Duncan's Diary by Christopher C. Payne Read Free Book Online Page B

was up to the task of buying clothes on all occasions.
    Jeans were the place to start. The question was: Lucky Jeans or Tommy Hilfiger? I had no idea what to buy or what was in style, but every single pair that my daughter picked out was a minimum of $100. Whatever happened to the $20 Levis? They looked as good to me as these designer jeans with makeshift holes and pre-made faded patterns, and I could buy five to one.
    I ended up with a pair of Lucky Jeans, a pair of Hilfiger, and one pair of Calvin Klein. My main decision-making criterion was how athletic my ass looked in the mirror, and these three seemed to be my best bet. I did have a nice ass. The next item was shirts. Seems like the style is a black T-shirt under a dress shirt, but you really have to go with black-on-black of some pattern. I picked a few out, was politely reprimanded by my daughter, and she then went about picking out several choices for me. I spent about four hours in total going through items and trying on outfits. This is about four hours longer than I could tolerate in that environment. Again, typical of the suburban man, I didn’t enjoy shopping at all. I did end up with a variety of colors in the shirt area, although predominately black.
    We couldn’t leave the mall without ensuring that my daughter was compensated for her fashion expertise. We ventured down to Nordstrom’s to look at jeans for her in the high-end denim section. Shortly, I realized that her jeans started at the $200 level, and worked their way up from there. What a great time to be in the denim business.
    As we walked into the money-sucking pit designated as designer clothes, a middle-aged woman approached us and asked if we needed help. She had short black hair that was naturally curly, just short of being kinky. She dressed very fashionably in a pair of slacks and a pair of black leather shoes that most likely cost more than my entire outfit. She was probably around 5’4” and weighed perhaps 100 pounds. She had a smile that lights up a room. The smile always gets me. When a woman has a nice smile, it seems like everything else fades into the background. It is, in my opinion, the most expressive part of a woman. Give me a woman with a great smile, and I can overlook anything else. That always makes me wonder how I married my soon-to be ex-wife. Her smile was severe and painstakingly sharp. I always used to secretly joke to myself that her words came out so edgy because they had to work their way out of her taunt, stretched mouth that sharpened every syllable as it micro-pressed its way through the angled opening.
    We began the process of my daughter trying on jeans. I ended up buying three pair, four shirts, T-shirts, and a belt all in the time it took my daughter to find one pair of a designer-labeled denim fashion statement. I can’t believe the process that a woman, young or old, goes through to find perfect-fitting clothes.
    The good news is it allowed me time to get to know Sherene, the woman who helped us. She had two kids, was in the process of getting a divorce, and was looking for a place to live. Apparently, her husband’s family kept their house in trust to avoid losing it in just this situation. Good for them, but it sucked for her. Her husband was a member of the National FBI team that investigated serial killers. I thought at the time how ironic it was for us to share this oddly placed connection. He was gone most of the time on business trips, was very distant, and had grown into a sullen odd man. At least this was Sherene’s take. She had just gotten a day job at a venture capital company as an assistant and worked evenings and weekends at Nordstrom’s.
    Sherene is one of the women you would marry on sight: fashionable, pretty, bright, and extremely personable. So I asked her out to dinner while my daughter was in the dressing room. She, unfortunately, stated that she was not dating at all during the divorce proceedings. She preferred to wait until it was