The Taming of the Drew (32 page)

Gremio looked as shocked as if I’d hit him in the face with a raw pork shoulder. Then he flushed a dark, boiled, red and lowered his head at me, spluttering his outrage. “I’ll have you know, there are quality people like
her
— people who should be honored and respected. Ladies — that’s what they are. And then there
some
people who need mandatory drug-testing.”

“Sorry I’m a couple of minutes late,” Celia interrupted, “Would you believe it, my manicure wouldn’t set. Louisa had to get the dryer. Who knew there was a different drying time for different brands?” Her smile seemed to freeze, and she gave a sniff. “What’s that smell?”

I said, “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Drew says he’ll pick you up at home in thirty minutes. Something about you needing time to…what
is
that smell?” Unbeknownst to Celia, as she spoke, her silk camisole broke out in grease splotches from the steam, like some lethal allergic reaction.

Gremio smoothed and patted his embroidered Manager name on his chest, waiting to get her attention. Tucked under his arm were the diseased-looking pup-tent with a new “Hello! My Name Is:” nametag attached (dead-center) and an equally super-sized paper hotdog-shaped hat.
 

I almost felt sorry for her.

I scrabbled under the counter, trying to drag out my bag. “I’ve got to shower,” I said, “change.” I lifted my head in time to see a carload of guys wheel into the lot, shouting and guffawing.

I shoved the fly-swatter into Celia’s manicured hands. “Whatever you do,” I said, “
Don’t
let go of this.”
 

I ran from the parking lot.

***

Drew knocked on the door and my mom swung the door wide. He stood on the steps in a pair of ratty bermudas and a frayed tee-shirt. “Afternoon, Mrs. Baptista,” he said.

My mom started the interrogation. “So will you two be coming back before the party starts?”

The thought had never occurred me. Before I could shout, of
course
we’re coming back, he said, “Nope. We’re going straight there. So what time is Kate’s curfew?”

“Oh,” my mom said airily, “any time before one.”

Can I just say —
!!!!!

I’d never before had a post-midnight curfew.
 

With some ninja-mom hand movement, she nudged me forward and onto the top step, Drew moving backwards like they’d rehearsed the move for weeks. My mind was doing a
but but but
…

Olivia Baptista, that wicked, untrustworthy woman who’s
supposed
to be my mother, said, “Well I
did
say you’re nearly grown, now didn’t I, Kate?” and locked the door on me.

I actually tried the handle and heard her laughing inside.
 

Drew had headed to the car, a Mercedes coupe. I half-spun back and forth twice on the steps, then threw up my hands in defeat, walked over and slammed myself into the car.

He drove to the exit of our apartment compound, stopped at the intersection and turned to me. “Where to?”

I couldn’t look at him. Not at the way his bangs touched the smooth edge of his eyebrows. Not at the curve of his upper arm. Not at the groove down the side of his calf.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, “Let’s just go to the designer mall and we’ll find something nice and you can drop me by my house after so I can change for the party. There’s plenty of time for that. Mom won’t mind taking me to Sander’s and God knows I’m not going anywhere without better shoes, make-up and all that stuff.”

His face got hard like it was roughly cut from wood. “You’re going to keep me out, aren’t you, me and my sister both. Right at the edge. We’re good enough to keep you from getting you expelled, but not good enough to be allowed into your inner circle, right?”

“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, Antonio (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?”