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“Suit yourself,” he said.

It was stupid not to eat it, so I did after another half minute. Sweetness exploded on my tongue, and though it might’ve been the placebo effect, my stomach instantly settled and my head stopped swimming. I licked melted chocolate from my fingertips and took a long, slow swallow of tea.

The fugue was fading, the memory of Johnny’s taste replaced by tea and chocolate. I didn’t want to let the sensations go, but they’d become slippery as a fistful of spaghetti and no more easily gripped. I sighed and took another cookie when he pushed the package toward me.

“They’re not very good.” Johnny didn’t say it like an apology, just a fact. “Homemade’s better.”

“Homemade is always better,” I agreed. “But I guess you have to take what you can get, huh?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t crack a smile. He sat back in his seat, gaze shuttered, mouth thin and straight without even the hint of curve. “You got some color back in your cheeks.”

“I’m feeling a lot better, thanks. This was just what I needed.” I lifted my mug and pointed it toward the cookies, praying I didn’t have chocolate smeared on my mouth or teeth.

“Yeah. I know. You okay now?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks. Thank you.”

Johnny gave an unsubtle look at the clock on the wall. “You live here, in the neighborhood?”

“Yes. I just moved in a few months ago. Down the street,” I added. “Number forty-three.”

Word vomit. I was about to fall prey to its insidiousness. Fortunately, Johnny cut me off before I could spew out anything really embarrassing, like an offer to take him home and fuck him until we both saw stars. Unfortunately, he also stood in a way that made it obvious I was supposed to leave.

I paused on the front porch. “Thanks, Mr. Dellasandro.”

He’d kiss me now, I knew it. Or I’d kiss him. He’d push me up against the wall and put his hand under my skirt. We’d fuck right there on the stairs….

“Be more careful out there,” Johnny said, and closed the door in my face.

He hadn’t even asked my name.

“You didn’t.” Jen sounded horrified and fascinated at the same time. “He took you into his house? And gave you a cookie? Damn, girl…did he ask you to sit on his lap, too?”

“No, God, no. Too bad.”

“Really.” She shook her head and held up a skirt she’d pulled off the rack. “What do you think of this?”

“Hideously ugly.” I fingered the fabric, a polyester blend in shades of orange and green. “And yet appealing.”

“I know, right? How about this?” She held up a dress, which had been made to look like a shirt and skirt but was really one piece. “It has a matching belt.”

“And it’s half off,” I said with a glance at the tag. Wednesdays were price-reduction days at the Salvation Army. Jen and I had made it a weekly date. “Where are you going to wear it?”

“Oh. To work, I guess. With a pair of supercute boots. Maybe hem the skirt a little. I love the sleeves.”

The sleeves were pretty awesome, cuffed tight at the wrists with the rest blousy. It wasn’t a look I thought I could pull off, but it would suit her. “It’s artistic.”

“You think so?” She held up the dress again. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

She put it in the cart and we inched down the aisle. The store was always crammed with shoppers on Wednesdays, making it nearly impossible to navigate with a wonky-wheeled cart unless we both maneuvered it. I pulled out a sleek black dress with a scoop neck and an A-line hem. It also had a glittery broach. Bonus! I stuck it in the cart, even though I had no place to wear a dress like that. At five bucks, half off, I couldn’t resist.

“Cute,” Jen commented. “But listen, tell me more about Johnny. What’s his house like? Did he come on to you?”

“Gorgeous. And no way. If anything, he couldn’t wait to get me out of there.”

“Bummer.” Jen pulled a blue sleeveless tank dress from the rack. “This is a great color.”

“Yeah. I guess I couldn’t be surprised. I mean, I did nearly knock him over on the street like a huge, giant doofus.”

Jen laughed. “But you managed not to ask him if you could bite his epic ass, right?”

“At least there’s that. Hey, I’m heading over to the shirts.” I couldn’t look at any more dresses. I’d end up spending twenty bucks on vintage finery I’d never wear.

I have a theory about thrift-store shopping. I’ve spent hours going from store to store in search of something specific, but I’ve never gone away from a thrift store empty-handed. For whatever reason, whenever I shop at a thrift store, no matter what I want, I find it. When I wanted an emerald-green cardigan sweater, an item that was both out of season and not in a trendy color, I found the perfect one at the Salvation Army. When I needed a jean jacket to replace the one I’d left behind in a hotel, I had my choice of ten or so from the local church bargain basement store. I think there’s some higher consciousness involved, or maybe it’s a matter of perception that allows your eyes to be opened at just the right time. To see things you wouldn’t have noticed before.

Like the T-shirt in my hand. White cotton, faded from hundreds of washes. I’d plucked it from the rack because of the fabric’s softness, though I wasn’t looking for a T-shirt. I’d grabbed it because of the material, but what made me hold on to it was the design on the front.

It was the poster for one of Johnny’s movies.
Dance with the Devil
was the English name, but this had been filmed in Italy. I recognized the artwork from my internet research. Johnny on a motorcycle, in a black leather jacket, hair blowing back from his forehead, cigarette in his mouth. Very James Dean. Very sexy. Also, very rare.

The tag on it was for one dollar, which put the reduced price at fifty cents. That made up for the hefty price I’d paid for the out-of-print DVD, and yet I hesitated, hovering between shoving the shirt back on the rack and walking away and gripping it tight with two fists and knocking down everyone in my way to get to the cash register.

Perception or higher consciousness? What had placed my hand on this shirt just now? If I’d come across it a few weeks ago, would I have pushed it aside in favor of the peasant blouse with the tags still on just beyond it? The shirt crumpled in my fingers as I clutched it.

The world tipped, just a little.

“Hey, what did you find?” Jen looked over my shoulder.

The world steadied. No orange smell, no wavy lines around my vision. No fugue. I let out the breath I’d been holding and held up the shirt.

Her eyes widened. “Get the fuck out of here. Is that
Dance with the Devil?
On a fucking T-shirt?”

I looked at it. “Yes!”

“Girl.” Jen got solemn. “I don’t know where you’re getting your Johnny mojo, but damn. That shirt looks real. I mean, not like someone did it themselves with a homemade iron-on. I’ve never even seen them advertised anyplace. Let me see the tag.”

I showed her. She puffed air between her lips and handed it back to me respectfully. “Tag looks old, too. I think this is an original promo piece or something.”

“Could be.” I held the shirt close to my chest with two hands. “I’m buying it.”

“Of course you are. You’d better. That shit is probably worth something.” Jen nodded. “Not that you’ll sell it, I guess. You’re going to wear that to bed, huh?”

I laughed. “Probably. Definitely, yeah.”

“Johnny on your boobs,” she said a little dreamily. “Can’t blame you there.”

After that find, there wasn’t anything else that could top it. We paid for our stuff and parted ways in the parking lot. Night had fallen. The air smelled like snow. Jen was talking about something, going out, meeting up on the weekend for something or other, but I couldn’t concentrate very hard on what she was saying. The T-shirt felt too heavy in the plastic grocery bag dangling from my wrist, and it had nothing to do with its weight.

She waved and got in her car. I got in mine. I drew in breath after breath of frigid air, making sure there was no scent of oranges, nothing but the odor of old fries from the grease-spotted bag in my backseat. Nothing wavy in my vision except from the moisture now dotting my windshield.

By the time I got home, my fingers ached from clutching the wheel. My head hurt, too, from concentrating so hard on the road. For a change, the spot in front of my house was empty, and I took it even though I’d grown to like parking in front of Johnny’s house.

Inside, I threw everything I’d bought that could be washed into the washer and set aside the items that would require dry cleaning. The T-shirt I held in my two hands for much longer than necessary. The shirt had been washed before, I could tell, and the print on the front barely faded. It was probably safe to machine wash, but I took out a bucket from beneath the sink instead, and swished it around in Woolite, rinsing in cool water and hand-wringing it gently before hanging it on a drying rack.

Too much effort and care for a T-shirt, I thought. It wasn’t yet time to switch the laundry from washer to dryer, so I went to the kitchen to eat. I could see the drying rack every time I walked past the kitchen doorway, and I looked at it each time.

I dreamed of him that night, but they were normal dreams. Disjointed, confusing, full of leaps and jumps that didn’t happen in the fugues. I didn’t know I was dreaming in them, either, even when he kissed me. Even when he told me to get lost. Then Johnny faded in and out of now-Johnny’s clothes in the dream and was replaced at one point by an actor whose name I didn’t know but who’d been on the last commercial I saw just before bed.

Restless and wakeful, I got up in the darkness and made my way to the laundry room, where I found the T-shirt, dry and a little stiff, smelling clean. I took it back to bed with me and held it as close as I used to hold my blanky. If I dreamed again, I didn’t remember it.

Chapter 07

I
didn’t meet up with Jen at the Mocha the next morning, though it was crowded enough without her there. I didn’t have more than a few minutes to pick out a muffin and grab a coffee before work, and I almost reconsidered the stop when I saw the long line. Still, by the time I’d figured out I ran the risk of being late, I was almost at the head of the line. I crossed my fingers and prayed to miss the morning traffic.

I was thinking of him, of course. Johnny had fully infiltrated my brain. So when I turned, coffee in hand and muffin in the other, my car keys jangling, I had to blink a couple times before I could make myself believe he was really there. He’d paused by the newspaper rack to check out a copy of the
New York Times
and was just tucking it under his arm when I stepped in front of him.

“Hi,” I said.

I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it was something entirely different than a blank stare and a blatant brush-off. Johnny didn’t even acknowledge me with a nod. He pushed past me without a word and stepped up to the counter to pay for the newspaper, leaving me behind with my face virtually slapped. I must’ve worn my distress as obviously as a neon sign, because Carlos gave me a sympathetic glance from behind his open laptop. He was there early today.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said quietly as Johnny wove back through the crowd and out the front door, black coat flapping around his ankles. “He’s like that to mostly everyone. I mean, he doesn’t like being fawned over.”

“I wasn’t fawning over him. Jesus.” I frowned, watching Johnny through the glass. “I was being friendly.”

Carlos shrugged. “I’m just saying. He does get some pretty loony fans once in a while. I guess he’s being cautious.”

“I am not,” I said tightly, “a loony fan.”

Carlos’s brows raised, and he grinned. “No? You and Jen look at him like you want the Mocha to put him on the menu.”

Heat spread across my cheeks. “Oh, God. That obvious?”

“Nah. I don’t think he notices, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s just leery. I mean, I’ve seen some chicks who practically rip off their shirts and try to mount him right here!” Carlos shook his head as though he couldn’t decide if the thought disturbed or excited him. “Old chicks, Emm. Like in their fifties, old. You, in comparison, are a very hot young chick.”

“Gee, thanks.” I could no longer see even a hint of Johnny’s black coat. I took a drink from my coffee and eyed Carlos. “Jen says he was nice to you.”

“Maybe because he knows I don’t want to fuck him. Or even if I did, it’s not the same as being in love with him because of some stuff from a long time ago.”

“Why not?” I knew Johnny’d had some sexual fluidity in his past, but had never claimed to be gay or even bisexual. He’d called himself “straight but openminded” in more than one interview.

“Who knows, maybe he doesn’t find dudes as threatening, in general. Maybe we’re easier to put off. Or maybe he was just in a good mood that day. I don’t know.”

Carlos’s assessment, as close as it was to truth, stung. “I never said I was in love with him. Besides, last week I bumped into him outside his house and he invited me in for tea.”

“Tea? Get out of here.” Carlos flapped a hand, scoffing.

“I’m serious.” I hadn’t slipped a paper liner on my cup, and my hand was starting to burn. I switched, almost crushing my muffin in the process. “I sat in his kitchen and drank his tea, and today he can’t even say hello? That’s just…well, that’s douchy, that’s all.”

Carlos shrugged, looking back toward his laptop. “Man’s got issues, what can I say? If it makes you feel any better, it’s not just you.”