The New Mantra

“How much is she? I would buy her!”

“She’s priceless!” Lucy tells the man wearing a security uniform. He has large, dark, expressive eyes and olive colored skin and is smiling at me through the glass case I am in.

I am in the window display of the store, standing next to a headless mannequin, cleaning the shelves that had acquired dust from weeks of neglect. He is smiling at me, but his comment has embarrassed me and I feel ashamed for some reason. If I was a cat, his comment made my ears go back in distrust and I would have growled and hissed before slinking away from him to hide under a porch.

Lucy is laughing until she sees my eyes. “He’s just messing around,” she tells me, searching my face and then her large brown eyes change and she marches out of the store.

“I told him you didnt appreciate that comment and to please leave you alone,” she says when she returns. “What did you do Lucy?” I ask, exhaling. “Dont worry about it,” she says nonchalantly. The man is probably now locked away in some restricted area of the airport, tied up to a waterline with tape over his mouth. Lucy is one of those people who is not to be fucked with, and if you are important to her, you also are not to be fucked with.

Everyday Lucy and I experience the strangest interactions with men. If I had enough money and time and was able to go back to school to get my PHD, I would write my dissertation on how men and women interact present day.

I go to work for eight hours and return home with so much material it could fill an entire notebook. I would have thousands of notebooks at this point.

There was a man who was interested in Lucy, and everyday he would buy and eat a burrito at the Mexican restaurant across the way from the store. While he ate this burrito he would stare at her in the store. This would be incredibly unnerving, but he was very attractive so Lucy was able to ignore a lot of warning signs this behavior exhibited.

“There he is!” she says and we look across the open terminal, and there he is, tall and strapping, standing at a high top table, holding a burrito the size of a small infant that cost $30, even with his airport employee discount.

“Lucy, hes spending so much money buying a burrito everyday just to stand and watch you,” I say.

“Do you ever think he will come in here and talk to me?” she asks and we watch him wipe beans and cheese off his chin with a napkin.

“You have to believe they will be brave,” I say, thinking about Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. They yearned for one another for so long before finally admitting to one another that they are meant to be together.

“He either really likes burritos, or he is yearning for you. He is yearning either way. For you, or for a burrito. This is what we all are missing these days- yearning. Romance. It’s all just hooking up and then dismissing people nowadays. Have you ever seen Love Island?” I ask Lucy.

“Yearning for a burrito is not romantic” Lucy says, trying not to look at him looking at her.

“But buying one everyday to try to talk to you is,” I say but then take it back, “unless he is mentally ill and watching you with plans to kill you. Ugh, see, I hate being of this paranoid, shallow, hopeless time! I belong in the days of quill pens!”

Burrito man did this for two weeks before Lucy decided that she could no longer carry on living knowing he was out there eating a burrito and giving her come hither eyes.

One day, as he threw the aluminum wrapper into the trash and turned to walk away, Lucy beelined out of the store, catching up to him, tapping him on the shoulder and saying, “how long are you going to do this? Am I crazy or is there something between us?”

Again, this is why most attractive people become raging assholes. They somehow get away with everything and they will never learn that no, you cannot just eat a highly versatile and popular Mexican dish and stare at a girl you like and then have it somehow work out for you. You should be shamed and shunned from society, forced to live in a treehouse with squirrels as your only companions. Maybe attractive people know this, and that is why the only thing they can commit to seriously is the gym. They know, deep down, if they lose their abs, it is over for them.

Lucy and this man exchanged numbers, but then he was switched to morning shifts and no longer was around and the whole thing kind of fizzled out.

Scheduling is also a big killer of connections these days. There is no real compromise or effort.

“He works mornings now,” Lucy said, crossing him off her list of potentials.

“You never even got to eat a burrito with him,” I said sadly and she sighs.

Burrito man aside, Lucy has much better luck with men than I do. Men will flirt with her and buy things to give her the commission, or ask for her number. It all is easy to digest and understand, she fits into the broad spectrum of subjects to study. They are interested in her and they are able to show this unabashedly.

I am a different type of subject to study.

One time, Mike, my co-worker who works next door at Moncler, was walking by, waving to me, when a man behind him, a pilot, whistled, then cat called me from behind him. Mike turned around and my friendly smile to Mike turned into a frown. I looked away embarrassed, the pilot left, and Mike stepped into the store, “do you know him?” he asked.

“No,” I said and Mike and I both stared at one another in silence before Mike said, “ew.”

There was one time I saw a really attractive man reading a physical book on one of the couches in the lounge area in the middle of the terminal that all our luxury retail stores surround. I was standing near the stores entrance, watching him read. “He is READING an actual BOOK,” I whispered to Lucy in complete and utter shock, like I had discovered a different life form or some sort of rare tropical bird.

“Go talk to him,” Lucy told me, nudging me.

“No. I am not chasing anybody anymore. If they want to get to know me, they will talk to me,” I tell her like it is a mantra I am repeating to try to enforce and believe.

“Oh girl, no.” Lucy responds shaking her head. “It does not work like that anymore,” she tells me. “Plus, you are too intimidating, you are like six feet tall,” she says.

There was one time a group of men traveling to Bora Bora came in and one of them locked eyes with me.

“Where is there a good bar around here?” his friend asked me.

I told them, “Oh, just across the way, um where that Cheese sign is, go towards the cheese,” I said pointing to a large sign that was blocked off by a wall so the full name of the restaurant was cut off only revealing the word “CHEESE” in large white block letters.

The one who had looked at me smiled, revealing a mouth full of perfect white teeth and they all wandered out.

Then an hour later, they wandered past the store again.

Then again.

Then finally, the one with the nice teeth and just one of his friends came back.

“I had another question I wanted to ask you,” the teeth said to me. Lucy was standing at a display of purses nearby, watching, and his friend was looking encouragingly between me and teeth.

We stared at one another while he paused and then said, “um, is there another bar you can suggest?” he finally said and his friend looked down at the ground in disappointment. By the purses, Lucys face broke into a sweet smile.

“You will miss your flight if you go drink now,” Lucy told him, “Bora Bora boards in fifteen minutes,” she reminded him.

“Oh yeah,” he said and they left.

Forever.

“Jenn, you gotta help them out. That boy was about to urinate all over himself,” Lucy tells me.

But as someone with a long history of being the one who has always carried all the emotional labor in relationships, I am standing on ten toes with my new mantra. “No, Lucy. The one that will be able to stand next to me wont have a fragile ego, they wont be scared of me. They will be more scared of missing the opportunity,” I say prissily, adding, “THEY WONT WANT TO LOSE ME” and pounding my fist on the counter.

“Jenn, evolved, strong, romantic men?” Lucy is shaking her head. “Men these days, they may as well be monkeys.”

“There has to be ONE,” I tell her, “that is NOT A MONKEY.”

I whisper to myself, “there has to be……”

Another time, I was alone in the store, cleaning the glass cases and waving a yellow rag in the air while singing along to Tame Impala, which I was playing on the stores speakers. When I am alone in the store I forget that technically people can still see me.

“I saw you talking to yourself,” Alan, who works in sunglasses told me one day. “You had wrapped one of the scarves around your head like how actresses in old movies wear them, and you were walking around talking but no one else was there,” he continued. He was staring at me, waiting for me to explain.

“Do you ever go into a dark place if left alone for too long?” I ask him. “No,” he says looking at me concerned. “Oh me neither,” I reassure him. “If you wear a mask, you could talk to yourself and no one would know,” Alan suggests. “Thank you Alan, that is helpful,” I tell him genuinely, I can tell he is trying to prevent a grisly scene where alone, I have fashioned all the summer scarves into a noose, about to do something dire, no one around to talk me out of it.

I take my rag and glass cleaner and walk across the store to the mens section when suddenly I notice someone, a man, looking at the jackets, one particular jacket that is my favorite and one of the only things I really like in the store. I didnt see him come in. He turns and I realize he is strikingly handsome. Leading man handsome. Tall, golden hair, with a strong jawline, and bright hazel eyes.

Oh God.

I turn to leave, but I am at work I need to talk to him. I need to convince him to buy that jacket like I would if he was a small Chinese man with horrid breathe and no understanding of the English language. It is my duty.

“Hi,” I say shyly and he turns to face me like he had been waiting for me. “Hi,” he says back. We dont really smile and I realize we both are nervous.

Me especially. I dont know why. I encounter attractive people all day long and I could care less about their sculpted biceps, but he was making me feel wobbly for some reason. And he most likely saw me singing and dancing alone while cleaning. I need to wear a mask like Alan told me to.

“This is really nice,” he says pulling the jacket and I approach him. “That is my favorite jacket actually,” I tell him.

“How much is it?” he asks. He is wearing weird prayer beads on his tanned wrist, sending my fanny into a crazy crescendo of flutters.

I fumble around looking for the tag, my cheeks turning red because I can feel his eyes watching me and we are close. He feels natural to stand next to if that makes any sense.

“$1800,” I tell him looking up and into his eyes.

“Theres no sales tax,” I continue, then, “wait are you traveling internationally?” I ask.

“No, to Arizona,” he tells me.

“Oh, I cant even sell you this, um, you have to be traveling internationally,” I explain.

“Why is that?” he asks, his eyes catching the light in store. They were very hazel, a swirl of green and brown.

Now, I know why. I tell people this a thousand times a day. But his hazel eyes made me stupid so I say,

“I dont know.”

Like some sort of idiot. Jenn, you do know this. Why are you acting dumb? This is not high school math class where you are trying to get the cute guy to tutor you, this is 2026!

“I’ll have to look that up, I like researching things,” he tells me and I almost pass out. He likes to RESEARCH things? Jenn, this pretty boy said the word research! And he is wearing crazy prayer beads. DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!

“Do you live in Arizona?” I ask.

“I do, but I am always in Los Angeles,” he says. Already this is bad. He doesnt even live here. I am tempted to throw in the towel.

“Do you like it?” I say. Ive lost all of my wit or charm or brain cells.

“It’s turning into a large shopping mall, actually its becoming a lot like California which is good,” he tells me and then says something about infrastructure and political ideology but Ive gone brain dead.

“The shopping mall part sounds like a nightmare,” I tell him.

“Well, not if you like shopping I guess,” he says kind of sweetly, like he is talking to a girl who works in a luxury retail store and probably enjoys shopping.

“I hate shopping, truly,” I admit to him and he smiles, his eyes showing he is intrigued.

We linger around one another a little longer, me apologizing about the jacket and LAWAS restrictions on tax free luxury goods.

As he is leaving, he turns to me and says, “you are incredibly gorgeous.”

I am stunned into silence because no one ever says that to me, they dance around it, but they never just tell me so obviously. It’s like everyone thinks everyone else is always telling me so if they were to tell me they would be admitting to some sort of personal defeat or giving away something I dont deserve.

“You are very pretty too,” I say. And then die. I just drop dead in embarrassment. I called him pretty.

He smiles, like I have taken the courage of his compliment and rewarded him somehow.

When he leaves. My fanny flutters wiggle all throughout my body and I realize I have not felt that way around someone in so long that at this point I am not sure if anything about it is significant, or if I just havent been around someone I am actually attracted to in so long that the feeling has become foreign.

I notice that he is still lingering outside the store, he is sitting down on one of the couches just- sitting. His arms resting on his thighs, his hands in between his legs and his head bent down, like he is on a baseball team, sitting on the bench, about to step up to bat and he is focusing. Home run.

I wonder…..I think, moving away from the entrance so he cant see me.

I watch from afar as he walks into Moncler and starts talking to my coworker Emily.

Oh, I think. Jenn, you dummy, hes probably telling Emily shes gorgeous too. Just get a mask and go back to talking to yourself.

Then he appears again.

“I found something out, I thought I uh, I should share with you or I dont know,” he says unsurely.

I smile, now I am intrigued.

“You dont sell to domestic because you are Duty Free, so you would have to charge me tax,” he explains and I nod because yes, he is right.

I smile, “ohhh,” I say stupidly.

“Im Chris,” he says putting his hand out. It is a very big, very pretty hand and as he holds mine in his I feel crazy.

“Im Jennifer,” I say and then literally say nothing else. Just my big buggy brown eyes like wild saucers staring into his soul as he holds my hand over a display of leather checkered wallets made in Scotland.

“I am always in Los Angeles,” he says again.

Ask why, Jenn, ask why!

I stare at him nodding.

“Always in this terminal too,” he continues.

My saucer eyes are spinning around and around like a possessed childs toy.

“Well then, I hope I see you again,” I say and then melt into a sludgy puddle of mush waiting for Martha to come mop up.

“Me too,” he says and he pauses and we linger and then he unsurly walks away.

After ten minutes of replaying everything that just happened, alone and in silence, I run into Moncler.

“Emily, that boy that came in, the one in the orange shirt?”

“He was so weird, he was just asking about why we cant charge tax to domestic travelers, he didnt even look at anything,” she replies.

“Did you see his prayer beads?” I ask feverishly.

“Ew, his what?” she responds.

The next day, I tell Lucy about all this.

“You FREAKING idiot! WHY did you not ask for his number?” she scolds me.

“Why didnt he ask?” I yell back.

“Because you are too tall!” she says exasperated, like I just was not understanding one plus one equals two every single time.

“He was tall too,” I say sadly. Imagining him holding the jacket. “He defiantly was a size large in that jacket,” I tell her.

“Oh God. Jenn, if I had been here. I wish I had been here. This is why you cant work alone,” shes shaking her head.

“What if he comes back though?” I say eagerly. “How ROMANTIC would that be?”

“If he comes back, then thats fate,” Lucy says smiling. She is looking at me and her eyes turn soft. “Thats what you want isnt it? A fated connection? Listen, if he is the one God made for you, he will come back. And if he doesnt it just means there is someone else God made for you. What is yours never passes you by” she says. “You should have given him your number,” she tells me again.

“I am not chasing!” I yell.

“You are six feet tall!” Lucy yells back.

“I am five foot ten!!!!” I correct her.

“Oh shit, Jenn, I forgot to tell you. Remember that guy who asked how much you were? When you were in the window?” she looks at me urgently.

“Yeah, the one you chained to a waterpipe and tied up,” I say.

“You are going to feel so bad. My heart broke when I heard this,” she says.

“He passed by again, like he always does, but he came in the store this time, it was when you were at a meeting and weren’t here. He said he feels really bad he made you feel uncomfortable and that he’s Egyptian and they are a good people and he is a nice guy and he doesnt want you to feel like hes a creep,” she says.

“Also, he said he has cancer Jenn,” she tells me this with heavy eyes.

“He is going to die,” she emphasizes.

“Lucy, whatttttttttt?” I am looking at her just shocked.

“Yeah I know! You really need to say hi to him. He is going to die Jenn. My heart just broke.”

“Lucy, I cant date him because he is going to die,” I tell her.

“No I know Jenn but he is Egyptian, they are so nice. I just feel really bad. He said he cant find a girlfriend.”

“Because he is dying?” I ask.

“Well yeah,” she says. “Doesnt it just break your heart?”

“Ugh, Lucy yeah! It does!”

“Im just saying, if your Arizona man never comes back, maybe the dying Egyptian security guard is the one God made for you. It would be like A Walk to Remember only he would be Mandy Moore and you would be the guy. And you would be airport employees instead of teenagers.”

I stare at Lucy.

She is trying to hide her smile.

“Hes tall Jenn,” she reminds me.

I sigh, running my hand over all the summer scarves, picking one up, imagining it as a noose…..