“Accident on the way back from Joe’s.”
“Fuck.” He shook his head. “No one knows how to drive in the rain here, man.”
Everyone said that, and it meant they thought people drove too slow or too fast, but no one knew what it meant to drive in Ithaca winters.
“I got T-boned,” I said. “It was bad. Car was totaled.”
“And you got a bruise?” He raised his eyebrows in shock. “That bruise?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you eat before? Did you have the fucking fish?”
I shook my head but didn’t answer. What was he talking about?
“Eat that every day. I’m telling you, whatever you did to get that luck going, do it every day.” He pulled a bat out of the bin. “The universe just gave you a big heads-up.”
He closed the gate and got ready to bat.
Trust Randy to tell me what I already knew.
eighteen
Vivian
Mom’s closet had been a disappointment. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but nothing worked. Too formal, too farty, too much my mother’s taste.
Francine put a long pleated skirt up against my waist. It was too her.
“No,” I said, getting jostled by a woman with a big tote. The sale section in the back of the store was a wreck at the end of the day, and we’d found nothing. “Too long.”
“You have three hours,” she said, clicking through hangers. “Let’s do this. Tell me your vision when you imagine yourself going on this date.”
“Sexy. Not slutty. But I want to look…” I waved my hands in circles and lowered my voice to call up the only adjective I could muster. “Delicious.”
She raised a perfectly-manicured eyebrow. My cheeks tingled.
“What are you going to do tonight?” she asked.
“I have no idea. He didn’t say.”
“But what do you say?”
“I say we’re going to do fun things. Alone together kinds of fun things.”
She looked at her watch. “We’re in the wrong store.”
She took my hand and pulled me out of the sale section, through the expensive stuff, past the designer cosmetics and shoes, and out to the fake courtyard of the Grotto. The tree was still up next to Santa’s village, but the sparkle had left both in favor of CAUTION tape as they were dismantled. SALE signs were plastered over every store window.
“Where are we going?”
“Do you trust me?” she called back.
“I do. Mostly.”
She didn’t answer as she wove through the crowd, over the stone pavement, past the fountain, the movie theater, the high-end storefronts, and down a small pathway between the mall and the street. A candy store. A custom shoe store. And…
“No way…” I said.
“Yes way.”
“I can’t,” I said when we were outside her destination. “He’ll expect it. I don’t want him to expect it. I can’t wear this.”
“Oh, you can, and you will. Not for him and not for what he thinks. But for you.” She poked me in the chest. “Because there’s nothing wrong with feeling sexy, and this stuff does it.”
She took me by the elbow and pulled me into La Perla. The bustle and rush of the mall was shut out the moment we entered, and we were engulfed in undulating music, dark corners, spotlights, and perfectly formed mannequins in garters and stockings.
I clutched my bag. “I can’t.”
“Can I help you find something?” the salesgirl asked. She wore a man’s shirt opened to the navel, revealing a lace bra with a crystal heart where the cups met.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Francine said. “My friend here has a date tonight with a rich, handsome, and smart man she has a ton in common with. She wants it to go well.”
The girl smiled, eyes lighting up like the Vegas strip. “We specialize in that.”
“I don’t want him to think I do this for everyone,” I said.
“He won’t think that. We’ll make sure. Do you have a budget in mind?”
“A hundred?”
The sales girl seemed undaunted, but Francine held up her hands. “More.”
“Francine!”
She pulled me aside, next to a Swarovski crystal-covered bra. “You have credit cards?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Do you have a balance on any of them?”
“Well, no.”
“When was the last time you spent anything on yourself?”
“I’m not a stylist. I’m a teacher. We’re notoriously broke.”
“Once, Vivian. Once, you can carry a balance on the card for one thing for one guy. I’m not saying to get in over your head. I’m not saying to go into bankruptcy. I’m saying maybe you should trust yourself. Trust you’re spending too much just once and it’s not some downhill ride. Treat yourself as well as you treat everyone else.”
I looked around the store. If I was going to treat myself, it was going to be for more books and more things for the kids. But that little bra made the salesgirl’s chest look so nice, and the mannequin next to me with the black stockings and garter, the way the stockings stopped at the upper thigh, highlighting the tiny string of a bikini and the place he wanted to put his tongue… I shuddered.