The next evening, Ashley drove out to pick up the boxes of coupon books and mini calendars that Jenny had put together for the giveaway bags.
“I can’t thank you enough.” Ashley gave her friend a quick, hard hug. “I’m going to have some serious IOUs out there by the time this is done. You, Shelby, Krista, Rose, Ed, Gran, Ty . . .” She didn’t mean to trail off after his name, but she had reached the end of the list. She’d be darned if she let herself blush, though.
Jenny’s eyebrows went up. “Ty signed on to help?”
“I don’t think he signed on so much as he got roped into dropping off lumber and helping me with some set design. I don’t know if he’ll be back.” She hoped he would, though. The other night, talking to each other like grown-ups, about stuff that mattered . . . yeah. She could do that again.
“Well, don’t be afraid to reach out to him. Or any of us.” Jenny tapped the boxes. “We’re all rooting for you.”
“Thanks. I mean it.” Ashley hefted the printed materials. “I’ll catch you later.”
“Before you go, Nick wants you to stop by the kitty room.”
“Everything okay with VW Cat?” Last she’d heard, the vet had worked his magic, and the bedraggled rescue was on the mend.
“As far as I know. I think he just wanted you to have a chance to peek in on him.”
“Him? I thought it was a girl.”
“Guess not.”
“Well, Nick is the cat expert, so we’ll go with his ruling on that one. And I’ll stop by to say hey to both of them on my way out.” She wanted to talk to Nick, anyway, and get him locked into a payment plan—hopefully a deferred one—before he conveniently “lost” the stray cat’s paperwork.
She was getting better at accepting help, but that would be taking it too far.
Downstairs, she let herself into the deserted waiting room, with its cutesy posters and cushioned benches, and through to an exam room. Skirting the stainless steel table, she pushed through the door at the rear, into the treatment area beyond, where rows of cages lined one wall and a hint of Eau de Litter wafted in the air. “Nick?” she called. “You back here? It’s Ashley.”
The only answer was a meow from one of the top cages, where a fat gray tabby rubbed up against the bars, and a couple of squeaks from two cages down, where a little orange paw reached through, attached to one of two blue-eyed kittens. The cage between them looked empty at first glance, but, like the other two, there was a name tag slid into a metal slot in the lower left corner.
Easing farther into the room, Ashley saw that the tabby’s name was Princess, the kittens were Nutter and Butter, and their invisible neighbor had been dubbed Vintage Store Stray. The empty-looking cage held a clean litter box, food and water dishes, and a large carpet-covered canister, a foot or so high, with a cat-size cut in the side and gnaw marks around the edges.
A pair of slitted yellow eyes peered from the darkness within, unblinking.
“Hey, kitty,” she cooed. “Remember me?”
From the carpeted enclosure came a low-throated growl.
As the far door opened, admitting both the white-coated vet and the “Ah-woo-woo-woo” of a dog who didn’t sound happy about being kenneled overnight, she asked the cat, “Was that Thanks for the upgrade or Bite me?”
“Hard to tell,” Nick said. Rumple-haired and rugged, the vet looked like Indiana Jones had thrown on a lab coat instead of his leather. “Most days, I wish we had a gizmo that could do animal-to-English translations, as that would make my job a whole lot easier. With this guy, we might be better off not knowing. And, hey there. Thanks for stopping down.”
“No problem. Thank you for fixing this guy up. Got a ’tude, does he?”
“Let’s just say he’s not the friendliest feline I’ve ever met.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s an understatement?” She stuck out a finger to the next cage over, and got a gentle pat-pat from a fluffy orange paw. From the dark depths of the carpeted cave came an unblinking silence. Kind of eerie, really. “Do you think he’ll come around?”
“It’s possible, if somebody wanted to take the time to gentle him. As it is, the best I’ve got lined up for him is a warm, dry spot in a barn that’s got a few too many mice.” He shot her a sidelong look.
She held up both hands, knowing how Jenny’s husband worked. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not a bleeding heart like Danny.” Who had “fostered” a stray for Nick last year as a favor, and wound up a dog owner. “I like my apartment just the way it is, thank you—or, rather, I’ve got plans for the stuff I don’t like, and those plans don’t include litter boxes, stinky tuna, and shredded upholstery.”
“Did I say you should take him home?”
“I did my good deed with the trap.” To the cat, she said, “We’re done. Finished. Good luck with the mice.”
“Rrrrrrr.”
“See? He doesn’t even like me.”
“Still not telling you to take him home.” Nick nodded to Nutter and Butter. “If you’re thinking of adopting a pet, these guys are sweet as pie. And you know what they say about two kittens being less work than one.”
“I’ve only owned my own place for a week. Cut me some slack here!” She couldn’t help it, though. She stuck a finger through the bars and rubbed a soft head, getting a ridiculously loud purr in response. Awww.
“Granted,” Nick said, “they’ll be dead easy for me to place in a safe indoor home. An adult black cat? They’re like the green Jell-O salad of the pet shelter world—always the last ones left over, and often tossed aside. It’d be a stretch for me to find this one a safe pet home, even without the grumpy factor.”
Guilt prickled. “He’ll be okay in the barn, though, right?”
“They’ll cage him for a few weeks, so he’ll hopefully imprint on the location, and then they’ll release him and see if he sticks around.”
Pat-pat went the little orange paw. Prick went her conscience. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“He might not like the barn or the other cats, and the backcountry has its share of predators.”
“Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to know.”
“Don’t stress,” Nick said. “You’ve already done more than most people would. Unless . . .” He reached down into the corner and came up with a plastic cat carrier. “What do you say? You could give him a couple of weeks in a nice house with his very own human, and see what happens.”
Ashley felt herself wavering. Darn it.
The little orange paw batted at her again and blue eyes blinked innocently, as if to say, Come on, give him a chance.
She could do it, too. For the first time in her life, she had her own place and could make her own rules. And if she wanted to wear a big old SUCKER sign on her forehead, she could do that, too. Scowling, she said, “You were planning this all along, weren’t you? And Jenny was in on it.”
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” He set the cat carrier on the exam table, then added a big gift bag that said KITTEN STARTER KIT above an impossibly cute cartoon.
Ashley looked from the cage to the carrier and back again. “Well, shoot.” It looked like she had herself a cat.
How bad could it be?
• • •
Sunday morning near their ten o’clock opening time, Hen came through the shop’s front door and did a double take. “Whoa. What happened in here? Were we robbed?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Thieves made off with all of the eighties-era stock, hangers, racks, and all.” Ashley rolled her eyes. “No, I started rearranging last night. I couldn’t sleep, and it was either move stuff around down here or stay upstairs and talk to the cat.”
“What cat?” Hen looked around, eyes brightening. “The cat? You brought her back? Where is she?”
Ashley sighed. “Upstairs, I think.”
“What do you mean, you think? You lost her?”
“It’s a him. And, well, he’s not lost, exactly. I just don’t know where he is. Krista told me they can hide in the darnedest places.” After she got done laughing at Ashley for letting Nick sucker her in. “She said to just leave food out and give him time.”
“You should have put him in a small room for the first few days. A bathroom is good. Then there’d only be so many places he could hide, and you could go in there and make friends.”
“Now you tell me.”
“You could have called.”
“Wish I had. Anyway, Petunia is upstairs somewhere. I opened the cat carrier and poof. Like magic. Maybe I should’ve called him Houdini, instead.”
“Oh, no. I like Petunia!”
Leave it to Hen not to give her grief for the name. As opposed to Krista, who had accused her of wanting the cat to never come out from under the sofa—or wherever the blasted thing was hiding—because he was so embarrassed. But, darn it, the cat had looked like a Petunia to Ashley from the very beginning, and she was hoping he would sweeten into the name.
Eventually. Maybe. Hopefully. Sigh.
“So what do you think?” Refocusing, Ashley gestured to the empty spot on the sales floor. “Do you miss the eighties?” Most of the acid-washed jeans and fluorescent sweaters had gone into storage, while the nicer pieces were temporarily racked in the break room.
“It’s like having our very own dance floor!” Humming something dreamy, Hen swept into the open space, opened her arms, and did a Sound of Music twirl. “Quick, we need music. And a disco ball!”
“Music I can do.” Ashley headed for the tuner they kept in the corner, cranking the volume just in time to hear Big & Rich implore her to save a horse by riding a cowboy. Raising her voice to carry over the music, she added, “We’ll have to see about the disco ball, though.”
Hen did a whole-body shimmy that looked like a holdover from her latest belly dancing class, and beamed. “Didn’t there used to be one in the bowling alley?”
“I’ll look into it.” Or at least put it on a list. “We also need to—” She broke off as the front door opened and the happy little bell jangled. “Welcome to— Gilly! Hi! I guess you got my message.”
The teen was still wearing the camouflage coat, but she had on the boots she’d bought the other day, along with a touch of lipstick that was way too orange for her complexion. She started to answer, shot a quick look at Hen, and dropped her eyes to her toes. “Um, yeah. So I guess you really meant to call me? That wasn’t, like, a mistake?”
“No way,” Ashley said firmly. “I’ve invited some of my favorite customers to model.” Including Froggy and Rose Skye. She wanted a range of shapes, sizes, and local faces. And given that several members of the Drama Club—including Gilly’s crush, Sean—had agreed to work at the event, she didn’t plan on letting the girl say no. “Will you do it?”
“Yes. I mean, I guess.” Gilly’s pause was both dubious and wistful. “Would I have to wear heels? I’m pretty bad at heels.”
“You don’t have to wear anything that makes you uncomfortable. Scout’s honor.” Ashley gestured to the try-on area. “Come on down. I set aside a couple of things to get us started.”
The teen made it down the three short steps to the sunken sitting area, but then stalled, eyeballing the garments currently occupying the COOL STUFF I’M GOING TO TRY ON peg as if afraid the purple Grecian gown might suddenly animate and try to strangle her.
“Trust me.” Ashley draped an arm across the hunched-in shoulders. “We’ll find something you love and can’t wait to show off.” She gave the camo collar a tug. “We’re going to have to talk about the jacket, though.”
Instead of the No way in hell look she had gotten last week, now she got a resigned nod. “I figured.” The girl stuck her hands in her pockets, though, pulling the garment tighter around her body. Tipping down her chin so her whacked-off hair obscured her face, she mumbled, “My brother left it at our old house the last time he visited. Right before he deployed.” A pause. “A couple of weeks later, the truck he was in ran over an IED. He was thrown clear, but he went back for his friends. He got two of them out before . . . well, you know.”
Ashley’s heart sank, though she had suspected something along those lines. She didn’t know, not really. Always before, she’d had a few degrees of separation from things like war and violence. Which made her lucky, she supposed. “I’m so sorry.” It sounded so inadequate, and no doubt the teen had heard it a thousand times before, but what else could she say?
“It sucks. Mom didn’t want to stay in the house anymore, so . . . well, anyway.” She moved away a couple of feet, hesitated, and then shrugged out of the jacket. Beneath the heavy layer, she was boy-straight through the waist, with thick arms, rounded shoulders, and a long, elegant neck that wore a ball-bearing chain holding a single dog tag. Draping the camo over her arm, she placed her free hand protectively below the lettering that spelled out J. DOLANS. “I like to pretend that Bubba’s here with me, like I can talk to him about everything that’s going on. Which is stupid, because it’s just a jacket.”
Though her throat had gone tight and scratchy with emotion, Ashley managed, “It’s more than that.” Far more. “We can work it into the show if you like.”
“Some days I want to leave it in my room,” Gilly said, like she hadn’t heard. “But then it’s like I’d be leaving him in there, alone and bored. And Bub hated being bored. So I pretend he’s looking over my shoulder and cracking jokes about the crap they serve for lunch, or how the trig teacher, Mrs. Merchison, needs to even up her bra straps.” Her shoulders moved restlessly. “Which is stupid, I know, because he’s not really there. He’s dead, and he’s not coming back.” She blinked away tears. When Ashley started forward, the teen held up a hand. “Don’t. Please. Just give me a second.”
Sweetheart, you can have whatever you need. Blinking back tears of her own, Ashley stared at the COOL THINGS hook, wondering if the Grecian dress would be too much of a one-eighty.
She had been thinking it would be fun to go over the top with the makeover, but now she wondered if that would make Gilly feel like her usual style was wrong. Clearing her throat, she said, “What if we stick with the military theme, but turn up the volume? There are some great jackets on the steampunk rack, and we could play around with some pants and high boots—that sort of thing.”
There was a pause, then a rustle, followed by the sound of boots on the hardwood, and Gilly came up beside her to gaze at the purple dress. “Would it be okay if I tried both? I think . . . Maybe it’d be okay if I wore something different, just for one night. My mom might like it.” The last part came out wistful, like the girl didn’t have a clue where she fit into the new world order.
Flashing back on those too-quiet years between when Wyatt left to rodeo full-time and send his winnings home, and when their mom had finally agreed to marry Jack, Ashley could relate. Maybe not all the way, but some. She gave the teen a gentle elbow bump. “You got it. In fact, I think that sounds perfect. The way I see it, you never get too old to play dress-up. You just get to a point where you need an excuse.” And maybe Gilly needed more of an excuse than most. “You ready to give this a try?”
“I guess . . . yes.” The rounded shoulders squared up a little. “Yes, I am.”
“Do you want to leave Bub’s jacket out here with me? Maybe over this chair?” Ashley patted a spindle-back. “There’s plenty for him to see, and you can practice coming out of the dressing room and giving a little twirl for your audience.”
Gilly’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m not making fun of you, I swear. I talk to my car all the time.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best example. Digging deeper, Ashley added, “Look, I’ve never lost anyone close to me, but I imagine it helps to feel like you can still talk to Bub, and that he’s answering the way he would have.” Who knew? Maybe it was a good way for the teen to hash out stuff with her subconscious. “As for the coat, we’ve all got our symbols and good-luck charms. Yours just happens to be a big-ass jacket that doesn’t for a second work with purple chiffon.”
The silence that followed probably wasn’t as endless as it felt. Until, gradually, Gilly’s lips curved and she dipped her head in a shallow nod. “Okay, thanks. Sorry. I get . . . you know. Twitchy.”
About how other people saw her, what they said about her. Yeah. Ashley knew how that went. “I don’t blame you.” But she held out a hand. “Pass it over and let’s get this show on the road.”
Slowly, and with a lingering brush of her fingers, the teen handed her the heavy jacket. Then she stepped back. “Okay. Where do you want me to start?”
Trust. Ashley felt it in the weight of the lined jacket, which was warm from stored-up body heat, and in the rare soft moment inside her brain, where it was suddenly quiet enough for her to hear a little whisper of Don’t screw this up. Gilly wasn’t her responsibility, and her problems were way out of Ashley’s wheelhouse. But she was new to town, and Ashley knew what it felt like to live alone even though the house wasn’t empty.
Besides, she was a customer. And every customer deserved the fantasy.
“With the purple,” Ashley decided, seeing Gilly’s eyes linger on it. “Let’s see how it looks, and we’ll take it from there.”
She got a shy smile, followed by a fleeting moment of eye contact that made her feel like she’d just rung up a thousand-dollar sale. As Gilly disappeared into the changing cube, Hen shot Ashley a double thumbs-up from the other side of the room and mouthed, You rock!
Giving in to the temptation, Ashley did a little spin of her own in the cleared-out space at the center of the sales floor. She didn’t know if she was going to be able to make the second payment, or even pull off the fashion show. But right this instant, it felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be, doing what she was meant to do.