a very normal boutique

There’s a boutique about three blocks from my house and every time I go there I almost start crying. I don’t understand this because it’s a very normal boutique, with pretty little things like local bracelets and teal colored scarves and tongue-in-cheek cards that make me laugh out loud. I like to walk around and pretend that I could buy anything I wanted for anybody, I could buy those earrings for my neighbor and those table coasters for my mother and the beautiful clock with the red and gray birds and the sleek metallic numbers for my friend who isn’t my friend anymore. I think about how I would give it to her, maybe I would say, here’s a clock that I bought at a boutique that always makes me almost cry, and I know we aren’t friends anymore but I thought you really might love it. Maybe I would leave it on her doorstep and ring the doorbell and then run, but then I remember that I don’t know where she lives and that I can’t afford that clock and that actually we aren’t even friends anymore.

I think the woman who owns the boutique knows everything, because when I start to blink a lot or wipe my eye she says with the kindest smile I’ve ever seen, is there anything I can help you with?