Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk(65)

“You looking for anything in particular?” asks the clerk, a young man—in his late teens or early twenties, probably—with jet-black hair and tired eyes.

“Yes,” I say. “Party foods. But I do believe that I have found them.”

I pick up a bag of kettle-cooked potato chips—a brand Gian and the kids brought back from Cape Cod that I’ve never before seen in the city—and a packet of Mexican mazapan with red roses on the wrappers, which I know will charm Wendy. I bring them to the counter.

“You know these aren’t marzipan, right?” says the clerk as he gets ready to ring me up.

“Yes, I do,” I say. “Thank you.”

“I ask because the other day some guy bought them and came back in here mad, wanting a refund because they’re made from peanuts, not almonds.”

“How unfortunate,” I say. “I love marzipan, but I’ve had these before and they’re delightful. I read that they make them this way because peanuts are easier to grow in Mexico.”

“I don’t know about that,” he says. “I just don’t want to get blamed for anybody else’s bad choices.”

“Rest assured, I take full credit and blame for all my choices, good and bad,” I say. “What’s your name?”

“Cesar Julius,” he says. “I go by C. J.”

“I’m Lillian,” I say, and point to the flowers in the window. “If you were having a New Year’s Eve party and I were coming over, which of these flowers would you most want to see me carrying?”

C. J.’s eyes meet mine for the first time since I walked in. “Is that a serious question?” he says. “Like, do you want me to tell you what’s popular, or are you seriously asking me what I would want you to bring?”

“I’m generally very precise,” I say. “This is not an exception.”

C. J. squints, then smirks. “Okay,” he says. “Be right back.”

He glides past me from behind the counter, disappearing into the aisles, and I hear a storeroom door open with a jingle of keys. For a moment I’m alone on the sales floor, peering between the rosaries at the massive art deco fa?ade of the Greenwich electric substation and the red brick ziggurat of the Port Authority building farther on. They’re both somewhat obscured by my reflection, which—thanks to backlighting and my broad-brimmed hat—appears faceless, headless, like an apparition out of M. R. James. This pleases me.

I scarcely have time to take in this view before C. J. returns, takes his spot at the register, and ceremoniously sets before me a glazed terra-cotta pot full of dirt.

He slouches against the countertop to gauge my reaction.

“That,” I say, “seems to be a pot full of dirt.”

“Yep,” he says. “There’s a bulb in it.”

“Amaryllis?”

He grins. “You’re good,” he says. “It’s a hippeastrum, really. Winter-blooming. But if you call it that nobody’ll know what you’re talking about, so it’s an amaryllis. A Dutch amaryllis.”

I slide off a glove to brush the top of the soil, and sure enough, my finger finds the pale green ridge of a shoot just breaking the surface.

“Don’t get me wrong,” C. J. says, “I like cut flowers and all. But it’s New Year’s Eve. Do you want to give a present that’ll start wilting by tomorrow, that’ll be dead in a week? Does that make you feel good about the future?”

He taps the terra-cotta rim. “Right now,” he says, “this is a pot of dirt. But by the first week of February your friend will have a big bunch of flowers better looking than anything you see in that window. I’ll throw in a little card that tells how to keep it alive, make it bloom every year. It’s pretty easy. Now, if you and your friend don’t want to wait a month to see some flowers, I don’t blame you. There’s lots of great stuff in the window, and you can take your pick. But—to answer your question—this is what I’d want you to bring to my party.”

“Sold,” I say.

He wraps the pot in a cellophane cone with two loops of twine supporting the bottom, then finds a bag for my chips and my candy. “Speaking of your party,” I say, wriggling back into my glove, “do you have one to go to tonight? Or is New Year’s Eve’s not your thing?”

“I should be going to a party,” he says. “But I have to be here all night. It’s my parents’ store. I’m giving them the night off. But they don’t really even want me here. They didn’t work their whole lives just so I can do the same thing they’re doing. I have a high school diploma, plus almost thirty hours at QCC, studying to be a lab tech. I speak three languages. English, Tagalog, and Spanish. I should be doing something else.”

I’m at a loss for a response that’s not false or patronizing. “It’s a very nice shop,” I say.

“It’s not a nice neighborhood, though,” he says. “My dad’s been held up twice in the last year. I want him to sell the place, but they need the income.”

“How long have they had it?” I ask.

“Since 1970,” says C. J. “Not all at this location. They were in Queens for twelve years before they moved here. Lots of immigrant people work in Manhattan hospitals now, and they need a place to buy their stuff.”