Shopgirl by Steve Martin Page A

entire self, so he won’t think of himself as a bad guy. Then a courtship begins, unconscious lies are told, and an enormously complex schema is structured, all to attain the mystery of an ankle that enters seductively into an oversize jogging shoe.
    As Ray Porter sits in his car in this corridor of lust, where scores of women pass through his crosshairs, a desire for Mirabelle takes root and spreads. He reminds himself that she is not feeling well, but then again, she might be in the mood later, and in fact, a good fuck might be the best thing for her.
    Mirabelle emerges from the Conrad Medical Building with a prescription-sized sheet of paper in her hand, comes over to the car, and explains through the lowered window that she will go across the street to the pharmacy to fill it. Ray nods and asks her if she wants him to go with her, she says no. When Mirabelle is halfway across the street, she hesitates and returns to the Mercedes. Ray lowers the window, and Mirabelle, shrinking her body like an embarrassed child, speaks:
    â€œI don’t have any money.”
    Ray turns off the car, goes in with her, and pays seventy-eight dollars for one hundred tabs of Celexa, the latest miracle of chemistry that should right Mirabelle’s listing ship. Back in the car, he suggests that she stay at his place for the night. Mirabelle takes this as an expression of his caring, which it is. It is just that his caring is a potion, mixed with one part benevolent altruist and one part chimpanzee penis.
    He drives Mirabelle up the winding roads into the Hollywood Hills as she sags lower and lower. The Celexa will take weeks to kick in and she knows it.
    â€œThanks for all this.”
    â€œThat’s okay,” Ray says. “Are you feeling better?”
    â€œNo.”
    However, the thought that someone is taking care of her buoys her up exactly one notch from the bottom of her earlier depression. An intense headache begins to split her in half, and after Ray slots the car in the garage, he helps her to his bed.
    If the headache had not appeared, Ray would have stroked his hand along her, down across a breast to her abdomen, and tried to seduce her. The headache keeps her from seeing the worst side of Ray’s desire for her, and the worst side of men’s desire in general. He is lucky he doesn’t try, because she would have hated him for it.
    Mirabelle sleeps motionlessly and silently, with her auburn hair splayed across her face and neck. Ray lies next to her, flipping the TV channels with the volume set to whisper, doing a crossword, looking at her––sometimes wondering if now would be the time to wake her up for her all-important sexual cure. But the night passes eventless, and eventually he nods off and sleeps fitfully until morning.
    Breakfast is the same as usual, only this time Mirabelle’s inactivity makes sense––she is ill. Ray is leaving town for ten days, and he carefully takes her home and waits while she assembles herself for her day at Habitat. Mirabelle begins to motivate herself toward cure, and she knows physical activity will be good for her.
    â€œAre you going to be okay?”
    â€œYeah.”
    He hugs her tightly, with his palms squarely on her sturdy back, then backs out with a wave and a good-bye.
    Mirabelle vacantly labors at Habitat, lifting and hauling Sheetrock and occasionally putting on a giddy face for her co-workers that hides nothing. She declines to go out for a beer even though one of the volunteers is flirting with her. In her depression, she has accidentally put on the perfect outfit for driving Mirabelle-watchers wild. The exact right khaki shorts with the exact right T-shirt with the exact right surface tension.
    Ray calls her that night to check in on her. She is feeling ever so slightly better, even if only from the placebo effect of one pill and being freed, at least for the weekend, from the monotony of the glove department. Still, she sits