Alice had not wanted help, but at this point she needed to talk to someone. Using her old purse, Alice demonstrated how the new bag she’d seen in the store just this morning had rested perfectly midway between her armpit and hip, as if it were made to fit her body. The T.J.Maxx store associate shrugged and glanced toward the section of bags, purses, backpacks, and evening clutches behind him. To him it must have been like any other bag, but he was at least trying to be helpful. Alice reminded herself of this so she would swallow any temptation to sigh.
Of course, her parents had slapped the tendency out of her when she was a girl decades ago. The full appreciation for why didn’t come until later, when her own daughter Vicky had become a teenager. When she was denied something, Vicky would argue, something she shared with Alice, but more rankling was her little choreography of sighing and sagging her shoulders. By the time she got to that, it was her way of letting you know that while you may have gotten your way, she didn’t care. So, was it worth it? But now, whenever they spoke on the phone, Alice heard a real weariness in Vicky’s voice and wondered if Vicky ever asked herself the same thing. Vicky had become a mother by surprise and later than Alice did. Asking to go help was Alice’s natural instinct toward her only child, but Alice also promised Vicky she would let her decide when Alice could visit and be useful. For now, retired from running a Chinese restaurant with nothing she really needed to take care of but herself, she did her best to be by herself.
The associate could have ignored Alice and left her to browse through the small forest of metal racks bearing colored pleather, nylon, and canvas—all of which she’d re-combed through. He said something else to her but so quickly that Alice couldn’t understand much less respond. The bag that had spoken to her was gone. She would’ve heard it had she gotten close to it again. It had a voice like Vicky’s, audible but only when it wanted to be heard. Alice re-found hers when the associate was about to walk away.
“Do you have more in the back?” she asked. The question came out slowly but smoothly enough, almost as if she were speaking in her native Shanghai wu. She was unafraid to make the request itself though, thanks to practice over the years to get inventory that hadn’t been touched yet by an undetermined number of hands. Always looking for the best for Vicky.
“We just restocked everything you see here, ma’am.” The associate then tried to be patient again. “You showed me a, like, medium size? That’s most of the bags we have out here. What color? What was the brand?”
Alice blanched, trying to understand all his words and then trying to make her own come out. The bag hadn’t shown off its brand name to her, and it honestly hadn’t mattered. There had only been a paper tag on its outside with the price, which she could’ve afforded. Why didn’t she just buy it and take it home with her like it’d asked?
“Black? White?” Again, the associate pointed at the corresponding sections.
“No, no. Special color.” If Vicky were here, she would know the exact word. “Like two colors mix. Green and gray. Like this maybe.” Alice stuck out her hand and rubbed at a visible vein on the topside to give an example.
“There’s a green section, even though it’s small. We get much less of those.”
“I looked. Maybe someone else bought the bag?” The thought slipped out at last, unwillingly.
“If it’s as special as you’re making it out to be, yeah. That’s very possible.” He was at least generous enough to look surprised. His patience was losing out. He’d really indulged her.
Alice had always taught Vicky to ask. Yes, people could say no, or they might give you what you want. Vicky had had no problem asking her parents for new clothes or new CDs. What they really wanted was for her to internalize the confidence to ask her teachers to round an eighty-nine average up to a ninety, and therefore an A, or ask to be invited to a party that she heard everybody else on her tennis team had been invited to. But somehow, facing anyone else outside her family, her voice and figure shrank in deference, like the servant girls in the Chinese period dramas her dad would put on more for background noise than for their plots. Alice could never comprehend why Vicky, an American child in so many other ways, behaved like that. Once, when the two of them had been looking for Vicky’s homecoming dress in this same T.J.Maxx, Alice almost slapped the grimace off Vicky’s face. What was there to be embarrassed for by asking an employee for help with something that was part of their job, especially when they’d likely never see them again? The designer style Vicky had seen in a magazine on a teen celebrity was out of their reach, but that was why Alice had driven them to three T.J.Maxx stores that day. She’d been committed to finding a convincing copy that would satisfy Vicky and whatever image of herself she had built up in her head. Alice did not know how else to mother.
But Alice had never come close to what she was about to ask the associate now. It would be a dare, even for her. Wanting something this much just for herself was still new. It messed with her head.
“Can I see the security camera? If someone bought it, it was not a long time. I tried on the bag when I was here this morning.” She unloaded the words carefully and tried to keep her voice even through the long sentences. Vicky would always start to hide herself or feign not being related to her at points like this. It wasn’t cool to sound desperate, even if you were.
The associate stood there, baffled. A man who was hovering nearby saw he now had an opening and got the associate’s attention. Together they escaped from Alice’s orbit, in search of the sporting goods section.
So dumb of the man, Alice thought. The shelves of yoga mats, water bottles, weights, and whatnot were right there along the opposite wall of the store from where they stood. A grown man of his height should be able to see where everything was, even if he didn’t have the store layout memorized like she did.
Abandoned, she drifted again towards a slim mirror that was hidden away in the bag section, willing herself to ignore the feeling of other shoppers’ eyes on her. Even though they looked away just as quickly, more interested in finding their own deals than in someone missing out on theirs, she decided to harness the energy of their attention and planted herself in place. She remained unabashed by the request she’d made. Thrill pricked along her spine, a rarity these days. A wave of intense wanting squeezed her heart as she examined herself and her old blue pleather bag. Its shape was warped, only straightened up because it was hanging off her wrist now. The corners on the bottom had softened and shrank back into puckered recesses, as if they’d seen enough and decided they’d served their purpose plenty, retiring much like she had. On the outward facing side that Alice’s arm rested against now, a patch of pale scuffing marred the smooth blue material. The other side looked similar. There was no hiding the bag’s wear and years. It looked cheap and it was cheap, but she could survive using it for another few years, she told herself.
“Unique, gray-green shoulder bag.” She said it like an incantation, giving each word equal weight, because she wanted it to be one. Why could she not say this earlier? This is what her English night classes were for. She’d resisted and procrastinated enrolling for years for time or money or both reasons, but now that she was retired, Vicky had insisted there was no excuse. It turned out the church they always drove past to and from the expensive private high school they’d sent Vicky to hosted classes every Tuesday and Thursday night, free of charge, down to the simple book and workbook they provided. Alice had still hesitated. She was not a church person and didn’t intend on becoming one. For free classes, they might ask her to go to services in return. It was the least she could do for Jesus’s generosity, right?
But Vicky pressed and said she’d enroll Alice herself. After years of signing Vicky up for all sorts of classes, lessons, and camps, Alice gave in and allowed herself to enjoy being fussed over. Later, narrowing down English name choices and deciding on Alice together made for one of the happiest nights Alice had had in recent years. Vicky had stayed on the phone with her for over an hour. On a weekday!
Oh, how Vicky would scold her for her insistence just now. It had puzzled Alice to hear Vicky tell her to stop, mom all those years ago when she’d pressed a store associate to look in the stockroom for a pristine version of her homecoming dress. The one they’d found hanging in the store and that slightly resembled what Vicky had cut out of an issue of Teen Vogue had a noticeable snag in the satin and loose embroidery. When it turned out there weren’t any other copies available in the store, Alice thought it was reasonable to try asking for a discount on the damaged one. The store slapped red markdown stickers on clearance items all the time. Why would this be any different? Sure, she had never seen anyone ask an associate for a price adjustment on the spot, but maybe it was just that. Never seen, but possible. Before Alice could ask, out of the corner of her eyes she’d spotted Vicky’s stare piercing her through the black curtains of hair Vicky was always letting hang over her face. Vicky knew Alice hated horror movies or horror anything, and so naturally she turned to their tactics. They didn’t work well, not under fluorescent store lights, but Alice felt fear all the same. Because maybe she didn’t know how to love her teenage daughter, if Alice doing whatever she could to get Vicky what she wanted wasn’t even what Vicky wanted.
In the end, the store associate brought the dress to a manager, who agreed that they could get it for a lower price. He rang them up himself and asked Alice if she was buying it for herself—she was in such good shape, much better than him! Alice remembered his flattery well. The patterns of her little family’s life had become so set revolving around Vicky that she forgot people might pay attention to herself too. How funny, but no, for her daughter. Alice pointed to Vicky, who’d chosen to stand near the store’s doors, ready to escape. It would’ve been funny in a different moment, when they weren’t at odds with each other.
Alice walked out the same doors now and stepped towards her car. Her keys were not where she expected them to be, and her hand kept bumping into impostors inside her bag.
“What the hell? What the hell!” She huffed and wedged it between her hip and her car door. The unique bag had an inside pocket that would’ve stored her keys perfectly.
A woman older than her walking toward the store stopped her small steps, her concerned gaze locking onto Alice.
“Sorry,” Alice smiled tightly. Her face felt heavy and like it didn’t belong to her.
She finally grabbed onto her key for sure and pushed herself into her car. Her hands gripped the steering wheel out of habit, but she couldn’t think of where she wanted to go. Only wild want swirled. “I want that bag. I want it. I want it!”
She surprised herself with the strength of her voice. In the English classes, her contributions to class discussions were few albeit precise, so she often got feedback to speak up more. Usually, she just sat up straighter. It wasn’t like she was being graded, so they could go ahead and keep telling her that if they had nothing else of hers to correct. For a few years now, she had had no reason to be loud. With the house empty, her husband long gone, and Vicky married and a mother herself with her own life states away, no one was usually around to spar with Alice. Not that she looked for fights, but she wouldn’t turn away an opportunity to hear a voice different from hers. At first, it was keeping the TV on at nearly all hours. Vicky had calmed her fears about how it would skyrocket the electricity bill, and she’d even admitted there was some logic in Alice’s thinking that more exposure to “English TV” would help with her listening comprehension. Alice did withhold mentioning that if her English hadn’t become fluent by now, it likely never would. She’d liked that her daughter still seemed to believe that her mother had promise, and wasn’t just old and spent.
That was also how the bag had made her feel. Like a million bucks. She’d learned that in last week’s English class on idioms.
Maybe there was a copy of the same bag in another store location. Alice knew of one across town and two more in the city, a trek but doable especially if she made sure to head home before rush hour. Plus, she had a few hours to wait until her phone call with Vicky, who had a pocket of time after dropping off her son at gymnastics. With the two-hour time difference, Alice would be finishing up her dinner as her grandson started his class and Vicky took a seat in the gym lobby. Or maybe Alice’s grandson had gymnastics on Thursdays, not Tuesdays. The boy had so many lessons to get to in a week, but Alice had stopped mentioning that she could help out if they lived closer or, hey, what if she visited? In any case, sometimes Vicky forgot to call, so Alice needed to keep herself occupied. It wouldn’t hurt much to be overlooked for a day. Vicky was focused on being a good mother. Alice liked to believe that Vicky learned this from her.
Jennifer Wang is a writer of fiction and internal company communications— which are not always dissimilar, she’s learned. While she majored in economics at Harvard, she was drawn to numerous electives in literature and languages. Today, she writes to make meaning out of what she has lived or felt, recasting or resurrecting as necessary. Her fiction has also appeared in the Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop). She has performed on stage with Silicon Valley Shakespeare and Main Street Theater. She shares her thoughts at iamjwang.com.