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Andrea Zollman
3/30/00
OBSERVATION
A pianistís fingers dance on the keyboard. His arms
pump up and down and his upper body sways to the music.
The tune bounces off the high ceiling of Fashion Square
mall. Sunlight streams in through the wide skylight overhead.
He plays for an audience of elderly men and women, who
sit in separate groups on chairs with wide wooden slats and cloth cushions.
A woman taps her foot to the beat.
Another woman in the group leaves her chair and sits by a woman
with white, frizzy hair, wearing hot pink pants and a matching blouse.
The first woman talks in a hushed voice. Does she know that
man over there, she asks the woman in pink, pointing with her finger in
the direction of the men. His wife died of a heart attack, she says.
While they talk, a man dressed in blue polyester pants and a
jacket rises from his chair among the group of men and joins them.
ìI was telling Peggy youíre a good dancer,î says the first
woman.
He says something in a low voice, and all three laugh.
The first woman returns to her chair and the man sits by Peggy.
A man wearing a baseball cap backwards swings a brown
shopping bag by the handle as he saunters by the piano.
Macyís cosmetic department teems with customers vying
for the attention of the sales women who work the floor. Perfume
hangs heavy and thick in the air.
One sales woman with a powdered face and black rimmed eyes smiles
at a shopper trying lipstick on her own hand.
In the shoe department, a shopper picks up a lavender
sandal from a display. She tilts it up, peers at the sole and puts
it down the floor. She slips off her own shoe and tries it on her
bare foot.
Shoppers walk alone and in groups, smiling and chatting
as they stroll the mall. One lone shopper drags a plastic Macyís
bag behind her.
The din in the food court grows as shoppers converge to eat.
A woman and girl eat at one table, eschewing conversation for orange chicken
and rice from Panda Express. The womanís jaw works up and down, and
she stares ahead. At another table on the other side of the
food court, a baby grabs taco chips off an adultís plate, plays with one,
then eats a small piece of another.
A man with curly black hair pulled into a loose ponytail
boards the escalator up to the second floor. Tattoos run up both
of his forearms, and his white T-shirt is tucked into his jeans.
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