Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(38)
Mom shrugs and pulls out a blouse, studying it for rips and stains. “Mold? Bacteria?”
You’d think our acknowledgment of thrifted items possibly being saturated with mold and bacteria would put us off, but you would be wrong. Thrifting is Mom’s and my holiest sacrament, along with watching horror movies and going to chain restaurants and ordering only more appetizers than we can eat. Our love for thrifting is greater than any microorganism. Our work schedules and school make it tough for us to go, but we were both free and clear tonight. And bonus, Mom is having one of her good days.
I nod at the blouse. “What do you think?”
“Eh. Too similar to one I have.”
“Shame they can’t figure out how to infuse good smells with the persistence of thrift-store funk,” I say, pressing a dress sleeve to my nose.
“You mean if they could separate out the thrift-store mold or bacteria and hand it some pumpkin spice smell and go, ‘Here, hold this instead.’?”
“We can put a man on the moon, right?”
“Actually, I was listening to the news the other day on my way to work, and they said America can’t put people into space anymore.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, apparently the Russians have all the rocket ships.”
“That’s weirdly depressing.”
“I know.”
“I mean, I wasn’t super invested in, like, my country’s ability to put people on the moon, but still.”
“It sounds like we need to make up for it by producing synthetic thrift-store mung that smells good.”
“Oh my lord, did you just say ‘mung’?”
“I did.”
“Mom. That is so gross.”
“You deserve it for all the times you’ve grossed me out, Miss Never-Heard-a-Disgusting-Nature-Fact-She-Could-Keep-to-Herself.”
“Did I ever show you that YouTube video of how much slime a hagfish can make?”
“No.”
“Remind me to show you.”
“You know what? I am totally fine never seeing it.”
We drift through the store, aimless like vultures hoping to glide into the scent of some new roadkill. After Dad left, this is where we brought everything he left behind. His movies were all we kept. I wanted to hang on to some of his old clothes that still had his smell on them, but Mom said that would only make things worse. I think she was right.
I see a promising pair of pants, pull them out, and look at the tag. I wrinkle my nose and mutter, “Old Navy.”
“They always fool you. Their stuff looks good at a thrift shop.”
“Thrift stores should be called Older Navy at this point.”
“Why bother? Pay three-ninety-nine at the thrift store for something that cost five-ninety-nine at Old Navy.”
I pull out a red sundress. “Hey! This might be a cute graduation dress.”
Mom gives me a look.
“What?”
“My daughter is not graduating from high school in a thrift-store dress.”
“I went to high school in thrift-store clothes.”
“Exactly.”
“I never minded.”
“I’m not letting my only daughter get married in a used dress, and I’m not letting you graduate in a used dress.”
I smile, glad for the pushback. Mom never has the energy for it when she’s down. I hope she’s back on her meds and they’ve started working again. “I’m still hanging on to the dress.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“For a while there I didn’t think I would finish high school.”
“Why do you think I’m being such a hard-ass about this? I just had an idea, actually.”
“Spill.”
“We should get tattoos together to celebrate your graduation.”
“Seriously?”
“Why not? You’re eighteen now.”
“What should we get?” I’ve been fascinated with Mom’s tattoos ever since I was little. I used to draw on my arms in washable marker to be like her. She has a skeleton key on her left wrist, my name on her right wrist, an Edward Gorey drawing on her right upper arm, with an Edgar Allan Poe quote underneath. Dad had tattoos too, but I liked Mom’s better.
“Let’s think about it. Something meaningful to both of us.”
Another spark of life. Mom’s good days are really good.
We drift out of the clothes into the home and kitchen section. Mom gasps and grabs an old-timey plate from a lower shelf. “DeeDee!”
It shows two kids fishing—a boy and a girl. Both have comically oversized heads and huge, vacant dead eyes. It looks like something a serial killer in a Russian prison would have painted.
“Okay, that is upsetting,” I say.
“I know,” Mom says gleefully.
“I’m so terrified by things that are supposed to be cute from the days when stuff only needed to be more cute than smallpox scars and dying of dysentery.”
“We’re obviously bringing this home with us.”
“I mean, why wouldn’t we want our house to look like the Sawyer house from Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” My phone buzzes. I pull it out and glance at it. The hot metallic tang of adrenaline makes my heart feel like it jumped into a too-hot bath. “Holy balls,” I murmur.