Shoplifting

I walk into Erewhon and I feel good, I feel normal. I feel trustworthy, like I belong here. My face is washed and moisturized and my hair is pulled back. I am wearing my roommate’s skintight two-piece spandex workout set without her permission. I am wearing big sunglasses and a $300 pair of shearling Birkenstock clogs and my mother’s vintage designer bag. I am cosplaying a higher quality version of myself, a girl who has never once considered donating her blood or her eggs for rent money. The air inside Erewhon smells fresh, rich. It is 9 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday. I am stoned. I am aimless. I am empty inside.

I float down the warmly lit maze of aisles. I pick up a single slice of refrigerated vegan chocolate cake sealed tight in a plastic clam shell box and check the calories first, and then the price. I put it back. I float some more. I float straight into an aisle of jarred holistic goods. I pretend to peruse while a lithe teenager with fresh highlights and six Cartier bracelets stacked on one wrist peruses for real, carefully fingering little bottles of expensive tinctures and then dropping them one by one into the shopping basket slung around her arm. She can feel my eyes. She turns toward me and I smile, and when she does not smile back I feel stupid and creepy, like I just gave myself away. I float away from her, around the corner and into an aisle stocked with organic cosmetics. I peer at myself in the little trial mirror. I look okay, I look clean. I feel reassured. I smile at my reflection the same way that I smiled at the teenage girl and decide that I am not stupid and creepy. I decide that if someone smiled at me the way that I smiled at the teenage girl, I would have smiled back. I decide that the teenage girl is just a bitch.

When I see her highlighted head exit the aisle of jarred holistic goods, I return to it. I am alone now. I feel safe. I pick up an $85 8-ounce jar of raw Manuka Honey. I remember reading somewhere that Gwyneth Paltrow loves raw Manuka Honey. I remember reading somewhere that raw Manuka Honey is a superfood with supernatural healing powers, that it is anti-aging, that it can treat burns and wounds and acne and eczema and dermatitis, that it can cure common colds and bad indigestion and bad oral health and sometimes even fevers. I remember reading somewhere that raw Manuka Honey tastes like shit. I put on a show for the security cameras, I pretend to search around my mother’s vintage designer bag for my cell phone with one hand while I tuck the $85 jar of raw Manuka Honey into it with the other. I pull out my cell phone and try to make a face like I am relieved, but not too relieved. A normal amount of relieved, the amount of relieved someone who was looking for their cell phone and found it would feel, not the amount of relieved someone who was about to successfully shoplift an $85 jar of raw Manuka Honey would feel.

I stand around the aisle for a little while longer, pretending to text while the butterflies in my stomach have it out with each other, and then I float away like it’s nothing, like I’ve done nothing, like I am normal. I float away past the cosmetics, past the vegan chocolate cake, past the bitchy teenage girl waiting in line for a cashier to ring her up, and almost past the exit sign until I think better of leaving without purchasing something, anything, as a cover for my crime. I try to turn back around in a way that makes me look more forgetful than suspicious, and then I make my way back to the juice bar. I tell the underpaid barista working the register that I would like a small cup of cold pressed low-glycemic celery juice in the most confident tone that I can calculate. He asks me if I am a store rewards program member and when I say no he tells me that my total will be $19. I reach right past the raw Manuka Honey for my wallet and feel the butterflies kick back up again against my abdomen. I tap my card against the machine and within seconds receive a notification from my bank that my balance has dropped below $100. I have a tiny cup of cold pressed low-glycemic celery juice in hand and the exit in sight.

As I get closer to the doors the pace of my heartbeat picks up and my head fills up with hot air and bright light. I imagine the way that it would feel for an employee to stop me or maybe even come running after me. I imagine the way it would feel for some kind of alarm to set off, and I convince myself that if that were to happen I would feel just fine. I convince myself that I would feel great actually, that it would be just the kind of thrill that I have been missing in my life. I convince myself that I want to get caught, that it would be fun to get caught, that it would be fun to get pulled away by my arms into some back room and have my picture taken and put up somewhere under a sign that says BANNED in big embarrassing letters. I convince myself that going to jail would be exhilarating, a good story to tell, and that having a misdemeanor for shoplifting from Erewhon would be camp. I convince myself that I am not pathetic, that I am not weird or tragic or pathetic at all.

I pass through the doors and no alarms go off. I cross Beverly Boulevard and no one comes running after me. I feel free. I feel so free that it takes a conscious effort to stop myself from letting out a big fat scream. I feel so free that it takes everything in me to not take off running down the boulevard with my arms spread wide open in victory, Nicole Kidman post-divorce from Tom Cruise style. I click the keys twice to unlock my beater car. I do a long sigh from the comfort of my driver’s seat. I release the stowaway jar of $85 raw Manuka Honey from the shackles of my mother’s vintage designer bag and turn the little thing over and over in my hands, admiring the pretty packaging. I turn the ignition and catch a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror, disturbed to find that my lips, tongue and teeth are all rotten looking, all grotesquely stained with a sick and diseased color, all cold pressed low-glycemic $19 celery juice green.