Chopping Spree

commitment to her.” The phone rang and he answered it. “They are?” he said, with a glance at the clock. “OK. Just a coupla minutes more, I swear.” He grinned. “Yeah, thanks. I took ’em.” Clearly, the omniscient and nosy Rhonda was trying to throw her weight around.

As he hung up the phone, I stood. “Victor, I appreciate your seeing me. Did you tell the police the details of this ditch incident?”

He shook his head. “No. They asked me if Dean had any enemies, and I said I didn’t know of any. He had a coupla people he didn’t get along with, I told ‘em, like his two girlfriends and No-toe. But I didn’t want to get one girlfriend over another in trouble. Anyway, Rhonda just called to say the cops are on their way over. They’ve got a coupla more questions, apparently. Do you think I should tell them this McNeely lady pushed Barry?”

“That’s up to you.” I thanked him again, picked up the foam cup, and backed out of the tiny, icy office.

“Real sorry about your friend in jail,” Victor called after me.

I ignored Rhonda’s vicious glare, clomped out of the trailer, and poured the dark liquid into the ditch. Could Ellie really have pushed Barry in there, when it was seven feet deep? Was it possible she could have set up the whole portable toilet incident, just to look innocent in my eyes? I simply could not fathom it.

A sudden icy wind blasted my nostrils with a horrid stench. I gagged and stared at the stinking turquoise portable toilets. They were scribbled with racist graffiti. Wetbacks Go Home!! was scrawled beneath a Spanish retort that I translated, more politely than it was written, as We can’t wait to go back to Mexico, and good luck having an incestuous relationship with your mother. So much for racial harmony on the job site.

Near the plastic fence, a Hispanic man was hovering between my car and the Porsche. He was dressed in the garb of a construction worker, and was putting one of those bright orange ads under my windshield. Just what I needed, an encouragement to do yet more shopping. Before he could put an ad under the Porsche’s windshield, a Furman County prowler pulled up. The ad-placer vanished as the prowler disgorged two men. They were detectives, no doubt… and maybe they would give a ticket to someone illegally distributing ads to parked cars.

The workmen hacking at the ice stopped to stare at the cop car. Bucking the wind, I ignored the detectives, and made my way toward the mall. On the way, I tossed my cup into the overflowing Dumpster with such fury that it bounced up, was caught by the wind, and sailed away.

Tampering with evidence, disobeying my lawyer, and now littering. Pretty soon my charge sheet was going to have more scribbling on it than those toilets.

Inside the mall, I ducked into a women’s room and examined myself. My lips, nose, and cheeks were crimson from the cold. I reached into my bag and pulled out the crocheted cap, a small compact, and a pair of sunglasses. After doing a bit of damage control on my face, I put on the hat and glasses and emerged into the mall. I didn’t know if I was incognito or not, but the sunglasses made everything awfully dark. I headed toward the Shopaholics Anonymous meeting, where I sincerely hoped I’d hear something useful, especially from Page Stockham, such as I’d kill to be able to keep shopping. In fact, that’s exactly what I’ve done!

A handwritten sign was taped beside the entrance to the shoppers’ lounge: Private Meeting in Session. By the time I pushed through the lounge’s massive doors, the group was reciting a posted list of the Twelve Steps. As I skirted the furniture—all put back in place since the jewelry-leasing party—I focused hard through my sunglasses on the attendees, who were clustered on three long couches around a pastry-laden coffee table. No Page. At least, not that I could tell.

One member started reading aloud what sounded like a preamble. We are not so much concerned with debt, as are our colleagues in Debtors Anonymous, as we are with shopping itself, which we use as a drug to avoid dealing with our feelings of inadequacy….

The reader droned on as I looked around the room, where the atmosphere was palpably tense. To my surprise, the nine attendees were comprised of five men and four women. Five men! And here we women were always wondering what men were up to in those long trips to the hardware store. By inserting myself into the group, I created an even division between the sexes. I sat down as unobtrusively as possible and nodded at two welcoming smiles.

“I’m George, and I’m a compulsive spender,” one balding man began, as he lofted an eclair. Before the woman seated beside George could introduce herself, he added, mouth full, “I got a eating problem, too.”

Everyone laughed, and the edgy atmosphere vanished. At my turn, I said I was Gertrude—no lie, as this is my real name—and that I was visiting. A packet of pamphlets was pressed into my hands by George, who left chocolate smears on the top sheet. It began: If you do nothing but shop, you WILL drop. DEAD! Now there was a cheery thought.

“My name is Page, and I’m a compulsive shopper,” someone said.

I sat up so quickly my crocheted hat wobbled and threatened to topple. Through the sunglasses, I hadn’t spotted her. I slid off the sunglasses, put on my patented blank expression, then looked around. Page, who looked as if she, too, had come in disguise, was seated almost out of my range of view, at the far end of the couch. Her long blond hair was tied back in a bun that was concealed by an elaborately tied scarf. She, too, wore sunglasses —hers were of the aviator variety, and boasted pink lenses. Most atypically, she was clad in black tights and a black T-shirt, as if she’d just dropped in after ballet class. I did notice that despite the outfit, she wore a strand of large pearls—diamond clasp in front, so we’d know they were real—and a sparkly bracelet that (with my glasses off) looked like half a dozen strands of pink, yellow, and white diamonds. Why did wealthy women go out looking as if they’d just been to exercise class for hookers? Another unanswered question of the universe.

Clearly, I was losing my perspective. I reminded myself to focus, then glanced at the tray of pastries. One of the women who’d smiled at me offered me a paper plate and plastic fork.

“They’re for everybody,” she urged. “Food eases the pain.”

Well, I couldn’t disagree with that. And I do love Linzer torte, I thought as I chewed into a big bite laden with spice, ground nuts, and raspberry preserves.

A tiny woman with bobbed brown hair announced in a high voice, “My name is Carole and I’m a compulsive shopper.”

Everyone murmured a greeting to Carole. Her fingers nervously pleated her skirt. “My boyfriend left at Easter last year. For a while, I didn’t feel anything. I was just numb. Then a friend insisted on getting me out of the house. She took me shopping.”

There was a chorus of groans.

“It was weird,” Carole went on. “I felt better once I bought a new sweater. It was a cabled pink mohair, and buying it and wearing it made me feel loved again. So my friend insisted on taking me to the mall again the next weekend. With new gray slacks, plus a matching belt and purse, my feelings improved even more. I mean, I felt alive again! Problem was, I had to spend more money each time I went. One new sweater became two new sweaters. Then four new sweaters. Then ten—all on one trip!”

Carole began to sob. The group waited while one member handed her several tissues, and another put a plate with a cream puff in front of her.

“Now,” Carole continued between gulps, “I’m sixteen thousand dollars in debt on four credit cards. I have, uh… Last week, I finally did a count. Six hundred and thirty-two sweaters, most of them still with the price tags on them. The worst part is that on some trips, I must have had a memory loss or blackout. Almost a dozen times, I bought the same sweater twice.” She stopped to blow her nose. “OK, but I do have some good news. I didn’t buy a single sweater this week!” The group made supportive noises. Carole snuffled and managed a shy, red-nosed smile. “It was so hard! It’s cold outside! And… oh, God, Talbot’s just put their winter stuff on sale. I can barely walk by their window!”

The group burst out laughing. Carole, recognizing the laughter was affectionate, not mocking, dug into her cream puff. Murmurs of “Oh, Carole” and “You should see the stuff on sale at Saks” accompanied big grins and hands reaching for babas au rhum. I glanced around for some coffee or tea to go with the pastries, but saw only a table lined with bottles of water. Maybe caffeine stimulated shopping, blast it. When Page stood and strode over to snag a water, I quickly turned back to the group.

“So,” Carole was saying, as she delicately wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, “now, instead of shopping, I’m looking forward to seeing you all, because you make me feel better. Not quite the