On Sunday we went down to Yorkville to do a little bit of Christmas shopping and bathe in the luxury that all the stores promised.
Madame Butterfly played boldly out into the day from an Italian restaurant and a silver Porsche– the engine revving conspicuously—circled the cramped streets with a predatory eye. Every second person we saw proudly displayed a Canada Goose Down Parka. The jackets were so crisp and varied in colour that the people wearing them appeared a tumble of autumn against the grey day.
Expensively turned-out dogs led mean looking women down the streets. In high heels, with Gucci or Coach bags slung over their shoulders, they strutted joylessly down the street like the trophies they know themselves to be.
Old men wore coats that Fashionista wives or daughters had made them buy. They, too, marched gamely down the street, their crazy hair and downtown sneakers making them feel young, their money relevant. Beautifully dressed little girls with terrible manners eluded mothers made thin by crazy diets that only excessive time and money can afford.
In Holt Renfrew, a solitary young woman tried on sunglasses in front of the mirror. Striking poses and tossing her hair, she spoke quickly into her phone, as if much more important than other 17 year-old girls. With the price tag dangling by the right lens of the frames, she imagined how the rest of the world saw her.
A procession of four beautiful Asian women, all dressed in the most elegant black, walked through the store in a straight line. Each one was looking down, almost shy, concentrating on her Blackberry as if it was a divining rod.
At the perfume counter:
“”No, do not do that. You will bruise the perfume if you rub your wrists together like that.”
“You make me feel like some sort of hillbilly.”
“I did not say that. That is not what I meant, but you must understand how delicate the fragrance is, an entire field of roses were distilled into that one, tiny bottle.”
In a moment of relative quiet, one of the saleswomen smiled at her co-worker, and partially obscured by a rack of clothing allowed her to cup her pregnant belly.
” I know what you’re getting for Christmas, a boy! I can just tell!”
A gay man, muscular beneath his tight turtleneck, applied skin cream to the dewy face of a 16 year-old girl. A woman, who was perhaps her aunt, watched, a huge grin animating her face and eyes as she introduced her niece to the wonders of Christmas in the big city.
An older woman with several Holt Renfrew bags in her hands looked over to her husband, and asked, ” Now what would you like to do?”
“Go home,” he smiled at her, just as warm as a grandfather, “go home.”