by Gurley, Jan
“What?” Something about the raw tone in his voice made me think for a second he might be serious. “What the heck are you talking about?”
“Well, for starters — that,” he said, gesturing at me. “It’s like you think we’re so crass and shallow and materialistic that it makes your skin crawl.”
That’s when I realized I was plastered against the passenger doorway, trying to keep my ten feet of distance, even inside the car.
I let myself relax and then gave him this look as I thought to myself, oh baby, if you only knew what you did to my skin. I must have dropped my guard, or he saw something on my face, because this heat flared between us.
There was a moment when neither of us seemed able to breathe, I could feel my heart thudding in places where it shouldn’t thud, then he said, his voice husky, “Tell me where we’re going. No way are you ditching me again. Not this time.”
I swallowed, and had to try twice to find my voice, “The mall.”
He stared straight ahead, like he couldn’t look at me and continue the battle, “Nope.”
“Why not? I’m good at this. I can find something that’ll make you look, well, like them, and like us.”
He leaned back and fished in his torn front pocket and slapped something on the console between us. “For forty dollars?”
I had to try twice, again, to find my voice, “That’s it?”
One arm curled over the steering wheel, he smiled that wicked Bianca smile at me. My heart did a furious flop in my chest, the way a trout flings itself when it’s caught on a line. The air heated in the small space between us and then he leaned toward me, his hand raised like he was going to brush my hair back off my face. I jerked backward until my shoulder blade hit the window.
Weirdly, he didn’t seem to mind. He put the car in gear, smiling to himself as he looked down the intersection to enter traffic and said, “You better be good at this, ‘cause that forty bucks is for both of us.”
I made some choking sound. I stared at the two twenties in horror. He turned, “What? You can’t do it? Oh well, I guess my mom was right. There’s nothing she loves more than winning.”
“What?”
“Your mom bet my mom that you could do it. Even gave her two-to-one odds. In front of all the other mah-jongg ladies.”
Have I mentioned already that my mom is so entirely dead?
***
Four hours, forty bucks, two Uni-worthy outfits, head-to-toe. It was the ultimate challenge. Really, it should have been a final episode in a reality-show contest.
Project Geek’s Way.
Drew asked, “Consignment stores?”
“Too pricey,” I said, and he blinked, like he didn’t realize that was possible.
“Goodwill?” he asked.
“Still too pricey,” I said.
He rubbed his palm against the steering wheel. He said, his voice flat this time, “So my mom really was right.”
“Farmer’s Market,” I said, my fists clenched on my thighs. “Hurry!”
Antonio runs the Clothes By The Pound stall at the local farmer’s market. Charities, regular people, estate sales, stores, and even manufacturers struggle to deal with all the leftover and donated clothes they have. So Antonio, for a price, takes them all off their hands without picking through them. He then tosses them, unsorted, into a giant covered dump truck that he keeps parked in an oversized garage at his home. Every weekend, Antonio leaves home, backs onto the Farmer’s Market lot, spreads blue tarps on the ground that he metal-clips together into a pool-sized sheet, and then he climbs in the truck and dumps. When it’s time to leave, he connects the four corners of the tarps to rope, and winches the whole bundle back into his truck like a giant blue Santa sack.
The price? Five bucks a pound for any clothes you want. It helps to have a good eye for how much something might weigh, but the biggest challenge is eyeballing the size and style without ever being able to try it on.
Finding the great stuff at Clothes By The Pound is mostly a result of being there first. People have been known to show up at five a.m. and wait in the dark. Since it was almost two in the afternoon on a Saturday, that option was long gone. Which left the only other way to find the good stuff — being lucky.
***
Drew stood with his hands in his front pockets, eying the one-story high pyramid of clothes, wider than a house. Women with fretful children picked at the flattened edges. “Hold this,” I said, handing him my bag as I balanced at the edge of the blue tarp and took one shoe, then the other off and handed them to him.
He had a baffled look on his face, and before he could ask, I took a running start and was already churning up the side, sending sprays of clothes down to the bottom, the crowd of women perking up as I uncovered items in my mountain-goat climb to the top.
From rooftop-high elevation, I sat, catching my breath, and then started shoving. I saw, far below, Antonio and his constant cup of coffee (this mug’s slogan: Hyperbole is The BEST Thing EVER!). Antonio wandered over to stand beside Drew.
I heard Antonio say, “She’s something, ain’t she?”
Drew gave him a nod back, his eyes on me as I tossed armfuls down to the women. “That she is,” he answered.
***
There was a moment when I forgot everything. I was digging into the side of the clothes-pyramid, buried up to my shoulders, wiping tumbling-down clothes aside with my face, and I pulled out a men’s rugby shirt from the forties. I stood, waving it over my head like a flag. “Yes,” I did a fist-pump and bounded down to Drew to hold it against his shoulders. He stood with his hands in his front pockets, his eyes half-closed, this smile on his face.
Looking down at me, he shook his head and said, “I’ve never seen anyone have so much fun for fifty cents.”
I went instantly still, my face turning redder than it was from the work of digging and whipped the shirt away. He grabbed my arm, “What?”
“That’s Uni code for cheap, right?”
He interrupted me, sounding angry too, “I meant you’re genuine. The real deal. Not someone who gets their rocks off on plastic, or paper, or whatever currency you want to pick.”
My mouth did this silent O.
He took the shirt and held it in front of him. “This it?”
“Not yet,” I said, and dove back in.
***
I found a pair of tan chamois pants for him — cowboy-wear, like the kind you’re supposed to put chaps over. They were obscenely soft. When I looked for him at the bottom of the pile, Drew wasn’t there. Maybe he went to get a drink?
“Hey,” he shouted, “Over here.”
He was on the other side of the pyramid, his hair sticking up. Since we were overturning the stock, more people collected around the base, lifting, holding things up, putting items in thin plastic bags. I scrabbled to his side.
“How’s this?” I asked, handing him the trousers.
He checked inside the waistband. “Looks good. Might be a little tight in the thighs, but all my trousers are.”
Then he got this kind of shy look on his face. “What do you think of this?” He handed me a fistful of ice-blue lace. “You don’t like it,” he hurried to say, “you can just say.”
In the silence, he added, “Maybe it’s too much. For a birthday party at someone’s home, I mean.”
It was an ice-blue, all lace, boned-corset-topped dress with a full, below-the-knee ballerina skirt. It was exactly the kind of dress that the tiny plastic girl used to sproing up and twirl around in as the music tinkled when you opened an old-fashioned jewelry box.
It was probably all the dust from the clothes, but my throat felt all scratchy and tickley, like I couldn’t trust my voice. “It’s beautiful.” To check the size, I tucked the dress’ top under my armpits. “Might be a bit tight,” I said, not meeting his eyes.
For some reason, I knew I’d somehow squeeze myself into it.
When we got to the paying station, there was a long line. At the front, An
tonio (with a different coffee mug, slogan: This Is NOT A Photo Opportunity) said, “Now that dress is a find, mm, mmm. Rugby shirt’s prime. Pants’re okay, but it seems like this outfit of his is missing something, girl.”
I held still. Antonio and I went way back. He appreciates me stirring up business for him. Sometimes he gives me a clue.
“Before I finish your total, how about you check out six and three.”
He tucked our stuff under the counter and I turned and sprinted back to the pile.
See, Antonio watches the clothes as they tumble in and out of his truck. The dump truck acts kind of like a concrete mixer where the clothes are always being rolled and rolled. Sometimes Antonio spots something really nice. If he doesn’t particularly want or need it for himself, sometimes he’ll give a customer a heads up about where it might be.
Drew ran beside me. “Six and three?”
“Coordinates. Six o’clock on a clock-face if the pay station’s a twelve. Then three feet down.”
We both dove into the pile.
When I spotted it, I couldn’t believe it. I dragged it out — a tagged sample from a warehouse.
Not just any sample either.
It was a black, heavy-leather bomber’s jacket. Size extra large.
When we got back to the checkout, Drew said, “Dude, that jacket’s too nice.”
“Somebody’s gonna buy it.” Antonio said, weighing and ringing up, looking prim. “Hell, that’d hang to my knees. Besides, this girl doubles my business every day she comes. She earned it.”
The leather jacket was so heavy, we didn’t have much money left. Drew said, “Well, we’ve got over two hours. What you want to do?”
I smiled. “Go to the laundromat.”
He looked confused. He was such a novice shopper.
We walked to the Everything 99 Cents Or Less store and I bought detergent, a mesh bag, and a box of dryer sheets. I went next door to the sports shop and bought a tiny bottle of baseball glove conditioner.
Drew said, “Shouldn’t we go back home to wash these?”
“Nope, don’t have the time” I said, “We can do three loads at once here, and the air-dry option in a dryer big enough to let a garment lie flat.”
“What if this stuff doesn’t fit?”
“Oh ye of little faith.” Then I relented, “Fact is, if these don’t fit, we’re out of money. So we’re screwed.”
He leaned toward me as I stacked quarters. “And then my mom wins.”
“I wouldn’t go counting my mother out of the race yet, not if I was you. Done that, lived to regret it.”
I slid the skyscrapers of quarters to one side, leaving a tiny pile in front of me.
“So,” I said, brightly wiping the tiny pile off the top into my hand and looking down at it, “want to split a churro for supper?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, a big smile on his face, “seems like a lot.”
“Yeah,” I said, equally nonchalant, “we could split a stick of gum, instead.”
“What the heck. It’s not like I turn eighteen every day. Let’s splurge on the churro.”
I didn’t trust leaving the leather coat in the laundromat, so I headed out to the sidewalk churro stand and left Drew with the tumbling machines.
I’d gotten my order and was counting to myself as I dropped coins one at a time in the churro seller’s hand (a very short and wide hunch-backed woman in a black dress with an impressive uni-brow and a million wrinkles). The warm sugary churro smell wafted up to me, as a guy’s voice said, “Hey, I’ve got something for you to put in your mouth.”
It was flabby-cheeked, pale-brown-haired sleaze-guy. The one who’d bothered me at Dino-Dog.
I ignored him. He moved to my side of the churro cart.
I dropped the last coin, turned to leave and he grabbed my arm.
I gave him a look and said, “Don’t you dare put your hand on me.”
His friends, all still on the other side of the cart, started that chuckle guys do in this kind of situation.
Everything seemed to go into slow-mo. Simultaneously, sleaze-guy narrowed his eyes, I could feel his damp hand tighten on my arm, I saw the churro lady reach under her counter, and Drew’s voice said, behind me, “Adrian. She said get your goddamn hand off her —”
Which is when the churro lady whipped out a fly-swatter and thwapped the sleaze-guy on the head.
That one thwap seemed to shift time back into normal speed and she thwapped, thwapped, thwapped his ear, head, and neck until he said, “OW! What is with you people?” And moved away.
I stood there, feeling heat on my cheeks and a tightness in my chest. The churro lady tucked her fly-swatter back under her cart and started serving the next person in line, like nothing happened.
Flabby-cheeked guy, moving away with his friends, turned and shouted back, “Dog — listen, sorry! I didn’t know.”
Drew slid his hand up my back to my neck and gave a gentle pull. I stumbled toward him, almost into his chest, and then we were walking back across the street to the laundromat, his warm hand still loose against the skin of my neck, under my hair.
When we got inside, he moved off like nothing had happened, but his mouth was white around the edges, and his jaw clenched.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say I was sorry, because I hadn’t done anything. Even so, it felt icky, knowing he’d heard what the sleaze-guy said to me, like anyone could say that kind of thing, any time they wanted to.
Drew said, jaw still clenched, not looking at me, “That’s the last time you’ll have to go through that. I guarantee it.”
Then he came back to where I stood. He slouched against the folding table, reached over to me, pinched off an end of churro and bit it, white powdery sugar on the side of his mouth.
I tried not to stare. “Really?” I said, and took a bite myself. “You’re that all-powerful?”
He gave me a look. “You want to bet me? But I warn you, this one’s my area of expertise.”
“What, sleazy guys?”
“Nope,” he said, getting up to check on the dryer situation, “the football team.” He voice echoed from inside the dryer, “And don’t say they’re the same thing, even though, in this case, they are.”
CHAPTER TEN
Never Dated
Chapter 10
Darkness had fallen and the party started before the clothes were finished. The only people left in the laundromat (besides us) were a tired woman and her three small kids. The baby in a pink stretchy sat in a car seat on a washing machine, big eyes getting bigger as the warm jiggling seemed to make her sleepier. The two-year old boy was fussy, running around in circles, and his older four-year old sister kept trying to herd him into a kid corner where there were broken odds and ends of dirty toys. As I went to change in the laundromat bathroom, Drew walked over and sat in a microscopically small kids’ chair next to them, which made them both laugh. Drew sat in the chair and curled the giggling boy like a bicep weight, over and over, the girl jumping and clapping and counting as Drew did each curl with exaggerated effort.
When I walked out the door, the mother raised her chin to get her daughter’s attention. Her daughter, seeing me, clapped a hand over her mouth, and I realized that, next to the little girl, Drew sat frozen, the boy half-curled up. The boy, his chest and tummy cradled in Drew large hand, each of his fists gripping one of Drew’s fingers, said, “Princess! Princess!” He wriggled down and the two kids started chanting it and bunny-hopping in a circle. Instead of shushing them, the way she had done before, their mother smiled down at the clothes she was folding.
I played ring-around-the-roses while Drew changed, both of the kids entranced by the sight of my dress puffing out into a multi-layered, deflating tent that threatened to bury all three of us when I dropped to the floor.
Then the bathroom door opened.
Drew’s hair looked damp, like he’d run wet hands through it. The pants fit him so beautifully that even I couldn’
t believe I’d found them in a heap. The tan chamois was soft and clingy. You could see the muscles of his thigh shift when he came across the room and sat in the tiny chair, suddenly awkward.
His jacket gave him an edge he’d never had when he wore Uni-approved, predictable clothes. The jacket changed him, from a high school guy, to a man.
I sat on my heels with the dress poofed out around me, looking up at him. His face was a little pink, like he’d either splashed it with too warm water, or he was flushed.
We stared at each other and I said, after clearing my throat, “Let me see the shirt.”
It was tight across the shoulders, and it had that magical combination that only real, vintage rugby shirts achieve — stiff blinding-white collars and soft-draping shirt-cloth.
He shrugged the jacket back up on his shoulders, held a hand down to lift me up and said, his voice gruff, “So how do I look?”
The kids jumped and clapped behind us as we left, their mother smiling and looking years younger.
We walked in the spring night, and I said, “I don’t know how to put it. You look exactly like… you know all those Abercrombie and Fitch ads? All your Uni pals when they get dressed up? You look exactly like what they’re trying to achieve.” I smiled at him. “They’re a watered down, trying too hard, imitation. You’re it.”
His face was definitely red now. He said, talking to the sidewalk with his hands in his jacket pockets, “Um. I was expecting a ‘nice.’”
I smiled to myself. “Then don’t ask, if you don’t want to know.”
He opened the car door for me. “I can tell you one thing I don’t want. I don’t want to be the one to tell my mom she lost. Big time.”
“And I don’t want to be the one to tell my mom she won. She’ll be impossible to live with.”
