When Jane first offered me the job as her shopper, I could not possibly have imagined that this would end up being a full-time job. But I ended up shopping thirty to forty hours a week, and some of this was aerobic shopping. Some days I found myself practically sprinting from store to store in order to purchase every item that Jane had on her list and thumbing through merchandise so quickly I often created a breeze. Jane had five children, four of whom were married at this time. She had two sets of servants, one in Costa Rica and one in Dallas. She bought gifts and clothes for all of them. She also had taken under her wing a nephew who suffered from schizophrenia and had a real knack for escaping from whatever locked facility he was occupying. When he did, he gave away everything he owned, including the clothes he was wearing. Whenever the authorities managed to catch up with him again, I was the person who re-outfitted him. I also not only bought clothes and household items for Jane, I was the person who took her Oriental rugs to get cleaned and re-tinted, and expensive objets to get repaired.

 

 

I spent a lot of time in traffic, inching along city streets to drive from mall to mall. And obviously, I spent a lot of time in stores. The latter had an interesting two-barreled effect. On the one hand, I was exposed to all kinds of super cool things that I would never have been exposed to before as I tended not to shop a lot. It was one of the ways that Richard and I kept our expenses down. And this aroused covetousness that I didn’t enjoy feeling, for things such as one-of-a-kind vests made by quirky, talented artists and bronze eagles outfitted with gorgeous slabs of quartz crystals for wings. On the other hand, it had the same effect of bingeing on a foodstuff to the point that you never wanted to eat it again.

 

But I was making excellent money. And let’s face it, it actually was a dream job as jobs go. Retail shops didn’t open until ten in the morning, so if I got up early, I had time to write. My dad, who loved clever gadgets and new technology, generously bought me a Kaypro computer, one of the earliest personal computers and the only portable computer at the time (only weighed about 25 lbs.). Good thing that wasn’t around when we had our place broken into. Richard and I had plenty of money to take advantage of the fun cafés in our neighborhood and to save some as well. On Halloween, we booked a table at an outdoor café with our neighbor Rod to enjoy the parade that took place in this part of town. Halloween has always been a favorite holiday for gay communities and Dallas was no exception. We were sitting at our table, enjoying a glass of wine when a white Cadillac convertible came cruising along with two beautiful drag queens in prom dresses perched on the folded convertible top, waving like Queen Elizabeth, dazzling smiles on their faces. When they drove past us, we all choked on our wine when we realized that they had no backs to their dresses. Their well-sculpted buns were on proud and hilarious display, much to the enjoyment of the crowd.

 

 

And there was the time that we were attending a party at Fred and Toni’s house and they had set up a very cool little snack table under a canopy outside, lit by strings of multi-colored twinkly lights. They had potato chips and onion dip and mixed nuts and tortilla chips and salsa. And they also had a pumice bowl full of what looked, in the dim light, like bean dip. It wasn’t until I plunged a tortilla chip into the bowl and snarfed down the delectable that I realized it wasn’t bean dip; it was very fine, dark sand for smokers to extinguish their butts in. That was memorable :)

 

We continued to enjoy our apartment, although we did always wonder about the soundness of the foundation. None of the doors shut properly. The door to the bathroom wouldn’t close at all, and the sliding doors to the closets would only close halfway. To open the front door required a huge wrenching effort. We figured it was safe, though, surely. Safe enough. Until one night things got really weird … .