Mazewood

             There was a taxidermy moose head looking at me judgmentally from over the bar. I glared back at it and ate a carrot stick.

            Gillian came around the couches and toward the food table and caught sight of me.

            “There you are,” she said. “Do you want to stay and listen, or go shopping?”

            “Shopping,” I said. “I can’t drive. Do you have a car?”

            “Sure do,” Gillian said. “Want to bring food with you?”

            “I probably should,” I said. I put a couple more little triangular sandwiches on my plate and we went out into the foyer and into the late afternoon sunshine.

            “God, he’s good,” Gillian said.

            “Who?” We got into Gillian’s car.

            “Jack Aegis,” Gillian said. “Didn’t you know he was coming?”

            “Oh, I guess. I knew someone named Jack was coming.”

            “He’s world famous,” Gillian said.

            “Huh,” I said, and ate a sandwich. I’d seen a guy with long dark hair and a hat, way in the back on a stage, playing guitar, but that room was big and darkish and felt really off-putting to me, like walking into someone’s house when they were halfway through a party. I didn’t like the feeling at all.

            “You okay?” Gillian said.

            “I was up really late painting,” I said. “Slept half the day. I just woke up.”

            “Oh, of course! How’s the painting going?”

            “Eh. First one I’ve done since getting back here. So I’m happy it’s working at all.” I kicked myself internally for being such a liar, but also I didn’t want to be The Girl Who Couldn’t Do It Anymore, an object of pity or scorn, while all these people were engaged in making a movie about me doing the thing I couldn’t do. Ugh.

            “I get that,” said Gillian. “After I graduated, I was so burned out, I didn’t sew anything for two years. I kind of couldn’t. I’d want to, you know, then I’d just hear all that criticism and all the drama and negativity and jealousy and I would just walk away.”

            “How’d you get started again?”

            “Thrift shopping, oddly enough. I found a silk dress I adored, but it needed alteration. I dusted off my sewing machine, which cost a fortune, by the way, and set up my old work table, and never looked back. I still wear that dress, too.”

            “Nice,” I said. “I want to learn to do that. My friend Lily was going to teach me, but we never really found time. She makes these incredible designer-looking dresses, all linen and beautiful? But she said they’re just from remnants she buys cheap. She looks at catalogues and then copies what she likes.”

            “She must have real talent,” said Gillian. “She’s a friend from school here?”

            “Oh, no, Dane’s sister. I wish she’d come out here. I should invite her.”

            Gillian pulled the car into the parking lot of the thrift store in town.

            “I have to take you to the Gagnes’ store,” I said. “They don’t have clothes, but you’ll go crazy for everything else.”

            “I would love that,” Gillian said. “Let’s see what we can find here for our girls first. I got Tasha’s measurements, and the little girls already have the uniform, but we need weekend clothes for them.”

            “Funny to think of them wearing their actual uniforms in the movie, as me,” I said. “The whole thing is so bizarre that it shuts my brain down sometimes. I try not to think about it.”

            “Tell me when you see the kind of thing you wore as a little kid, or as a teen,” Gillian said, leading the way to the kids’ section. “I can cut down anything that’s too big.”

            “I’m still wearing the things I wore as a teen,” I said. “I still am a teen.”

            Gillian looked at me, a little startled.

            “I forget,” she said. “I’m sorry. You seem so adult.”

            “Eighteen,” I said. “Graduated in May. Just like Tasha.”

            “Ooh,” said Gillian. “Is this the kind of parka?” It was a child-sized navy blue parka, a bit dirty and worn.

            “Exactly,” I said. “Here’s another one.”

            Gillian clutched both of them, and I went in search of a cart. When I came back, Gillian had a whole armful of things that she dumped into it.

            “That should do it for this week,” she said. “Let’s look at your size. Look for the things you would have worn if you could have had anything you wanted from here.”

            “I didn’t even know this place existed,” I said. I looked through the racks. “I would have loved this.” She held up a beautiful soft dark sweater with a hole in it.

            “I can fix that hole,” Gillian said. “It’ll show, but maybe that’s good.”

            “Fix it with another color,” I said. “That’s what I used to do, to prove I didn’t care if anyone knew it was mended.”

            Gillian cocked her head on one side and looked at me.

            “That is gold right there,” she said. “That’s character in clothing choice. What else?”

            I kept looking through the racks.

            “When I was really little, the biggest girls had these gorgeous silk and velvet patchwork tops, or jackets, I don’t know. I always wanted one. Oversized, you know? The way they would look, slim, with an oversized top. I never looked that way, even in the same clothes. Come to think of it, that’s Lily’s look. On me they just look like sacks. I don’t know why.”

            “I do,” said Gillian. “It’s all in the cut. A certain cut looks amazing on some people, while that cut doesn’t suit someone else at all. Guess which kind they hire as models. Keep picking things. Pick anything you want.”

            I picked corduroy skirts, a dark suede vest with a fur collar, and enormous white shirts meant for big and tall men. I picked blue jeans and black jeans and cabled sweaters, and found a heavy oversized navy blue cotton cabled turtleneck that I loved so much I wouldn’t put it into the cart but just hugged it to myself. I picked out a long tweed coat and a slouchy knitted hat, and then found the shoe section, where I found mary janes exactly like the ones I’d worn to school.

            “I wonder if these are mine?” I said, then remembered mine were still packed somewhere. Where was my stuff? Still in boxes in the apartment, pushed to the back of the closet, I presumed. I’d been living out of a bag so long, I tended to forget that the other things existed.

            “How much of this is for you?” Gillian said with a grin.

            “Well,” I began, then stopped. “Wait, what?”

            “I’m kidding. You are telling me everything by what you picked out. I can always make or match it, or adapt it, if you want to keep it.”

            “You’re not getting this sweater away from me, that’s for sure,” I said. “I’m in love.”

            “I wouldn’t dream of coming between the two of you,” Gillian said. She took everything to the register and rang it up, while I looked at ice skates and skis and an old adding machine, at lamps and dishes and a wall full of odd artwork. Then I gasped and grabbed a painting from the wall, knocking over a stack of plastic cups.

            “What?” said Gillian. She stacked the cups back up.

            “This painting,” I said.

            “Funny thing, isn’t it?” said Gillian.

            I opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. There was a sticker on the painting that said $2. So when it was my turn, I bought the blue sweater for $4 and the painting for $2, the coat for $5, the hat for $1, and an old wooden recorder by the register for $1, even though it was marked $3.

            “Saves me having to hear every kid in town tootling away on that thing,” said the old lady who worked there. “You ladies have a good night.”

            “Thank you,” I said, clutching the plastic bag. 

            We stowed Gillian’s bags in the trunk, but I kept my bag with me.

            “I painted this,” I said, showing her the canvas. “Two dollars!”

            “That’s hilarious,” Gillian said. “I can see your style in it, actually. How’d it end up here?”

            “Oh, one of the girls paid me to paint it,” I said. It was a portrait of a boy in their class. Looking at it, I was pulled right back to that moment in time. “I suppose she left it behind when she graduated and the school donated everything here. The Gagnes would have recognized it and kept it.”

            “That’s so funny,” said Gillian. “Okay, lead on.”

            I gave directions and we drove to the Gagnes’ place, where the lamps were lit in the windows.

            Gillian started swearing under her breath as soon as she saw the place.

            “Right?” I said happily. I ran ahead and up the steps, leaving Gillian to follow behind me. Inside, I wove my way through the maze of antique chests and cabinets and bureaus until I found Mrs. Gagne reading the newspaper by the pinkish light of a wasp-waisted rose-colored lamp with dangling beaded fringe.

            “Ma mie!” said Mrs. Gagne. “Here you are again at last!”

            “Here I am,” I said. “I brought my friend, the wardrobe person. I think she might buy the whole shop.”

            “Works for me,” said Mrs. Gagne. “Where is the lady then?”

            We went looking for Gillian, who seemed to be trying to hold multiple antique glass oil lamps without breaking them and then trying to pick up more.

            “No no no,” said Mrs. Gagne. “I will get you a box. Give me these.” She relieved Gillian of her burden, then bustled away.