Shopgirl

Shopgirl is Steve Martin’s novella about the complex relationships of bored / depressed / profoundly vulnerable sales girl and aspiring artist, Mirabelle. She works the glove counter at Neiman’s (“When you work in the glove department you are selling things that nobody buys any more.”) so most of her days are spent wishing for someone to talk to. She is just lonely enough to get involved with aimless slacker Jeremy, whom she meets at a laundromat. They have a brief thing, and then about the time Jeremy sets off on a months-long road trip as a rock band's roady, Mirabelle meets Ray Porter: 50-something, rich, charming, equal parts well-intentioned and self-deluding. She hands herself over to him, piece by piece, and in return he gives her money (pays off her credit card, student loan): “These gifts, though he doesn’t know it, are given so that she will be all right after he leaves her.” Ray is with her because he needs to be near someone while he waits for the right person to come along; Mirabelle believes he will return her love.

So together they exist, for a while, in a “temporary but poorly constructed heaven.” Ray showers her with kindness, and even helps her through a paralyzing bout of depression (usually kept at bay with pharmaceuticals), but still wants only “a square inch of her and not all of her.” Then one day he decides to tell her he has slept with someone else:

He had debated with himself for two hours while flying to Los Angeles. Tell
her, or not? But she had asked him to tell her. She must have meant it. Plus it
wasn’t love; it was a f--k. Plus, she had asked him to tell her. He thought this
was a new feminism thing that he is honor bound to oblige; that if he doesn’t,
he’s a pig. That he will actually come off well by telling her.... But whatever his thought process was, whatever he told himself was the right thing to do, was false. Because his logic was not based in any understanding of her heart, and he continues to misread her.

This brings the relationship to an messy end, though they stay in touch and actually remain friends: “He sees, finally, that as much as he believed he was imposing his will on her, she was also imposing her need on him, and their two dispositions interlocked. And the consequence was a mutual education.”

Meanwhile, on the road, Jeremy listens to self-help tapes on relating to women and finally starts to cross the threshold into adulthood. When he comes back, he and Mirabelle hook up again:

Mirabelle takes months to accept Jeremy, and Jeremy patiently waits…. Where his insight comes from as he courts her, even he doesn’t know…. But unlike Ray Porter, his love is fearless and without reservation. As Jeremy offers her more of his heart, she offers equal parts of herself in return. One night, sooner than she would have liked, which made it irresistible, they make love for the second time in two years. But this time, Jeremy holds her for a long while, and they connect in a deep and profound way. At this point, Jeremy surpasses Mr. Ray Porter as a lover of Mirabelle, because as clumsy as he is, what he offers her is tender and true.

The gist of this little book is that “it’s pain that changes our lives,” and that whatever happens, and whatever is felt along the way—the despair and neediness and vulnerability, the hope and warmth and tenderness—it’s all part of the school of life.

Martin’s wisdom and insight, his perceptive observations, are so pleasing—and surprising, especially if you’re just looking for comedy. What’s good about this book is its mood—quiet and melancholy with a twist of disarming. Also its pace—careful and deliberate. As well, he uses an uncommonly omniscient narrator to get into everyone’s heads, detailing out the mutual incomprehension that defines Mirabelle’s early encounter with Jeremy and then with Ray Porter.

The movie (good, by the way) was wrongly billed as a romantic comedy—it’s too sad and sweet and true to be very funny, though there are moments of wry, ironic humor—but both book and movie are sweet little gems which I recommend (though perhaps not highly).