Chapter 15

We shopped until the stores closed at 9:00. Reba kept up a running commentary as I tried things on. In the interests of education, she let me make my choices without reference to her opinion. At first, I tried gauging her reaction as I lifted a garment off the rack, but she looked on with the same deadpan expression she must have donned at the poker table. With no guidelines whatever, I picked out two dresses, a pantsuit, and three cotton skirts. "Okay," I said.

Her brow went up about an eighth of an inch. "That's it?"

"Isn't this enough?"

"You like that green deal, that pantsuit thing?"

"Well, yeah. You know, it's dark and it won't show spots."

"All riiiight," she said, with a tone suggesting that you have to let kids make boo-boos in order for them to learn.

She trailed behind me as far as the line of dressing cubicles in the rear. She looked on idly while I opened door after door, trying to find a room not in use. When I finally found an empty cubicle, she gave every impression of following me in.

"Hold on a sec. You're coming in here with me?"

"What if something doesn't fit? You can't stroll around out there in your underwear."

"I wasn't planning to. I was going to try on stuff back here and then decide."

"Deciding is my job. You try on clothes and I'll explain how misguided you are."

She sat on a plain wooden chair in a space that was six feet on a side with floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three. The fluorescent lighting guaranteed your skin would look sallow and every tiny body flaw would appear in bas relief.

I took my shoes off and began to strip down with the same enthusiasm I feel before a pelvic exam. "I can tell I have a better developed sense of modesty than you do," I said.

"Oh, please. Prison knocked that out of me. The shower stalls were a quarter this size with these skimpy canvas curtains designed to keep your head and feet in view. That was to prevent the inmates from having sex in private. Little did they know. Aside from that, you might as well forget privacy altogether. It was simpler to prance around nude like everybody else."

During these revelations, I was trying to step gracefully out of my blue jeans, but my foot caught and I nearly toppled sideways. Reba pretended not to notice. I said, "Didn't that bother you?"

"At first, but after a while, I thought, oh who gives a damn? All these naked women and pretty soon you've seen every possible body type – short, tall, skinny, fat, little tits, big ass, or big tits and no ass. Scar, moles, tattoos, birth defects. Everybody looks just about like everybody else."

I peeled my T-shirt over my head.

"Oh, bullet holes!" she said, nearly clapping her hands as she caught sight of mine.

"Do you mind?"

"Well, I think they're cute. Sort of like dimples."

I slid the first of two cotton dresses from the hanger and eased my arms up the interior and out the requisite armholes. I turned to the mirror. I looked about like I always did – not bad, but not that good. "What do you think?"

"What do you think?"

"Come on, Reba. Just tell me what's wrong with it."

"Everything. The color for starters. You should wear clear tones – red, maybe navy blue, but not that pukey shade of yellow. It makes your skin tone look orange."

"I thought that was the lighting."

"And look how loose it's cut. You've got good legs and a great set of boobs. I mean, they're not huge, but they're sassy so why cover them with something that looks like a pillowcase?"

"I don't like to wear stuff too tight."

"Clothes are supposed to fit, dear. That dress is one size too big and it looks – dare I say it – so matronly. Go ahead and try on the blue print skirt, but I can tell you right now it's another pass. You're not the big-ass Hawaiian palm-and-parrot type."

"If you already hate it, why should I try it on?"

"Because otherwise you'll never get the point."

And so it went. Bossy women and I get along swimmingly as I'm a masochist at heart. I bypassed the blue print skirt and didn't bother trying on the green pantsuit, knowing she'd be right about that, too. She removed the offending garments, holding the hangers at arm's length like so many dead rats. While I waited in the dressing room, she went out to the floor and flipped through the racks. She returned with six items, which she exhibited one by one, creating the illusion that she was letting me choose. I resisted one dress and one skirt, but everything else she'd selected ended up looking great on me, even if I do say so myself.