Here So Far Away(10)

“Ten,” Lisa said.

“I don’t have ten.”

“Well, do you have lip balm? Because I can’t find mine.” She was elbow-deep in her gigantic purse, like she was trying to birth a farm animal.

“You aren’t going to leave without paying for that.”

A young clerk was standing at the end of the aisle. He pointed to the book that Lisa had tucked under her other arm as she rummaged around in her bag.

“No,” Lisa said. “I mean, yes. Yes, sir, I’m going to pay.”

She was now holding the book out as though it was radioactive. As bossy as Lisa could be with her friends, she was way too fragile outside of the bubble wrap of our group to take on an adult, even an adult wearing seven layers of Band-Aid-colored pimple cream over his forehead acne and a name tag that read “Brenda.”

I swiped the book from Lisa and speed-walked over to the clerk, giving his sleeve a conspiratorial tug. “Hey, buddy, she just found out she’s really sick,” I whispered. “Not the best time to accuse her of stealing.”

The clerk’s hand went to his forehead. “I didn’t mean to . . . My boss asked me to check because we’ve been losing a lot of stock to high school kids.”

“We go to Aurora,” I said. “The theater program?”

“Yes, of course—”

“Besides, if she wanted to steal something, would she take . . .” The book was called Observatory Direction. It looked impenetrable. “Do you think someone who would read a book like this would steal a book like this?”

“No, of course. Of course not. I’m so sorry.”

I took the five-dollar bill out of my back pocket and put it in his pink-smeared hand.

“It’s more than five, but . . .” He waved the bill in Lisa’s direction and said, with too much pep, “Sorry for the misunderstanding! Hope you’ll be alright!”

I hurried Lisa out before she could decide she felt bad for him. “If you said what I think you said, you’re going to hell,” she said. “And not regular hell, the hell below that.”

“The furnace room of hell?”

“The hidden bunker under the furnace room of hell.”

She was still a little nervous as we wandered the makeup and perfume aisles at Thompson’s, and being overly cautious about keeping her hands fully visible. None of the clerks bugged us, but none of them offered samples either, even though we were practically the only customers, and they were standing around with samples in their hands. A Clinique clerk, with bangs so teased and stiff they seemed varnished, tapped her red fingernails loudly on the cash register.

Lisa peered into the makeup case in front of her. “George? Uh, what time do we have to be at the hospital?”

“What time . . .”

“Chemo starts at six, which means what for prep?”

She was somehow managing to act like she was unsteady on her feet and trying to hide it. I covered my smile with a cough. “Five thirty,” I said. “But you know they’re always running late.”

“Let’s not hurry, okay? Let’s try to enjoy today.”

The clerk straightened up and tugged on the hem of her jacket. “Would you two girls like some lipsticks to take with you? What about nail polish? We’ve got very cheerful new colors.”

“Oo-de-lally!” Lisa said as we left the mall, a pound of samples clacking inside her bag. “Now we can go to the bunker below the furnace room of hell together.”

“Like we always dreamt!”

“Hey, listen.” She bumped me with her elbow. “Will you be my stage manager? If I get the play?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Lisa had earned it, taking any backstage job she could get in every single school production, including the lip-synch battles and that traveling hypnotist who turned twelve kids into a flock of chickens. And though only seniors were allowed to direct the play, she’d had the chance to direct a whole bunch of things at this fancy theater camp that she and Sid had gone to the previous summer.

“Someone else might submit a better proposal,” she said. “Anyway, will you?”

“Is that props and stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Are you asking me because you think I have a natural talent for stage managing?”

“Yes.”

“Are you really asking me so I’ll make sure everyone listens to you?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, cool. Sure.”

We wandered over to Pierre’s, a chain of secondhand clothing stores. You could practically see the stench of BO rising from the clothes piled up in the raised wooden bins, but there weren’t many other options around, unless you wanted to dress like a secretary or somebody’s mum.

It had taken me years to find a vintage-based uniform that I liked and Lisa approved of. Sneakers or boots, always. Jeans, almost exclusively, in various states of wear, with an inverse relationship to the frilliness of the top: new for a well-worn blazer; ripped for a dainty cap-sleeved blouse. I put my hand on a polyester cruise shirt with a palm-tree pattern. “You want Old Lady When She Was Young and Chic,” Lisa said.

“What’s this?”

“Old Lady.”

“Maybe that could be my thing. I don’t have a thing.”