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“It’s nothing, Melissa,” I whisper. “It’s nothing. Nothing I want to discuss right now,” I add, giving her my most pleading look. “Maybe later, okay?”
Melissa crosses her arms, frowns at me a bit. “Tommy…”
“I’m sorry, okay?” I know I look even more helpless than before and probably more pathetic, too, but I don’t care. “It has to do with my dad, with stuff she did to what I had planned for today, but…” I sigh in frustration and anger. I really, really don’t want to do this right now. I really wish I would’ve kept my mouth shut. I just want to try to go on with the date, as less-than-perfect as it is now before I regret calling it off.
Melissa seems to get the hint and says, “Okay. It’s all right, honey. Let’s just go have some fun. Let’s just go get this date of ours started, huh?” She brightens all of her features just for me. Smiling, she picks my hand up to kiss it.
“Let’s,” I say and kiss her hand too. “I’ve been waiting all week for this. For you. Everything else can disappear for a little while.”
Our shopping extravaganza begins the moment we make it across the parking lot — a wide and expansive sea of black asphalt glittering in the early morning sun — and to the “oasis” of fashionable stores, immaculately-laid cobblestone, all surrounded by the intermittent statue or water feature. Stepping onto the sidewalks here is like stepping into the halls of an outdoor palace, an open-air bazaar almost. Doors to shops are open freely to the people streaming by.
For the first half-hour, Melissa and I do nothing more than scope out what shops are here and what kinds of clothes they have to offer. There are a few fancy formalwear shops. Alongside these, there are name brand clothing stores, each with shirts, jeans, socks, and underwear worth more than my entire wardrobe.
Mixed in with these types of clothing stores, there is also a trendy, teenage-geared store; one with a lot of black leather, Japanese comic book icons on T-shirts and other gift items, as well as the obscure reference to 80s and 90s cartoons. Part of me is definitely interested in visiting that shop — mostly for the nostalgia and maybe for a few pieces of clothing to balance out my for-work wear.
Just as I start to get excited about walking in there and using this store to break the ice of spending my money, I remember I don’t have as much money as I wanted to spend. It’s even more painful and humiliating when I take out the envelope, look into it, and see how empty the envelope looks, now that it’s not stuffed to the brim with bills.
“Should not have gotten out of the car,” I mumble, stuffing the envelope back in its place of shame on my person. “Had I just driven away the moment I saw Dad at home, I’d have my full five thousand dollars with me still.”
Melissa perks up at these words. “Interested in any of these shops, Tommy? Or not?” she asks, seeing my dark glower. Something that doesn’t match the sparkle of the early-morning sun.
I shake my head. “I don’t know my way around places like this,” I say. It’s a dodge to the way I’m really feeling — that I really shouldn’t be on this date being as poor and pathetic as I am at the moment — but it’s also a little true. While I’ve gone shopping before, I’ve never gone to someplace this nice, ritzy, and high-class.
Out of the corner of my eye, I check out Melissa’s outfit. Even while being casual in a t-shirt and a thin pair of slacks, she looks pristine and flawless, like she had someone else dress her for a photoshoot today.
“I don’t really go to places like these for my clothes,” I admit, feeling even more miserable about myself and my complete lack of class.
But Melissa only draws me closer to her. She laces her fingers in mine, and to all of my self-hating energy replies, “Don’t worry about anything, honey. That’s why I’m here. To help you get used to shopping at places like this.” She smiles, almost clicking her heels as she does. “Just let me take care of everything. I know you’re going to love what I pick out for you.”
As grumpy and worthless as I’m feeling at the moment, the way Melissa’s loving on me — the way she’s not letting me get my spirits down — it’s infectious to me, even in my moodiness. I can’t help but smile and blush a little.
“If I look even half as good as you do even when you’re trying to be casual,” I say, “I have no doubt I’ll love the clothes you pick out for me. I probably won’t even recognize myself.”
