Percival Chapter Two Part Four

The cab he got into smelled of vomit and he rolled the window down as far as it could go, which was only halfway. leaning his head toward the fresh breeze coming in, he studied the Cabbie from the driver’s side mirror. He was a Middle-Eastern man, and had on a large collared seventy’s shirt. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead and when Percival sat back in the seat, an aroma of Polo cologne mingled with the vomit smell.

“Where to, sir?” said the cabbie in a rough accent.

“To the mall,” he answered. He could almost taste the smell in his throat. The ride was excruciating and when the car stopped out front of the mall, he hurried out and paid trough the window.

He pulled his shirt to his nose and prayed that the smell didn’t stick to him. There wasn’t a trace. As he paraded around the mall window shopping, he eyed the mannequins in the windows, checking the clothing, and when he saw a long black lace dress, he knew that this was the store. Several tall, pretty women were trying to dress a mannequin. It lay naked on the floor as they took out a silk blue dress and slipped it over its head. They then propped it up and wiggled it onto the stand, a metal bar jammed into the rear of the model, they giggled while pushing its shoulders to secure it.

He looked at all the pictures scattered on the walls of happy women, dancing and jumping into leaves with a blonde and a buffed cowboy bending over to help a woman back to her feet. His eyes wandered over to the corner where a woman stood smoothing a dress. She eyed herself in a large mirror, her companions gushed her with compliments. She did look fantastic and he pictured Clarrisa in that dress. That was the dress. He hoped they stocked the same one if the lady bought it, which looked like she would. Her fingers slid over the price tag and her bright eyes lost its shine. Her face grew disappointed. She said it was too much and her friends egged her on, but when one of them looked at the price tag, she gave a whistle and rolled her eyes. The lady in red sulked back into the dressing room and came back out in jeans and a tee-shirt, placing the dress on a rack.

As soon as they left, he sprinted over and looked at the price. Four hundred dollars. His eyes almost popped out. He put the dress down, as if the red of the dress were hot coals. He couldn’t see himself buying that for her and he set out looking for a sensible dress. After an hour of searching through two floors of the mall, his mind kept going back to that dress and the way it looked on that woman. He found a few other dresses but they did not have the pizzaz of the red dress.

He went back to the dress and felt a surge as he approached the cashier. He carefully put it down and she picked it up. “Is this it, sir?”

“I can’t afford anything else,” he said and she looked at the price. She didn’t give a reaction and Percival thought she must be used to people spending thousands of dollars here. She placed it in a bag and handed it to him.

“Good day.”

He knew that Clarrisa would love it. He had felt for the first time in his life that he was in a relationship. He heart beat faster. Exiting the mall, he went over to a line of cabs waiting for customers and hoped that one didn’t smell. He found one with a fresh tree air freshener on the rearview mirror and hopped in.

“Where to?”

“Summerset Motel. And there’s an extra ten dollars if you make it there before two.” He was on top of the world.