You must like Tarantino. Do you like Tarantino?

I met her at work. She was a customer. Her name was Joanne. I liked her looks. I knew she was a lot older than me but I didn’t care.

JUNIOR QUENTIN BY MIKE HEPPNER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 124

Years ago I had a girlfriend who more or less lived out of boxes. At the time she was sleeping on the floor of her boss’s office.

She’s dead now. I assume she’s dead. If she’s not, she’s well into her 80s. So she might still be alive. People live into their 80s. It’s almost not even old any more.

I worked in a home decor and furniture store on Eight Mile Road on the border between the city and the suburbs.

I met her at work. She was a customer. Her name was Joanne. I liked her looks. I knew she was a lot older than me but I didn’t care.

The store was a good place to pick up people. Men picked up women, women picked up women, men picked up men, all the combinations. Let’s say we had a certain clientele. It was one of the things that defined the place for me, or at least defined working there, the constant flirting.

An attractive woman would enter the store, and one of us would run back to the stockroom and say, “Hey guys, check out the one in placemats,” and everyone would troop out and gawk at a discreet distance, and the boldest would approach and ask the customer if she needed any help, and maybe one in a hundred times it led to something more.

“Can I show you something? You’re going to think I’m a total lunatic. I just need an opinion, and I need it from a complete stranger. We’ve never met before, have we?” this woman asked. Joanne.

She actually took my wrist, squeezing and letting it go. “You can be honest with me, right? I mean, you’ve got no reason to lie. I’m just this crazy person who wandered off the street.”

One of my co-workers passed down the kitchenwares aisle, shot me a smirk behind Joanne’s back, and skipped away.

“This is embarrassing, but… What do you think of what I’m wearing? I mean, not what you think, but… do you think it looks unprofessional? I work in a law office, my boss is an attorney. Not a real attorney, but… anyway–” She waved away whatever she’d been going to say. “That’s not important. I think it looks professional, but I need someone else’s opinion. I need a man’s opinion. What do you think?”

She wanted me to look at her, so I looked. My pulse quickened. “Yeah, I guess,” I said.

“You guess what? It looks professional or it doesn’t?”

“Looks professional. Why wouldn’t it?” I said.

“You don’t think my skirt’s too short? Someone told me they thought my skirt was too short. Do you think my skirt’s too short?”

I gave her a good stare. “No, it’s not too short.”

“You like it?” she asked, which was another question entirely.

I nodded.

“You’re sweet. You seem like an honest person. I knew I could trust you as soon as I saw you. You’ve got a trustworthy face. How long have you worked here?”

“Two years,” I said.

“But your heart’s not into it, I can tell. I can tell these things about people. I’m very intuitive. My girlfriend thinks I’ve got ESP, but I don’t believe in things like that. Do you believe in ESP?”

I shrugged, but I needn’t have bothered; she was already onto something else.

“I can just tell you’re destined for something bigger than this, I don’t know what. Are you artistic? For some reason I think you’re artistic. You’re an actor or… you want to do something creative.”

I told her I’d gone to school to be a writer, which was the cold, sad truth of it.

She smiled. She’d had some dental work done. “Ah, the brooding introverted type. Are you the brooding introverted type? I’ll bet you are. You must like Quentin Tarantino. Do you like Tarantino?”

I tipped my head non-committally. I didn’t know why going to school to be a writer necessarily equated to liking Tarantino, but I let her have her little insight. Maybe this was just her way of making a connection with me: young guy, writer, he must like Tarantino. This was about 1996. It probably made sense back then.

“Are you going to be the second coming of Quentin Tarantino? Junior Quentin?”

I probably should’ve just gone back to pushing a broom around, but her legs and her short skirt held me entranced, her white blouse with its top three pearlescent buttons or snaps unbuttoned or unsnapped.

“I’m not really interested in writing screenplays. I’m more interested in–”

“–other things, sure. The Great American Novel. Serious literary pursuits.”

We’d been talking for five minutes when the store manager announced the store was getting ready to close. Joanne rolled her eyes at the loudspeaker.

“Is that your boss? He sounds like a Nazi,” she said.

“He’s okay,” I said. My boss wasn’t at all a Nazi. He was more like a socially inept blowhard, and this was his big power trip, running this dumb store.

“Don’t worry, I know the type. The mid-level management type. I was married to one.” She snickered and elbowed me in the ribs, and I gave a surprised flinch. I didn’t know people did things like that, elbowed each other in the ribs.

“Oh! Did I startle you? I’m sorry, I’m like that. I’m touchy feely.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m a big hugger. I’m always going up to people and hugging them. You look like you could use a big hug. Can I give you a big hug? Or even a little one?”

I didn’t say no, so she drew me into her warmth-emanating embrace, pressing her breasts against my apron.

Something was happening fast, too fast, or maybe at its own fated speed.