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usually do. I figured someone would be after me. Someoneshould be after me.
I had, after all, stolen something. But I was not, I told myself, a purse
snatcher. Not technically. A purse snatcher was someone who ripped handbags
from the clutches of their owners, usually little old ladies who didn t have
the strength to hang on to them and who got knocked down in the process,
suffering a broken hip. I had broken no little old hips.
I drove for a while without saying anything, then:  You re sure you didn t
bring your purse?
 Huh?
 Your purse. You re sure you didn t bring it along, out of habit, even though
you re wearing that thing on your waist?
 A fanny pack.
 Pardon?
 It s called a fanny pack.
I glanced down at her lap.  That doesn t make any sense at all. It doesn t
hang over your fanny. It hangs over your, well, it hangs over your front.
Maybe they thought  crotch pack didn t have as nice a ring to it.
 They also call them waist bags, but that sounds like something somebody with
a colostomy wears, Sarah said.  Do you not like my fanny pack?
 It s fine. I like it. I just don t understand why you decided to stop
carrying a purse. You have a lot of stuff. You can t get everything you need
into a little bag like that. Youneed a purse. I seemed to be running out of
breath.  You should really be carrying a purse.
 Let me ask you a serious question, Sarah said.
 Yeah?
 Have you lost your mind?
 No, all I m saying is, this is a bit of a shock. You live with someone for
almost twenty years, you see her carrying a purse every day, which is, like, a
hundred thousand days or something, and then, one day, without warning, she
decides to go around with a fanny pack. I just, I don t know, I would have
liked a little warning is all.
Sarah looked at me and said nothing. There was a long pause, and then she
said,  You know you just drove past General Mart.
I glanced around, saw the market over my shoulder, and said,  Shit. There
was one of those concrete medians down the center of the street, which meant I
had to go up a full block and make a left before I could turn around.
 I still say there s something wrong with you, Sarah said. And then, like a
bulb going off:  That reminds me. All this talk about purses.
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 What.
 In the store, after you left, there was this woman, she started going
absolutely nuts.
 What woman? But I had a feeling I already knew. A blonde lady, looking at
garbage bags, who liked low-fat cookies.
 She was just up the aisle from me.
 What did she look like?
If Sarah thought this question was unusual, she didn t let on.  I don t know,
mid-twenties, thin, blonde hair. Wearing a white suit. She looked kind of
familiar to me, actually.
 You know her? This was hopeful. With a name, I could get this purse
returned right away.
 No, I just felt I d seen her someplace before. So she goes,  Where s my
purse? You know, screaming that her purse is missing, and she looks totally
frantic, which I guess I would be too if someone grabbed my purse.
 What do you mean, grabbed it? Did shesee someone take her purse?
 I don t know. You just assume, I guess. She called down to me, standing by
her cart, asks if I ve seen her purse, like I m keeping track of her stuff,
and I guess I shrugged no, and then she ran to the front of the store, and
that was the last I saw of her. Sarah took a breath, made a funny expression
with her mouth, like she wanted to say something but didn t know how.
 So it s like I said, she said.
I was making a left at the light and heading back toward General.  Whaddya
mean?
 Well, you re the one who s always telling me not to leave my purse in the
cart, and that s probably what that woman had done, and someone happened along
and just took it. You only have to be looking away for a second and it s gone.
And the hassle! You have to cancel all your credit cards, get a new driver s
license and God knows what all. And then there s your keys. You figure, a guy
takes your purse, he looks at your license and knows where you live, and he s
got your keys. I mean, most guys probably take the cash and ditch the purse,
but there s always that chance, right?
 I suppose, I said, pulling into a parking spot.
 So what I m saying is, you were right. I guess it was just lucky that today
I happened to be wearing this fanny pack, or it might have been my purse that
got swiped instead of that lady s.
 Yeah, I said.  Lucky.
 Are you coming in or waiting out here? Sarah asked, her hand on the door
handle.
Come in or stay out? Come in or stay out? I had this small matter of a
strange woman s purse in the trunk of the car. If I went in with Sarah,
there d be no opportunity for me to get rid of the purse before we came back
out to the car, popped the trunk, and Sarah asked,  Whose is that?
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 Let me tell you about my new hobby, honey, I could say.  I collect handbags
now. From strangers. Sometimes they contain valuable prizes.
But if I stayed with the car, what exactly was I going to do with the purse?
I could hide it under the trunk floor, jam it in next to the spare tire. Or
maybe I
 I have an idea, I said.  How long do you think you re going to be?
Sarah shrugged.  I don t know. Fifteen, twenty minutes maybe.
 Maybe I ll whip over to Kenny s. You know I ordered that model of the
dropship fromAliens ? The one the Marines ride to get to the planet s
surface?
Sarah shrugged again. The mere mention of SF trivia was enough to shut down
any further questions. She said,  Sure. Just pick me up at the door here.
And she was gone. I backed the car out of the spot and pointed it back in the
direction of Mindy s. While I was not yet prepared to come clean with Sarah, I
figured if I could find the woman in the white suit, an honest approach was
the best one. If she was still at Mindy s, I d tell her my wife had asked me
to take her purse to the car, and that I d gone to the wrong cart and grabbed
the wrong one. Not the truth, exactly, except for the part about making a
mistake.
And it was an honest mistake. There had been no intent to steal anything.
When you grab your own wife s purse, even if, technically speaking, she is not
aware of it, surely that s not stealing. This was like, I told myself, going
out to the parking lot, seeing a car that was the same make and model and year
of your own. Suppose, just suppose, your key happened to work in this other
car, and you got in, and started it up, and drove away, well, that wouldn t be
stealing, would it? Anyone with an ounce of common sense could understand [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]