After rummaging around, he discovered that he did not own any white shoes, and this came as a surprise to him. He chose a pair of light brown loafers, soft leather, and a straw fedora with a dark brown leather band.
Krystal made his favorite breakfast—cold spaghetti. It was an odd choice for a favorite breakfast, but Jake grew up with a single mom, and he always loved leftover spaghetti in the morning. Krystal obliged, prepared it the night before, mixed the sauce and the noodles together, put the entire pot into the refrigerator.
They sat together at the kitchen table, and Krystal watched him eat.
“Do you feel any different?” Krystal handed him the salt and pepper shakers, which had actually been a birthday gift to her, found at Buley’s when he was nine years old. The shakers were pewter candles, in matching pewter holders, with orange glass flames perforated by tiny holes.
“Laverna always says that age is just a number,” Jake said, and carefully wiped the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin.
“Do you have any big plans?” Krystal waited for Jake to respond, but he kept eating spaghetti. “I’m going to make you a cake this afternoon,” she said. “Do you want to invite Rachel over?”
“Sure,” said Jake. He knew that Krystal had to work at seven, so there would be no party, just the cake and the presents, and then she would put on her scrubs and drive to Ellis for yet another night shift.
After breakfast, Jake walked around the trailer court and then ventured farther into town. He had on his headphones, the cassette playing as loud as it could possibly go, despite the repeated warnings from his mother. The headphones were old, at the point in their life that he had to repeatedly wiggle the connection in order to get both sides of them blaring. Once he found the sweet spot, he held his thumb there.
He wanted to see if Quinn looked different as a thirteen-year-old. He walked past the Dirty Shame, and he wanted to have coffee with Rachel, but Tabby’s car was parked in front.
He cut across the softball field, the grass still wet from the sprinklers. His loafers stained from the water, and it pained Jake that he would have to ask to borrow Bert’s boot spray. He continued up Main Street, listening to Sinead O’Connor, and passed the post office. The movie theater had no poster outside, and the marquee announced that it was closed for repairs. This happened a few times per year, when Ron, the owner, went fishing in Idaho, or when the roof collapsed. The roof was constantly leaking, and more than once, Jake had been caught in a sudden deluge during a movie. Ron offered no refunds for this. Sometimes, little pieces of the ceiling would fall during a screening, coating the audience with tiny clouds of plaster. Jake was amazed that nobody had been injured—even going to see a movie in Quinn was a dangerous proposition.
He finally decided that thirteen didn’t feel any different. His shoes were wet, and he had not worn socks, so he squished his way up the front steps and entered his house.
Rachel was waiting for him, sitting in the kitchen with his mother. On the kitchen table, there were two things: a gift-wrapped box and a pale blue envelope.
“Happy birthday, kid!” Rachel leaped up to hug him. “The box is from Athena.”
Inside were a Rocky Horror Picture Show T-shirt, the sound track on cassette, and the movie itself, the VHS still wrapped in cellophane.
“You’d better hide those from Bert,” warned Krystal, as she began to clean up the baby, who still had some red sauce on her cheeks.
The envelope contained a fifty-dollar gift certificate to JCPenney.
“From the Flood Girls,” explained Rachel. “Ginger has this idea that your underwear and socks come from the thrift store, and they won’t stand for it. I didn’t want to correct them. I know that Krystal buys you those things.”
“I do,” said Krystal as she picked up the baby. Jake could tell that she was trying to prove she was a good mother.
“The nearest JCPenney is in Boyce Falls,” pointed out Jake. “This is great. I can use it to order stuff from the catalog, right?”
“Wrong,” said Rachel. “I’m driving you there. Today. And we’re hitting every thrift store on the way. You can buy whatever you want. My present to you.”
* * *
Jake bought two complete suits in the town of New Poland, one seersucker, the other houndstooth, and a half-used can of leather spray. In Boyce Falls, Jake purchased two pairs of slacks, one pair bright red, and the other gray with tiny pink squares. He also picked out a stack of paperbacks and a winter coat, green wool with a giant black fake-fur collar. Rachel paid for everything.