“Huh.” Even though there aren’t a lot. I absorbed this. “So I could go shopping anywhere I wanted?” Getting some ammo might actually be a good idea.
“I, um. Yes. You really . . . anywhere, I guess.” Benjamin sounded like he was reconsidering telling me about this. Or faintly hopeful that I’d suddenly decide Nordstroms was a good idea.
“Cheer up, old man.” Leon actually chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “It could be worse. She could be in the dressing room for hours.”
With you guys watching everything? No thanks. I know my sizes, that’s enough. I decided to test out this anything rule. “Okay, so I need a military surplus store, too. Do you guys know what the gun laws are like here?”
“Fingerprinting and licensing. But it boils down to, Don’t get caught if you’re in the Order.” Leon gave me one of his odd little looks. “We can go to the armory, if you like. You can practice.”
I shook my head. Found a charcoal hoodie with a zipper and good sleeves, checked it for loose threads. “Just wondering. Hey, Graves, you want to go get shampoo, toothpaste, that sort of thing? And if you need any over-the-counter stuff, you know. Get me some Midol, all right?”
Benjamin all but choked. Leon studied the ceiling with a great deal of interest, a smile twitching at the corners of his thin mouth. While Benjamin looked ready to sink into the floor, Leon looked highly amused.
I decided I liked him.
“I think you should pick your own Midol.” Graves even said it with a straight face, but there was a ghost of a grin quirking his lips. He’d found a way to shave, and he looked attractive but normal. Not ultra-gloss like the djamphir. “’Cause, you know, there’s different types.”
“Point.” My stomach rumbled. “We should probably go back soon. Is the cafeteria open during the day?”
“Well, yeah. We can get a midnight snack. Midday snack. Same thing.” Benjamin’s cheeks were scarlet. “Don’t you want to do more shopping?”
I surveyed the overloaded cart. Jeans for Graves and me, T-shirts and long-sleeved shirts for him, short-sleeved T-shirts for me, a couple of wool sweaters, sweats for both of us, two or three hoodies apiece, including the clearance-rack one I was holding. Boxers to sleep in. Packets of underwear, four sports bras. A belt for him, a belt for me. Along with everything I’d ordered online, this was really reasonable. The Schola was pretty stocked, but there were things like cotton balls and toner I wanted. And my own brand of shampoo. They had some expensive stuff in the shower. I felt like I was in a fancy-dancy hotel, using it.
Which wasn’t bad. I totally love the little samples of stuff they put in the bathrooms at major hotels. Dad sometimes had us in really cushy places with nice high-end samples I stashed in the truck. I rated them according to effectiveness and smell, and I went through a phase when I was about thirteen of saving a bunch of them before I figured out there are always more hotels.
Sometimes I still think about that clutch of little trial bottles in a dark Dumpster somewhere. Like a rock collection or something.
I checked the price and decided what the hell, plopped the hoodie into the cart. “I think that’s everything, after we make a run through the pharmacy section. Since Graves thinks I should pick my own Midol. Is there anything you guys need while we’re here?”
Leon actually laughed. “They have slushies up at the front.”
“Jesus Christ,” Benjamin muttered. “Nordstroms. Macy’s. We could go to Paris for the spring season. I was expecting transatlantic flights.”
I figured ignoring that was best for all concerned. “Is there an Old Navy around here? They’ve got shorts and stuff.” I caught the look Benjamin gave me. “What?”
“Nothing. We just thought a svetocha would be more, well, difficult.” Leon’s mouth twitched. “I do seriously want a slushie.”
I tried a tentative smile. I definitely liked him now. “I haven’t had one in ages. Maybe the guys outside—the double blonds—would want one, too?”
For some reason Leon found that utterly fricking hysterical. He snorted and chuckled all the way through Housewares to the Health and Beauty section, and even Benjamin unbent enough to grin.
We did stop in the Sports section for a sleeping bag, and I made Graves get a good one, too. Clothes are one thing, but you don’t skimp on gear. I also dawdled in the office-supplies section until Graves threw a couple pads of paper and some pencils in the cart, glaring at me like he dared me to take them out.
Benjamin tried to take us to some Italian place for lunch, but Leon asked about Mexican food. And that sounded really good, so we ended up in some hole-in-the-wall place where I hogged a lot of tortilla chips and Benjamin got two margaritas by just smiling at the waitress and asking politely. He looked like he needed them at that point.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
First I was back in Target picking out wedding dresses. Yards of white lace and froth, while invisible people stood around and commented. “No, too small . . . too big . . . will never fit you . . . too classic, too tight . . .”
Until I felt like screaming because all I wanted was a dress that worked. Then I was trying to try them on and there was no dressing room because if I went in there I might disappear, so at the end of a row between clearance racks I was struggling into one dress after another, and they all had holes. Big, wide, moth-eaten holes, my bra and skin peeking through, and someone said, “You’ll have to pay for that.”
The walls of the store receded, smears of red paint streaking them and turning into long screaming faces. I felt the prickling buzz in my fingers and toes, like when your limbs go so numb you can’t even walk.
I know that feeling. It comes with dreams that show me things. “True-seeins,” Gran called them.
“Real nightmares” might be a better term.
For a moment I thought hazily that it might be the most horrible dream, the one where my mother picks me up out of my bed and takes me downstairs, tells me I’m her good girl, and tucks me in the hidey-hole in the closet. I struggled toward waking, but the dream had other ideas. It was in the driver’s seat, not me. I couldn’t fight it.
I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was a regular popcorn ceiling, the kind with gold sparkles. Fluid shadows from the tree outside danced between the sparkles.
The dream-me was a little girl. She was sleepy, drifting in and out of that quiet space where kids suck their thumbs and their eyes stare without seeing from under heavy lids.
Mom had been anxious that day, cleaning everything. Tense, nervous. I was fractious, too, but she had read me stories and rocked me for a long time, then laid me in bed and covered me up. I heard her moving around the house downstairs, the regular noises of her fixing Dad’s late-night lunch—because he was working long shifts at the base and sometimes came home for forty-five minutes or so in the middle of the night on his break—somehow missing. I heard a jingle as she dropped one of my toys. She was hurrying, putting them away. I heard her curse softly as she hid my high chair in the pantry.
But I didn’t think about it. Instead I sucked my thumb and watched the ceiling.
Tap tap tap. A pause. Tap tap.
Someone at the front door. Not ringing the bell. That was strange.