Say a Little Prayer(31)
Julia’s throat bobs. She glances over her shoulder, like she’s fully expecting Cindy to appear between the racks and smack her across the face with a Bible, before her gaze drops to my outstretched hand.
“Fine,” she says, completely oblivious to the heat pooling in the center of my palm. “I’m just looking.”
I grin and tug her into the dark embrace of the aisle. The mothball scent is worse back here, still laced with something I think has to be dead squirrel, but I shove the thought away as we move. I can’t see Ben through the racks. I have no idea how far we’ve wandered from the door, but I don’t care. We keep walking, pulling piece after piece from the shelves as we go. A vintage pair of wraparound pants. A denim jumpsuit with stars sewn on the cuffs. Floor-length gowns and matching silk gloves. Beautiful things. Impractical things. Things I want to hang in my closet, just so I can call them mine.
Last year, I’d become low-key obsessed with Oliver Henderson, the senior who played Javert in our production of Les Misérables. He was one of those boys who felt too pretty to be real, who looked you in the eye when you talked and always optioned up in “Stars.” I used to tell Mom rehearsal started half an hour before it did just so she’d let me stay after school and watch him rehearse through the window of a practice room. I felt desperate, like I’d do anything in the world for more time with him, and even when I had it, the satisfaction never lasted long.
That’s what greed is, I think. Wanting more, wanting too much. I’ve seen the way it warps people—how Pastor Young likes to guilt his congregation into dropping a few more dollars into the offering plate or how most of the church elders drive new cars and live in nice houses while preaching against material wealth. This morning, it seemed like an easy enough sin to commit. I was going to buy something nice, something I felt good in, then sit back and bask in the knowledge that greed didn’t have to be this dark, twisted thing if I didn’t let it. There’s power in taking the things you want, but right now, I’m not thinking about the clothes at all. I’m just thinking about Julia. About how the only thing I truly want is more of her. I want to see her in the dresses we pull from the rack. I want to drink in every second of her beside me, and I want, more than anything, to pretend we’re fine. That there’s not a chance the universe will tear us apart the second we leave this shop.
Vaguely, I know time is passing. I know somewhere outside the dusty confines of this room, the world continues to turn. I know that someone might take this from me, too, one day, so when Julia gets stuck halfway inside a vintage Buffalo Bills sweater and laughs like she doesn’t have a care in the world, I sink my claws in a little deeper. More. I want more vintage gowns and pinstriped blazers and ugly graphic T-shirts. I want more time in this cramped, windowless dressing room where neither of us care what consequences might be lurking outside.
“I like this,” Julia says, struggling to zip the back of my very tight, very itchy velvet dress. “You look like a movie star.”
I hold my breath as the fabric closes around my ribs. “I look like I’m doing a low-budget production of Sunset Boulevard.”
“Isn’t there a movie star in that show?”
“Yeah. She murders a guy at the end of the second act.”
“Iconic.” Julia finally gives up on the zipper and tosses a sweater in my direction. “Try this instead.”
She’s still wearing a dress I’d tugged off a dusty mannequin—a strapless tulle number covered in sequins. I personally think she looks great, so the fact she’s handing me the single ugliest piece of fabric I’ve ever seen is a little insulting. It’s like someone decided halfway through production that the plaid they’d committed to wasn’t going to cut it. It’s a mess of orange and red splotches, the words Stay Groovy embroidered across the front in neon green thread. The unflattering combination of colors does nothing but wash out my already pale skin, but if I look at it from the side, it’s almost camp.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think it’s for me.”
One of Julia’s eyebrows arches toward her hairline. “Really? I like it.”
There’s a single bulb dangling from the ceiling above us. Its orange glow catches in Julia’s hair, illuminating her reflection in the mirror behind me. Her gaze drops to my neck, where the front two buttons of the sweater lay open against my skin. It’s just a glance, hardly more than a second, but a strange pressure closes around my ribs.
More, I think. More, more.
“You sure?” I ask. “It’s not too much?”
I can’t tell if the heat building under my skin is because I’m wearing layers of wool in seventy-five-degree heat or because of the way Julia’s looking at me now. I don’t know which I’d prefer. Both options feel safer here, with a heavy velvet curtain strung between us and the rest of the world. Julia blinks, lips parting on a sudden inhale, but before she can speak, the curtain surrounding the dressing room is pulled back.
“Oh my god!” I squint into the sudden burst of light. “What the hell, Ben?”
“Chill.” Ben has his eyes purposefully trained toward the ceiling, one shoulder braced against the wall. “I’m not looking. Just making sure you two know how late it is.”
He holds up his phone, and after I get past the screensaver of his face photoshopped onto all four Stranger Things kids, I notice the time: 11:52. Eight minutes before we’re supposed to be back on the bus.