The Leftovers

wouldn’t be any good to her anyway.
    On some level, she understood that he’d danced with her out of pity. She was totally willing to admit that that was how it had started—a philanthropist and a charity case—but it had ended somewhere else entirely, her head on his shoulder, his arms wrapped tight around her, some kind of current running between their bodies, making her feel like a dead woman who’d been shocked back to life. And it wasn’t just her: She’d seen the look on his face when the lights came on, the tenderness and curiosity in his eyes, the way he kept holding her and shuffling his feet well after the music had stopped.
    It was hard at first when he didn’t call—really hard—but a month is a long time, and she’d pretty much reconciled herself to the fact that it had all been a false alarm, at least until last week, when she’d passed him on her bike and everything got stirred up again. He was just standing there on Main Street with his punky-looking daughter at his side; all Nora had to do was squeeze the brakes, glide right up to them, and say, Hey, how’s it going? Then, at least, she would’ve been able to study his face, maybe get a clearer sense of what was going on. But she’d been a coward—she froze, forgot to hit the brakes, sped right past as if she were late for an appointment, as if she had someplace better to go than a house where the phone never rang and no one ever visited.
    “Oh, look!” Karen said. They were cruising through the parking lot, trying to locate a space that wasn’t half a mile away from the entrance. She was pointing at a mother and daughter, the mom close to Nora’s age, the child maybe eight or nine, both of them wearing fuzzy reindeer antlers on their heads, the girl’s complete with blinking red lights. “Isn’t that adorable?”
    *   *   *
    TWO WHITE-CLAD Watchers were standing in front of the Macy’s entrance, along with a grizzled-looking guy ringing a bell for the Salvation Army. Out of politeness, Nora accepted a leaflet from one of the G.R. guys— Have you forgotten already? the cover inquired—then dropped it in a trash can conveniently situated just inside the door.
    She felt a mini panic attack coming on as they passed the fragrance counter, a small animal’s sense of imminent danger. It was partly a reaction to the stench of a dozen different perfumes spritzed into the air by heavily made-up young women who seemed to think they were performing a public service, and partly a more general feeling of sensory overload brought on by the sudden onslaught of bright lights, bouncy music, and eager consumers. The blank-faced mannequins didn’t help, their paralyzed bodies decked out in the latest fashions.
    It was easier to breathe once they entered the main concourse, with its high glass ceiling—the mall was built on three levels, with balconies on the upper two—and vast white floor, which reminded her of an old-fashioned train station. Beyond the central fountain, an enormous Christmas tree towered over a line of children waiting to meet Santa Claus, its angel-tipped peak rising past the first mezzanine. The tree reminded her of a ship in a bottle, so big you had to wonder how it got there.
    Karen was a brutally efficient shopper, one of those people who always knows exactly what she’s looking for and where it can be found. She strode through the mall with an air of fierce concentration, eyes straight ahead, no aimless browsing or impulse buying. She was the same way in the supermarket, crossing off each item on her list with a red Sharpie, never passing the same spot twice.
    “What do you think?” she asked, holding up an orange-and-blue-striped tie in the Big Guys Wearhouse. “Too bold?”
    “For Chuck?”
    “Who else?” She tossed the tie back onto the clearance table. “The boys never dress up.”
    “Pretty soon they will. They’ll have proms and stuff, right?”
    “I guess.” Karen plunged her hand back into the serpentine tangle of neckties. “They’ll have to start showering first.”
    “They don’t shower?”
    “They say they do. But their towels are always dry. Hmm.” She selected a more likely candidate, yellow diamonds on a field of green silk. “What do you think?”
    “It’s nice.”
    “I don’t know.” Karen frowned. “He’s got too many green ties as it is. He has too many ties, period. Whenever anybody asks what he wants for Christmas, he always says, Just a tie. A tie will be fine.