Word: marts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Retailers, usually an outwardly optimistic lot, are guarded this year. Said Robert Mooney, corporate economist for New York City-based J.C. Penney, the third largest U.S. retailer, behind Sears and K mart: "It's going to be a fairly good Christmas, though not a robust one." Mooney foresees a sales increase, after inflation, of only 2.5% to 3% for the industry this year...
...says Miami Historian Arva Parks. "We have always been vulnerable to certain kinds of people, so that when opportunity knocked, exploitation answered." Even today, most of those who live in the area grew up somewhere else, and their sense of community may extend only as far as the K mart down the street. "You can't compare us to Boston or Denver," says Mayor Ferre. "Our people's roots are always somewhere else...
...does not want to be forced into retirement: "If you're a dynamo but have gray hair, you won't get the job." Uplift by scalpel is not to white-collar occupations, either. A surgeon says, "It is Mr. and Mrs. America who shop at K mart are getting face-liftings." New York cosmetic surgeons report a new class of patients - policemen, sanitation workers and truckers...
...outset: a woman named Alejandra murders a man named Fernando and then sets the scene of the crime on fire, immolating herself. The event draws attention because it involves members of a prominent, though sadly faded, old family. Particularly horrified is a dreamy, morose young man named Martín, who has had a tortured affair with Alejandra. Roughly the first half of the novel tells their story...
Meeting him in a public park, Alejandra chooses Martín as a companion for reasons that he never quite fathoms. She is erratic, tempestuous, given to long, unexplained absences and indifferent to Martín's growing passion and love. She takes him to the crumbling family home, populated now by a few aging relatives in varying stages of derangement. She suffers what appears to be an epileptic fit, recovers and falls asleep. Martín watches and realizes that he cannot save her: "It was as if the prince ... had at last found himself before the cavern...