Does he want me? Maybe he is looking at the amusement park with the rollercoaster soaring overhead. Where’s my roller coaster? I don’t want to be left alone starving, starving, starving… I follow him across the mall. He disappears into a candy shop, and I slip into a glittering jungle of costume jewelry and wait. A red, ruby rhinestone bracelet, the painted “O” of a little girl’s lips, and my first period just a week ago. I didn’t know what it was. Only the wet, the smoky, scarlet blooming going drip, drip in the toilet and the salt going drip, drip down my cheeks because I thought I was dieing. What a strange dream that night of finding myself all over red, my nipples hard and stiff as nails.

“We’re having a sale today. 3 bracelets for ten dollars.”

I dig in my pockets and I can smell the sweet green paper before I hold it crisp in my hand. No receipt. It’s not a new face, but it makes me happy to see the deep crimson on my wrist. The eye patch man is back. He walks straight up to me and I would like my feet to let go of the ground so I can fly up into the skylight. He holds out a gold bag.

“Hello my beauty. Have a truffle.”

And oh the rich, creamy press between my teeth onto my tongue.

A thick lipped smile. “Such a pretty girl should not walk by herself in such a big forest. Come with brother, he will protect you.”

My, what large teeth he has.

And he buys me the new face and the new body so I don’t mind when we leave at the mall at the end of the day to sit in his purring car and stroke. We won’t come back.