The Tinted Sky

Thrift Shop On Thirty Fourth

I had always enjoyed car rides. The buzzing of the car and the fast paced scenery flying by us had always calmed me. My mother owned a little blue Honda. The car wasn't new but she always had it cleaned and it kept the new car smell and the crackle of leather.  I thought I was big enough to sit in the front seat but my mother never let me. She said when I was 13 I could sit in the front. All of my friends all ready sat in the front seats beside their mothers. 

As the car ran smoothly over the highway I watched as the scenery went from green trees and bushes, to large grey factories and the long stretches of asphalt that made up the runways where planes landed. 

"Are we almost there mom?" I asked, as I drew a smiley face on the window with my index finger. 

"Almost" she said with a huff. As we passed an Ikea to our right I knew we were close, that was always my marker, when we came to Manhattan. My father always wanted to know why my mother insisted on driving all the way to Manhattan when Philadelphia was only 20 minutes away from where we lived. 

"Because Eric, there's no city like the city." My father would roll his eyes, and smile our secret smile at me. The smile that said she's crazy but what are we going to do? She's mom. My mother liked Manhattan much better than Philadelphia. She said Manhattan had much better stores and much more character. I didn't see much of a difference between the two cities, both seemed to be dirty, packed, and filled with smelly people that lived on the streets.

It was a Sunday so we found parking relatively easy at a meter that we didn't have to pay for. I knew by the area we had parked in which shop my mother was going to head to first. It was a small shop that smelled like flowery perfume and really old paper. My mom got most of my frilly dresses here. I sighed at the sight of the store as we walked up to it. I didn't particularly enjoy shopping, it was tedious and frankly I'd much rather be at home with my father eating nachos (secretly, because mother had us on an all vegan diet this month) and watching The Lord of the Rings (also secretly because my mother didn't think I should be watching anything remotely violent). 

My mother headed straight for the baby section as she had done the past four times we had come to Manhattan since she'd been pregnant. She looked at frilly dresses that looked like all the ones I had, had been shrunk in the wash. She oohed and awed at the dainty shoes that matched and the pretty little hair bows that went along with it all. I went to the section of the store that had things that fit me. There were more frilly dresses and matching accessories. I rolled my eyes and walked to the section that had clothes that were clearly more mature. 

There were dresses that were tight at the bodice with low necklines and short skirts. I enjoyed looking at those and imagining what it would be like to feel them against my skin while out and about in some nameless city doing adult things. I grabbed a purple one and put it up against me as I stared into a dirty mirror they had hanging by the clothing racks. I wondered if my mother would let me have a dress like this and then laughed a little to myself because I knew she wouldn't. I put it down and went back to the frilly dresses, trying to pick out the one that was the least childish. 

A lavender color one had the least frills and I it looked a little older than the rest of the dresses did because there was a small opening in the back that would show off my shoulder blades. I grabbed it and walked over to my other, who was still hovering over the baby clothes. 

"Can I have this mom? Please." She was talking with one of the saleswoman there about whether or not there would be any new baby clothes next week (as knew as you could get them in a thrift shop). She didn't hear me so I repeated myself. It was all in vain because she was much too wrapped up in all of this baby business to pay any attention to me. 

I don't know what got into me, I was just so angry, it wasn't that hard to look at a silly little dress and tell me yes or no. I looked around the store and spotted a pale looking man standing toward the front staring at me. I was too upset to think anything of it but at that moment I saw the door and I went for it. In that moment I saw nothing but the door and the busy streets behind it. I didn't think of my poor mother, or of my poor father, I don't think I was thinking at all. I just wanted to get away.