Pixie finished blowing her nose and looked over to the brightly colored silk Lia held up to the window. The color changed from a warm red to a vibrant orange in the light. It was beautiful, but not quite what she was looking for. This fabric store ticked all of the boxes on her thrifty shopper checklist. Great selection and reasonable prices, especially on smaller pieces from the end of rolls, which was great because she rarely needed large pieces of fabric.
“It’s beautiful, but it’s the wrong color for my Graphium weiskei.” Her voice still sounded hoarse, but she didn’t have time to sit in bed another day.
Pixie touched an almost black silk that shone an iridescent blue. Perfect if she ever got another request for a beetle.
“Your what?” Lia placed the fabric roll back on the table.
“A butterfly collector for his niece. I looked it up. The common name is purple spotted swallowtail, but he gets pissed off if I call it that. It’s black, pinky-purple, and a weird lime green that might be yellow. It’s hard to tell on my phone.”
“You know some very strange facts, Pix.” Lia wandered off to the vintage cloth section.
Pixie rummaged in a bin containing discounted fabric and found a piece of matte-finish silk that had what looked like lilac splats of paint on it. Perfect for what she needed. She added it to her basket. Maybe she’d bring in the strange green color as part of the underskirt with the black tulle she intended to purchase from the next floor down. Taking the stairs took its toll, leaving Pixie slightly breathless. Damn this cough. When she’d measured and had a store employee cut the tulle, Pixie wandered over to the thread section. Making her selections, she wondered how Dred was doing. Was he feeling better than she was?
She opened her phone and reread the message he’d sent her yesterday.
Two more days til you feel better. Seven more til I do ;-)
Still no idea of how to reply, Pixie dropped the phone back into her purse.
Why had she agreed to go to Toronto? It was so out of character, but when he’d asked her, the idea of him leaving and her not seeing him again for an indeterminable period of time hurt. Not the drop-down-on-your-knees-and-weep kind of hurt, but a low and steady longing beneath her ribs. Words of agreement poured out of her mouth before she had a chance to second-guess them. The surprised look on his face when she asked when she should go was the best part of it. Gone was the rough demeanor of the rock star, replaced by a youthful grin. That was the man she had feelings for.
Pixie pulled a spool of black cotton thread and added it to her basket, and noting they had a three-for-the-price-of-two sale, added a navy blue and a white spool too.
“Look what I found.” Lia dropped the leopard-print chiffon into her hand. “You could totally make something cute out of this.”
The sight of it sickened her. It was too close to the leopard-print scarf her stepfather would leave on the coat hook in the trailer to taunt her. He’d wait until her mom was passed out, sleeping off whatever high he’d provided, then he would pull it down and tie it around Pixie’s wrists.
For the briefest moment she was fourteen again, sitting where he’d put her on the silver kitchen stool with the torn red vinyl cushion. She’d struggled at first, shouted for her mom. He’d walked casually to the sofa and put his hands round her mom’s neck.
“You want me to squeeze, or are you going to shut the fuck up?”
She’d quieted immediately, sitting still like a good girl. He’d walked around the stool and used the scarf to tie her hands behind her back.
Pixie shook off the memory and tried to focus on the heavy weight of the basket in her hands, Lia’s distracted chattering, the colorful spools of cotton. But nothing seemed to pull her back from the whirlpool of memories that bombarded her. Like how badly she’d needed to pee, and how uncomfortable the sensation of snot and tears running down her face had been.
She’d felt an odd sense of relief when Arnie had headed to the bathroom and returned with toilet paper. He’d gently cleaned up her face and walked to the kitchen to dispose of the tissue. Even now it struck her as odd to worry about such a small piece of garbage when four days of dishes had been piled up next to the sink, flies buzzing around them in the stifling Florida heat.
Pixie looked back down at the fabric.
“Pix . . .” Lia walked toward her, the floor in the old store creaking underfoot, the sound reminiscent of the trailer when he would walk toward her. Her stomach flipped, as ghostly fingers from the past stroked along her jaw line, and she recalled shouting to her mom, still unconscious. Wake up. Please, Mommy, wake up.
But she hadn’t. Not when she screamed, and not when his clammy fingers trailed to the top of the button-down sundress her mom had saved her tips in the diner for.
“Let’s see what you’ve been hiding under here.”
“You okay, Pix?” Lia’s voice brought her back to the present.
Pixie put the fabric down on the cutting table. “Sorry, still feel a little sick,” she said, coughing at the end for effect.