Changing Rooms

If the mirror didn’t suit her, she’d walk to the next one. That’s how she wound up lost. Two mirrors in a row painted an unflattering portrait, and so she kept on like the March Hare or the Mad Hatter. Another mirror, and another. Finally, she found one that presented a suitable image. The jacket cinched properly; the pants the right length. It frustrated her that the older she got, the more mirrors she had to find, but that was the reality of getting on. There wasn’t much to be done about it, and she certainly wasn’t one to complain.

When she left the changing room, she knew immediately something was off. The lighting above was flattering. Pickler’s never had flattering lighting. Women often tried to take photos of themselves in outfits so they could message their friends with a question mark in order to get some kind of approval that would justify the purchase. Inevitably, their friends would message back “Cute!” but few would mean it, and the women knew that. The items would go back on the rack, and hope would be lost. Some of it would have to be blamed on their bodies, but a lot could be put on the lighting. It was ghastly. Too direct and nothing to shield its volume.

Now, the lighting was amiable. She looked down at the back of her hands and saw no spots for the first time in years. What kind of trick was this? She looked down the hallway and saw that it didn’t appear to end. It was true of the other end as well. All the curtains for all of the changing rooms were closed, and it occurred to her at that moment that these weren’t really “rooms” at all, but rather, stalls. They were all geriatric horses trying on caparisons. She peered around one of the curtains and saw nobody in the so-called “room.” Making her way down the hallway, she saw that each station appeared to be empty. Could she be the last person here? Had they locked her in? Should she call out for someone? Oh, but wouldn’t that make her look foolish?

She used to take her daughter with her whenever she went shopping for clothes, but then she got the impression that her daughter saw it as some kind of chore, and that was the last time she invited her. She didn’t need a babysitter. She wasn’t even eighty, and she had all her senses firmly intact. It was hardly beyond her capabilities to go out and purchase a new dress or a hat for the church social.

The hallway only extended the further she traveled down it. After walking for a few minutes, she realized that she had left her purse with her phone in it back in the room--but which room was it? Something about being separated from her phone made her feel frantic, and she began to push back the curtains as though she were looking for a lost child, when, in fact, she was the lost child. Without her phone, she wouldn’t be able to call for help if she needed it. Did she need it? She wasn’t in any danger. It was an endless hallway with an infinite number of changing rooms. There was nothing dangerous about that, unless she really couldn’t extricate herself from it, in which case, she might starve to death, but that would take days. Leave it to her to skip breakfast that morning. Was there even a restroom nearby? She found that the anxiety had caused her bladder to constrict. Could she simply relieve herself in one of the rooms? It would serve Pickler’s right for trapping her like this. Weren’t any of the associates tasked with checking to make sure nobody was stranded in the back of the store?

She searched for something that would cause an alarm to go off. Embarrassment be damned, she needed to use the restroom and retrieve her phone. Each curtain when thrown aside only relieved another mirror. Now, not only were the reflections in them not flattering, but they showed her something grotesque. A sweaty woman stared back at her:  Make-up running, hair unkempt, and in a get-up far too young for her. She refused to accept that this was her despite the minor identical details. She was not at her best in this moment, that was true. Still, that didn’t make her a monster. It was all about being a victim of circumstance. Once she knew where she was, she’d look sensible again. The mirror in her changing room would prove it.

After walking for nearly half an hour, she spotted a door at the end of the hallway. As though it were water in the desert, she ran towards it, nearly twisting her ankle with the sudden jolt of movement. When she reached the door, there was a red light above it, and she almost stopped herself from pushing on it. Despite having wanted to set off an alarm earlier, now she rethought her approach. If the other side of the door led to the inside of Pickler’s with its cash registers and helpful salesmen, then she’d be alright, wouldn’t she? She’d ask someone to go back into the changing rooms to find her phone and her purse, and she’d purchase every single item she brought in with her. Even the ones she didn’t like. It would be her offering to the store for not keeping her locked away in perpetuity.

The trouble was, if an alarm was attached to a door, there was no indication of how to open the door without setting off the alarm. Well, she thought, If it goes off, I’ll just apologize profusely to whomever comes running. I’ll play the Old Lady Act. Was it really an act though? Would she ever have gotten lost in a changing area twenty years ago? Or even five years ago? She pushed on the door and instantly felt a burst of cold air. Somehow, she was outside. Her initial concern gave way to relief. Who cares if she was outside? Outside was still a normal place to be. It still adhered to the rules of reality. Wherever she just was had no such stricture. If she had to walk back to the front of the store in her (now) shoplifted garments, then so be it. Perhaps they’d give her some kind of discount for having to endure such a horror on a Saturday afternoon.

Once her eyes adjusted to the lack of unnatural light, she saw that she wasn’t outside at all. She was in Pickler’s, but there was a draft coming in. Looking up, she noticed that the ceiling was gone. Had a storm come and carried it off while she was seeking out an appropriate mirror? How could she not have heard it? Nothing in the store seemed to be disturbed. Everything was in its place, but smaller items like perfume samples and receipts were blowing around in the wind coming into the store. She walked towards the nearest cash register, but there was no employee in sight. She rang a small bell that had been placed on the counter. There was no sign indicating where anyone had gone. Should she just try to make her way home? This was all very trying.

Giving the world a chance to right itself, she rang the bell.

As the sound rang out, she felt a sensation run down her back. There was the smell of men’s cologne, and a hanger from somewhere behind her rattled a bit.

It seemed as though the store was closed.

So why didn’t anyone tell her?

And why would they close when there was still so much time left in the day? Dispatching with a ceiling before ringing up every customer was extremely rude. She wanted to speak to a supervisor. She wanted someone to tell her what was going on. There was still time to shop. There was still time to try on a few more things.

Surely, it was much too early to turn off the lights.