Lock and Key(68)

“I don’t know,” he said. “Comfort, maybe? History? The beginning of life?”

“Well, that’s you,” she told him. “For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.”

“Really,” I said.

“We’re passive-aggressive people,” she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. “Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I’m not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother.”

“How many kids are in your family?” I asked.

“Seven total.”

“That,” Reggie said, “is just plain sad.”

“Tell me about it,” Harriet said. “I never got enough time in the bathroom.”

“I meant the silence thing,” Reggie told her.

“Oh.” Harriet hopped up on the stool by the register, crossing her legs. “Well, maybe so. But it certainly cuts down the phone bill.”

He shot her a disapproving look. “That is not funny. Communication is crucial.”

“Maybe at your house,” she replied. “At mine, silence is golden. And common.”

“To me,” Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, “family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.”

Harriet studied him over her coffee cup. “What do your parents do, again?”

“My father sells insurance. Mom teaches first grade.”

“So suburban!”

“Isn’t it, though?” He smiled. “I’m the black sheep, believe it or not.”

“Me, too!” Harriet said. “I was supposed to go to med school. My dad’s a surgeon. When I dropped out to do the jewelry-design thing, they freaked. Didn’t speak to me for months.”

“That must have been awful,” he said.

She considered this. “Not really. I think it was kind of good for me, actually. My family is so big, and everyone always has an opinion, whether you want to hear it or not. I’d never done anything all on my own before, without their help or input. It was liberating.”

Liberating, I wrote down. Reggie said, “You know, this explains a lot.”

No kidding, I thought.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harriet asked.

“Nothing,” he told her. “So what makes you give up the silent treatment? When do you decide to talk again?”

Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. “Huh,” she said. “I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, just as you’re getting pissed off at another.”

“So it’s an endless cycle,” I said.

“I guess.” She took another sip. “Coming together, falling apart. Isn’t that what families are all about?”

“No,” Reggie says. “Only yours.”

They both burst out laughing, as if this was the funniest thing ever. I looked down at my notebook, where all I had written was not speaking, comfort, wellspring, and liberating. This project was going to take a while.

“Incoming,” Harriet said suddenly, nodding toward a guy and girl my age who were approaching, deep in conversation.

“. . . wrong with a Persian cat sweatshirt?” said the guy, who was sort of chubby, with what looked like a home-done haircut.

“Nothing, if she’s eighty-seven and her name is Nana,” the girl replied. She had long curly hair, held back at the nape of her neck, and was wearing cowboy boots, a bright red dress, and a cropped puffy parka with mittens hanging from the cuffs. “I mean, think about it. What kind of message are you trying to send here?”

“I don’t know,” the guy said as they got closer. “I mean, I like her, so . . .”

“Then you don’t buy her a sweatshirt,” the girl said flatly. “You buy her jewelry. Come on.”

I put down the feather duster I was holding, standing up straighter as they came up to the cart, the girl already eyeing the rows of thin silver hoops on display. “Hi,” I said to the guy, who, up close, looked even younger and dorkier. His T-shirt—which said ARMAGEDDON EXPO ’06: ARE YOU READY FOR THE END?—didn’t help matters. “Can I help you? ”

“We need something that screams romance,” the girl said, plucking a ring out and quickly examining it before putting it back. As she leaned into the row of lights overhead, I noticed that her face was dotted with faint scars. “A ring is too serious, I think. But earrings don’t say enough.”

“Earrings don’t say anything,” the guy mumbled, sniffing the incense. He sneezed, then added, “They’re inanimate objects.”

“And you are hopeless,” she told him, moving down to the necklaces. “What about yours?”

Startled, I glanced back at the girl, who was looking right at me. “What?”

She nodded at my neck. “Your necklace. Do you sell those here?”

“Um,” I said, my hand reaching up to it, “not really. But we do have some similar chains, and charms that you can—”

“I like the idea of the key, though,” the girl said, coming around the cart. “It’s different. And you can read it so many ways.”