1 For several years it was inconceivable to buy one of those periodicals when a girl was behind the counter; but once, boldly, I tried it - I looked directly at her mascara and asked for a Penthouse, even though I preferred the less pretentious Oui or Club, saying it so softly however that she heard "Powerhouse" and cheerfully pointed out the candy bar until I repeated the name. Breaking all eye contact, she placed the document on the counter between us - it was back when they still showed nipples on their covers - and rang it up along with the small container of Woolite I was buying to divert attention: she was embarrassed and brisk and possibly faintly excited, and she slipped the magazine in a bag without asking whether I "needed" one or not. That afternoon I expanded her brief embarrassment into a helpful vignette in which I became a steady once-a-week buyer of men's magazines from her, always on Tuesday morning, until my very ding-dong entrance into the 7-Eleven was charged with trembly confusion for both of us, and I began finding little handwritten notes placed in the most wide-spread pages of the magazine when I got home that said, "Hi! - the Cashier," and "Last night I posed sort of like this in front of my mirror in my room - the Cashier," and "Sometimes I look at these pictures and think of you looking at them - the Cashier." Turnover is always a problem at those stores, and she had quit the next time I went in.
[The Mezzanine, Baker, N.]
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