“I think they’ve been plucked.” I motion to the porch of the house, where baskets are overflowing with the long, single-eyed plumes.
The bird jumps up on the rim of the windshield. Ya-oooooooof!
The four of us nearly jump out of our skin and then scramble to get out of the car.
Baaaa!
Lucky is startled from his lamby dreams. Seth reaches back and grabs Lucky, and we run up the steps of the porch. The front door opens.
“Pete! Get off that car! And stop scaring the customers!” a tall rail of a woman screams. She waves her arm and the bird jumps to the ground. She smiles at us. “Don’t mind Pete. He gets a chuckle out of watching us featherless folk run. He’s harmless. Most of the time.”
“Glad we could provide some amusement,” Seth says.
“You just wait till the next customer arrives. You’ll be amused,” she says, nodding her head.
“Are you Babs?” I ask.
“The one and only, thank goodness.” She ushers us through the door. “Browse to your heart’s content. We have most everything.”
“I’ll say,” Aidan replies, mostly in a hushed tone to himself, as he runs his finger along the dusty keys of an ancient piano just inside the entrance.
Babs flutters off to attend to something behind the counter, and we are left to explore the hulk of a store. She doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice, that we have brought a lamb in with us. Perhaps when you have brash peacocks strutting boldly about, a small fluffy lamb is of little consequence. Or maybe Babs simply chooses to see what she wants to see. I can understand the usefulness of that.
The store is a paintbox paradise. The dauber of the outside apparently has had free rein with the interior as well. The floor is an enameled royal blue, and the rest of the woodwork, from window casings to staircases, is a medley of shiny yellows, greens, fuchsias, and purples. It brightens the dingy merchandise that has been cast off by previous owners. Peacock feathers decorate walls, fill baskets, and, in the case of a nearby lampshade, are sometimes turned into other merchandise. Now I know with certainty why Pete is featherless and cranky.
“The clothing’s in the back.” Mira maneuvers down an aisle, pulling a reluctant Aidan with her. I note that she becomes bolder with him by the minute. Before today I had never seen her touch him, much less take his hand. For Mira, the day is turning out to be very fair indeed. And Aidan, who is normally so prickly about his person, seems to have made an exception for Mira’s grabby hands. I am not sure who is the puppy dog and who is the liver treat anymore.
Seth grins, still holding Lucky securely under his arm. “You first,” he says, allowing me to walk down the narrow aisle. I feel him close behind me, anticipating my moves, pausing when I pause to look at a stringless ukulele, brushing against my back, no sense of space. I feel the heat of his body, and suddenly it jumps to me and the whole store seems terribly warm. I pause again to look at a weathered ox yoke, and he speaks over my shoulder. “Think it would fit?”
I step back like I am examining it, coming down hard on his foot, a lesson in space and manners. I hear him wince. “I think not,” I say. “But it might be your size.” I move on, and yet he stays close behind, and when his shoulder brushes against mine, I decide it isn’t the end of the world. Space is not everything, and I linger near an antique coatrack and his chest brushes my back and neither of us says a word and neither of us moves until finally Mira squeals.
“Look at this!” she calls.
We move forward again and walk to the racks of clothing. Mira is holding up a gray skirt. “I can’t believe it! I’ve always wanted one of these. And it’s my size!” She flips it around and I can see a large fluffy white poodle embellished on the front. “And it’s only three dollars,” she whispers. “It’s too good to be true.”
I smile and wave the hundred-dollar bill I brought from the glove box. “It’s yours.” She hoots and turns back to the rack, searching for a blouse.
“That,” Seth whispers in my ear. “That’s what I noticed.”
I look at him, confused. “What—”
He steps close so the others can’t hear. “Your smile. That’s what I noti
ced about you. The one you’re stingy with. You rarely share it. And after two weeks at Hedgebrook, when I finally saw it, I wondered why. You have a . . . very nice one.”
I don’t know what to say. “Oh” is the only thing I manage to croak.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s look for something before Aidan and Mira get all the good stuff.”
I nod. I even allow a smile. A small thing to offer for one who doesn’t complain about a crushed foot.
17
“THAT’LL BE TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS,” Babs says.
She bags up the uniforms we have shed as we admire each other’s new attire. Mira found a red sweater to go with her poodle skirt, and Aidan wears a blue plaid shirt with pearlescent snaps. Mira keeps calling him partner, and he nods like he’s wearing a cowboy hat, which he isn’t, and it feels like I have entered an alternate universe just watching the two of them. Maybe I have.
Seth’s new clothes, and mine, are less flashy, but still far more flamboyant than our boxy school uniforms. Seth wears blue jeans and a faded long-sleeved green shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I wear black from head to toe, a snug short-sleeved tee paired with a midcalf skirt that has a flowing uneven hem. Mira had complained that I needed something more colorful, but the fussy hem of the skirt was the most flash I could tolerate. Our shoes are still the standard-issue oxfords from Hedgebrook. Shoes, it seems, are one of the few things Babs has in short supply.