Thrift Shop

I met with the Crew in front of the Auditorium doors after school. It was Tuesday, and I had a shopping trip to go on.

The day before we had finished painting the platforms. Tomorrow we were moving on to set fabrication. Today we were leaving the boys behind, because I needed more clothes.

Autumn gave me a hug, and Rachel and Bree were holding hands, and Sarah was standing up, and the guys all looked like they were ready for whatever. Until Rachel started walking off and said, “Bye guys, we’ll see you tomorrow!”

Everyone giggled. All the girls giggled, anyway.

I giggled too.

“I’m sick of driving all your asses around,” Autumn said. “We’re taking Rachel’s car.”

“Sure,” Rachel said. “Where did you want to go first?”

“Scoff!” Autumn said, “Scoff I say! We’re going to Cherry Creek, bitches.”

Bree opened the door to the Rachel’s car and waited for me to get inside. I waited for her to get inside. Autumn brushed past us and sat in the middle, which meant that I had to walk around to the other side of the car. I was good with it because it meant I’d get to cuddle Autumn some more.

We’d been texting back and forth, but she hadn’t been able to pick me up that morning because of some reason that I forget. We hadn’t had any time alone to ourselves for a bit.

I missed her.

Which was stupid. It had only been a couple of days since we’d… I guess sort of had sex. Well really tame sex. Well great for me, but I think Autumn had wanted to go farther. And all the woman-bleeding in between had cooled things, and I wanted to heat them up again.

But I didn’t know how to go about doing that.

My feelings about the shopping trip in general were conflicted. This was a girl thing, that I was doing with the girls. I had been telling myself that it was just because I needed someone to shop with, but everyone had leaped right into the idea of a girls day, and I had no way to stop it.

I sat behind Rachel as she drove, and Autumn put her head on my shoulder idly. She held my hand and Bree’s hand. This time it wasn’t hard not to feel jealous. We were all together here.

And I got her head on my shoulder, so I won.

We found parking North of the outdoor mall, on 3rd street, and walked. The air was crisp without even being cold. “Crisp” air is just dry, and Denver is a hair away from the deserts of the Southwest. The leaves were thinning out of the trees, and people were out shopping for the fall collections.

“This is what we want,” Sarah pulled open the door of a shop, and we walked inside.

Inside it smelled like a thrift store. “Is this a thrift store?” I asked Autumn.

“You want good clothes for cheep? Go to the thrift store in the most affluent part of the city.” Then her eyes lit on something, “Here. You. This is perfect for you.”

“How… how do I fit into it?” I picked at the cloth. I didn’t know what to call it, but it was a deep auburn, and very tiny.

“First off, you’re a twig, so it won’t be a problem. Second, it’s a shrug.”

“It seems kind of superfluous.”

Bree pulled it off the shelf and held it up to my hair, “Oh, it’s perfect. Matches your freckles.” Apparently convincing me to get this piece of clothing was going to be a team effort. Bree handed it to me, “It is superfluous. All women’s clothing is fucking superfluous.” She saw my confusion and sighed, “Okay, Aisling. You’re an art slut right?”

“I’m not—”

“You are. And you understand art concepts, like framing, right?”

“Yeah,” I was still smarting from the slut thing. I had no idea why being a slut was terrible, as a guy I had liked sluts. But… You know what? That’s Bree. Find a way to call her a cunt later and call it even.

“Well this,” she waved the sides where they came together, only on a “shrug” they would never come together, “frames your hot-ass tits.”

“I guess…” Wait… this is art? I know art! I picked up the little sweater thing, and looked at the color. But it had really tight sleeves. I couldn’t wear a regular top with it.

Then Bree said something that stopped me dead. “Besides, dress code. We can’t wear spaghetti straps unless we have something covering our shoulders.”

Nonononononononononono. Deep breaths. Figure out a way to call the whole thing off. “I… don’t like… tops like that.”

Autumn was going through more things on the rack while Rachel leaned across, “Well the weather won’t give you a chance to for much longer. Do it while you can. You need a low cut top to go with it, and you won’t find that in a shirt.”

“Can this please not become a conversation about why I don—”

“I got it!” Autumn snapper her fingers. “Aisling, everyone loves your freckles. Flaunt them, honey.”

Sarah leaned in, two of her own hangers already in her hands, “Just how far down do they go?”

“All the way to her nipples.”

I turned beat red as everyone giggled, then Rachel said, “Don’t gloat just cause you got there first Autumn.” Then she stepped in and gave me a quick kiss. “Did anyone tell you I play the bassoon?”

Well. No one had really come on to me like that before. I just bit my lip.

“Good.” She put her fingers up to her ear and mouthed, call me.

I had to do something to break the moment, and went with the clothing in my hand, and the knowledge that I could art clothing. Arting clothing is called fashion, Aisling.

Shut up Aisling. Fashion is a girl thing. This is clothes art. “It needs… Something light. But not too light. Maybe blue?” I would focus on the fact that I couldn’t wear the thing without my shoulders bare later. Color was my primary consideration at that time.

Several blue tops were found, some discarded, some held up to the fabric then discarded. “Oh, that one right there!” Sarah pointed at my hands.

My hands were only holding the bolero, in between two hangers on the rack.

“This one,” she came around and held the burgundy next to a deep blue…

A deep blue dress. Not a skirt, a whole dress. For covering your whole body in. It had inch wide straps, and a deep-cut bodice, and embroidered hearts on it.

And I knew that I couldn’t do this anymore.

I couldn’t do it anymore because… Oh, my god. I wanted this.

It’s exactly what I came here to do. That all became clear to me then. I brought all the girls out here so that they could talk me into buying girly clothes. My whole body felt numb as she took it off the rack, and handed it to me.

We browsed more wracks, grabbing and arguing. I felt that empty feeling when you haven’t eaten in hours, and your blood sugar plummets all of the sudden. Not because I was hungry, but because I’d realized something unthinkable about myself. The term “self-sabotage” made sense in a way it never had before.

There were a few more skirts, a few more tops, a sweater. Then I was handed all the clothes I had come here for, and was shoved into a changing room.

Well. I’m having another emotional crisis in a dressing room. Do they make these rooms for anything else? Because apparently that’s all I use them for.

Okay, Aisling. Got to get out of your head, and get back in your bootie.

The dress was blue cotton, and draped over my shoulders. It came down almost to my knees and had a scoop neckline that dug more than a little bit of cleavage out of the available real estate. I found myself fluffing my hair to get it out of the dress. Then holding it up, and looking at my reflection. Then down. Then back.

I looked pretty. Not cute, not hot, not fuckable, not anything but pretty. I put on the shrug sweater and then you could really see the definition of my tits, and the cleavage between them popped into the foreground. There. Clothes art. Now I just needed to art up some heels—nononononononononoNO!

Maybe.

I stepped out of the dressing room, and got aws, and hoots. Sarah stepped out beside me in a sea-green top and black leather stretch jeans. We talked about how great she looked. They talked about how great I looked.

Sarah turned to go into her dressing room, and I felt… definitely not disappointed about putting my jeans on again. Absolutely not that.

If you had asked me if I could see myself buying a dress someday, I would have said yes. I could see myself buying a nice dress for a pretty girl, who I was in love with. Possibly as a birthday present, or for valentines day. I could see myself doing it in high school even, surprising my girlfriend with a red box like in some movie I only half watched. Later she would let me take it off of her. Very slowly.

Well there I was, having bought not one, but three dresses for a pretty girl. But they were going home with me, and I was the pretty girl. Later I would let someone else take them off of me.

I couldn’t say when I had lost the thread. Rule no.2 has slowly eroded beneath me until I was standing on a pebble. The worst part—the worst part—was that after seeing that pretty girl (again, me) in the mirror, wearing the dress…

I had wanted to wear it. Wanted to feel it on me. Wanted to be seen it it. Wanted everyone to see what a pretty girl I was, who looked so pretty in her pretty dress.

I was so far beyond myself, leaving the shop with the girls. I can’t recall any of the conversation. I can’t remember where we went or what we did. All I was thinking about was taking the dresses home and putting them on. Going to school, or somewhere in public. Meeting someone I liked, one of the Daves, or anyone on the Crew really. Having them say, “You look beautiful in your dress, that you are wearing like a girl, Aisling.” Maybe if I wore it right they would buy my something to eat and then we would go to their place and I would let them take it off me.

“I’ll take it off you,” Autumn whispered to me.

Shit. “How long was I talking to myself?”

“You’re lips have been moving for the last half hour,” She slurped a slurpy drink. “Occasionally a word would leap out. That last sentence was the most clear you’ve been.”

I was too shell shocked to be embarrassed right now, “Oh.” I looked around the Cherry Creek Mall. “What are we doing now?”

“I promised you I would buy you boots.”

“No, that’s okay.”

She laughed, “It is okay. Because that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Please don’t,” but I think I only said it in my head, because she’d grabbed my hand and pulled me to catch up with the others.

We went through the mall carrying bags and slurping drinks, and looking like the worst kind of high class high school trash. And I mentioned this and everyone laughed, and we all started strutting. Wrists out, pretending to carry our teacup poodles in the purses we didn’t have. Sarah was the only one wearing something like a heel, and so she pulled it off best. Rachel tried walking on her tiptoes, but she was wearing a pair of steel toed boots that couldn’t do that.

“Wait, wait. Wait. Stop. I’m going to see if I can do this. I used to be able to do this.” She put her arms together in what might be a plie, or some other ballet term. Whatever it was, it looked like it sounded French. The idiocy of trying to stand on point in steel toes was lost on us all, until she toppled over and took Autumn and me out too. The shock of hitting the ground fled quickly as we all collapsed into giggle fits.

We passed the children’s play area, where bored parents tried to get toddlers to exhaust themselves enough that they could do some shopping without risking a melt down. Past shops with romantic names. In that they were from far away and sounded strange. Past carts selling t-shirts, plushies, and things with lights on sticks that waved.

Under a hallway on the promenade, when we had almost passed it, I saw a cart that needed my attention, and jerked Autumn’s arm. She called to the others, “Did you not see the Lego cart?”

Sarah and Rachel didn’t care, and Bree came bolting over to look. They had a (heh) cart sized selection of Lego. Mostly custom or hard to find sets, in a glass case. Some not-very rare Star Wars sets, and a hundred strong collection of tertiary custom characters. Ones that I’m sure weren’t licensed.

There was Darth Maul, and Qui Gon, and Hagrid, sure. But there was also Plo Kun, Kit Fisto, and Charlie Weasley. Dragons, orcs, gollum, Benny (complete with broken helmet), and a tube of kragle. I searched for, and found, a Luminara Unduli (the green skinned Jedi with the dots on her chin), for ten bucks. The Lego head dress looked really weird and I considered abandoning it. But even though she appears on the screen for seven seconds at most, I’ve had a serious thing for her since I was five.

I bought the figure, passed on a special display case, tried to put her in my pocket, and found that she fit just barely.

“Is she like, a role model?” Rachel asked.

“More of a fantasy,” the honesty leaped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

She laughed and held her hand out. I gave her the figure.

“Well now I know what you’re into.” She held the figure out and put her hand on her hip. “I think I could pull it off. What’s with her hat?”

“It’s some kind of religious shall thing? It’s never really explained.” We went up the escalator, where I stood stock still and didn’t touch anything, out of longstanding and deeply ingrained fear.

“What’s her name?”

“Luminara Unduli.”

Sarah took the action figure from her and made light saber noises, then chopped Bree’s hand off, “Isn’t that a wizard spell?”

And then Bree stopped writhing in agony and clutching her wrist to say, “That’s lumos.”

Sarah laughed again, and called us all nerds, and we called her a squib, and she said she was a Griffyndor, and even if she only knew one spell that would make her the Slytherin valedictorian, and Autumn punched her in the arm because Autumn was a Slytherin.

And then we all had to stop giggling because we were getting really weird looks in the shoe store that I didn’t want to be in.