The bed Oprah sleeps on.
So, we need a mattress. A box spring, too. Marshall’s mattress, which, though a series of twists of fate, used to be mine, is kind of, I believe the technical term is “mooshy,” and has developed a great big crater at the center, so we always wake up in each other’s ever-lovin’ arms whether we want to or not. And Marshall has a bad back, too, so he’s compensated for a while with a precise arrangement of pillows beneath and surrounding his person. It’s, well, weird, Henshaw.

So we agreed that our Christmas present to one another this year would be a new bed set-up. Last night, while strolling down to the wine shop for a bottle, we passed by a mattress store and decided to go in and browse. The store was brightly lit and went back a mile. It was silent, chilly, and the lighting was sort of bluish white. One salesman stood at the counter and greeted us, his lone visitors, apparently, in quite some time. As we gave a practiced, noncommittal, “Hello,” avoiding eye contact like you do, he followed us around his counter.
“So, uh, you guys. How are you, this evening?”
“Oh, fine, fine,” we said, poking at the first mattress, a Memoryfoam Deluxe Triple Decker Hoagie sort of deal. Glanced at the price tag. Six-thousand dollars. Strolled on.

“So, uhhh,” said the salesman, “I hope you don’t mind my asking—” in a queer, embarrassed tone, like maybe he was being filmed by his managers and had to get this hated line right, “but are you looking for a bed for the two of you, or for guests?”
“For us,” we said. “But we’re really just browsing.” In fact, we had to meet some friends for dinner in just a couple of minutes and had just stopped in on a whim, we said. Marshall lay down on a bed about four beds back, and I followed suit. The salesman followed along behind awkwardly, closing in: three, then two beds behind us, observing us as we turned from our backs to our sides.

“Well—and my manager likes for me to ask this—do you already share a bed,” he said woodenly, “I mean, do you share one and do you like it or not?”


Yes, we shared a bed.

Oh, okay, he said, and then some silence followed as we sat up and lay down again. The salesmen then turned to the mattress of the bed he stood at the foot of, hesitated, and then spoke. “Watch this,” he said, and folded the mattress in two and then let it spring back. “If this had been a traditional mattress, I would have just bought it. I mean, that would have ruined it.” We watched him, propping our heads up on our hands as we lay on our own chosen bed of the moment. Then we got up, nodded, and strolled on. Then paused, at random, before another bed, and looked at the price tag, also far, far out of our price range. The awkwardness was having the secondary effect of causing us not to look at each other, either. The salesman pointed to the bed we now stood in front of.

“That one is made of the same material as this one, and works on a power base, too. And that one, that’s the bed Oprah sleeps on. It works with a power base, as well.”

I tried to make a joke while still avoiding eye contact with the man: Oprah comes in here every night? Wow! The salesman just nodded and smiled. The effect, I fear, of my comment, in the ensuing weird silence, was one of bullying. Marshall glanced again at his cell phone for effect. The price of all these mattress sets: $2,500 and up.

We walked further from the man and sat down on another bed, running our hands over the surface of the mattress like customers at a fruit stand. This mattress set had a remote control sitting on top, which Marshall quickly grabbed and began examining. The salesman followed us up the aisle.

“Uh, that one, too, works with a power base.” Marshal began to fiddle with the remote, and the man patted the foot of the bed, “Here. Lie down. Both of you.” We were already angling ourselves into supine positions and the salesman accidentally slapped Marshall’s ankle. He motioned for the remote and Marshall gave it to him. He pushed a button. The bottom part of the bed began to shiver and shake a little, vibrating under our ankles. Then the top half, under our shoulder blades. It was loud. The salesman stood at our feet, observing our relaxation. We didn’t comment.

“This is the power base. It’s just meant for relaxation,” he said. Then he shut it off, looking at us still. I swung my legs from the bed. The salesman asked, “What are you—I mean, do you know what you’re having for dinner?”

I looked over at Marshall, suddenly afraid we’d blurt out conflicting stories simultaneously. Our lie was already transparent, but the constantly shifting power balance in the room still made me want to avoid the equivalent of our sitting, so deep into his store, now, on one of his beds, saying, “We are lying to you.”

So, “I don’t know!” I blurted out. Then, with a new, practiced air of laziness, a woman just rising from bed after all, and stretching her arms, “We’re going to the Ethiopian place up the road,” I said. “Do you know it?” This might have been plausible, I thought. Perfectly plausible we’d never eaten Ethiopian food in our lives and had no idea what we were in for.

“Wow, yeah,” he said. “I had Thai food last night! Good! But boy, was it expensive!” This man’s enthusiasm was cardboard-thin. He didn’t want to be having this conversation.

Neither, of course, did we. We made our excuses and left: 6:42. Time, precisely, to meet our friends, it seemed.

“Okay, well, I’m just the assistant manager. The manager, Jim, he’ll be in, tomorrow.” These were the saleman’s parting words. For the rest of the night, we tried to figure them out. What was he telling us? Was he just trying to ensure he’d get a commission? Or was he apologizing for his poor sales skills, letting us know that if we returned, it would be to a superior sales technician and experience? Was he so very self-abasing that this was his way of telling us how to complain to his superior about his poor salesmanship? Oh, the times are hard. Coming back to the car from the wine shop, I clutched the paper-bag-swathed bottle recommended to us by the brusque owner there for our dinner at home. Neither of us looked into the mattress shop’s windows as we walked the other way through its bath of blue-white light.