Buying the Cow

DAY-int.

SALES CLERK

I can't take it back, I'm sorry. It's store policy. It's written on your receipt.

VANESSA

Oh come on! Look at this! It isn't me, you can see it isn't me...

SALES CLERK

I don't know you, miss. I think suits your colouring, if that is any consolation.

VANESSA

It is, thanks. I thought I would love it, and I don't. It isn't, I mean, it isn't the worst. But, it isn't worth the price, for me. I shop here all the time...does that help?

SALES CLERK

(sighs)

I could potentially exchange it. Or store credit. Is there anything else you like better?

VANESSA

Well, um, there's...No. Let me call my sister. Does the store credit expire?

*********

Jacob Feygin. He ate very quickly, and is much taller then I thought. He told me interesting things about Spain and his mother. He does not make me nervous, which feels nice. It is not how I usually feel. I usually feel sick. But maybe that is not the way you should feel about people that you want to like like you. Maybe I have had it all wrong so many times before. He calls when he says he is going to call.

I spent half an hour discussing the Russian's new shoes with him. He is unsure about the heel and the shoelaces. I did not realise he was quite so concerned with these things, but he is, more than most, I think, more than a quick glance would suggest. I wonder if everyone is like that. Jacob (who, strangely, spells his name with a C even though his name is actually Yakov) stared at me blankly when I pointed out a particularly hideous shoe in a store window today. But he does seem rather attached to his leather jacket. He also knew exactly what a leather gauntlet was.

Feel better about cataloguing. Not awesome. But better. Very happy about the J and H progress. I like to think of her as tired and happy. Am very excited to go to the cottage this weekend with Sabina and my sister. But am putting my foot down about the party. I am in the mood for a party filled with folks I don't know, and they aren't going to convince me we have to leave on Friday night instead of Saturday morning. So there!