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Cini's first stop was at Baskin-Robbins, where she bought one quart of French vanilla ice cream and one quart of Dutch chocolate.
Her second stop was at Dunkin' Donuts. She got a dozen assorted donuts and half a dozen filled cream puffs.
Forty-two minutes after leaving her apartment, she rolled into Fanny Farmer's in a strip mall on the way to O'Hare.
A bell tinkled above her as she walked in.
The place was tiny, with space for only three very small glass display cases and a nook for a cash register. Two prim elderly ladies with blue-tinted hair were at the register now. One of them paid the hefty, middle-aged, white-uniformed clerk with a trembling, liver-spotted hand. 'You know that Esther and I have been coming to Fanny Farmer ever since we were little girls?' The clerk resembled a 'Woman in Prison' movie posterwith her cast in the role of sadistic guard.
Obviously, the elderly woman expected the clerk to make some sort of fuss.
The clerk just shrugged wide, sloping shoulders. 'Oh. That's nice.'
The old ladies exchanged glances of disappointment.
'Where's Molly today?' the second one said, obviously implying that Molly was more their type.
'She was awake all night pukin' her guts up,' the clerk informed them crudely. 'Musta picked up the flu. Anyway, they called me at home this morning at six-thirty, if you can believe it. My husband was really pissed. This is his day off.'
The prim ladies looked at each other again and sort of shook their heads.
'Vulgar,' Cini could hear them saying. 'So vulgar.'
She felt sorry for the old ladies. The world was such a harsh place these days.
The ladies went out, the tinkling bell announcing their exit.
'I hope I never live to get all pruned-up like that. Yer skin hangin' down in bags 'n stuff. So how can I help you?'
Memories of the bad old days were coming back to Cini now. To an overeater, a Fanny Farmer store is just like a bar to an alcoholic.
She inhaled the various aromas of the rich, dark chocolates. Her eyes scanned row after row of chocolate delicacy.
'You hear me? I said so how can I help you?'
Cini said, 'I want two pounds of those and two pounds of those and two pounds of those.'
The woman whistled. 'You know how much that's gonna cost you? Especially the ones with the pecans?'
'I have plenty of money, if that's what you're worried about,' Cini said. Then, remembering how the clerk had treated the old ladies, she said, 'Anyway, my finances are none of your fucking business.'
The woman looked stunned.
A quiet upper-class girl like Cini, using language like that?
Cini had never spoken to anybody in her life like that. She knew she owed her mood to the terrible demands her body was putting on her.
She thought about apologizing but reminded herself of the bored and abusive tone the clerk had taken with the women.
'And I don't want to wait around all fucking day, either,' Cini said.
The clerk set immediately to work, seeming to be at least a trifle leery of Cini's mental state.
As well she should.
The parking lot was a drab wind tunnel. Cini made her way back to her car clutching the Fanny Farmer bag to her chest, the way she would carry something invaluable and holy.
When she got in the car and turned the key, the WGN news came on. The announcer said, 'Chicagoans are still expressing shock that one of their own most prominent advertising executives was stabbed to death in his Loop office sometime last night.'
She should go to the police.
She should tell them what she saw.
She should be a good citizen.
She put the car in gear and drove off.
In less than half a mile, she had eaten one third of the Fanny Farmer chocolate-covered turtles. The expensive ones with the pecans.