Since I’d been back in Proper and in charge of running Disguise DeLimit, there had been more than one time when I’d done things my way instead of my dad’s. But tonight, as I watched him work, I was inspired by what he was able to accomplish.
First, he’d located a stack of T-shirt iron-on transfer paper. He measured the small teddy bear and then mocked up a two-dimensional cartoon safari costume on the computer screen. “Go to the stockroom and find the boxes labeled PREEMIE. Bring them out here.”
It took me about ten minutes to find the boxes he wanted and another five to dig them out from where I’d stacked the fog machines after Halloween. By the time I returned to the workroom, he’d set up the iron next to our workstation. He opened the box of preemie garments and took one out. He lined up one of the images on the front and ironed it on. The printer chugged out more sheets while he handed the first T-shirt to me and moved on to the next. I pulled one of the small shirts over the head of one of the teddy bear models and turned him to face my dad. “Colonel Mustard is complete.”
“Almost complete. He needs his ascot,” he said. He picked up a small cutting of yellow fabric, knotted it around the neck of the teddy bear, and tucked the ends in. “Now he’s complete. Here, you take over the ironing. I’ll make aprons for Mrs. White.”
We continued that way—with the clocks draped with fabric so we didn’t know what time it was—until we were done. I added an accessory to each one: a script for Miss Scarlet, elbow patches for Professor Plum. I was stumped when it came to Mrs. Peacock until I looked up images online and got the idea to cut small cat-eye glasses out of sheets of blue tinted plastic. We took a little creative license, printing out a peacock-feather pattern to iron onto the small white cotton garment. After attaching the cat-eye glasses with glue dots to the corners of their eyes, the Mrs. Peacock bears would be complete.
By the time we pulled the fabric from the clocks, it was after four in the morning. I climbed upstairs, curled up next to Soot on my bed, and fell asleep in the bumblebee romper.
* * *
WHEN I woke later that morning, I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. So I did—or tried, at least. I rolled over and found a bear dressed like Professor Plum on the nightstand next to me. He held a sign that read: WAKE UP, MARGO.
I picked the bear up and looked at the clock. It was after ten and the shop would have to be open by eleven. There wasn’t enough time to drop off the costumes, come back, and take care of business, let alone take a shower. I stood up and caught my reflection.
Change in plans. I had to make time for a shower.
After the shower, I dressed in a pair of green harem pants, a matching tank top, and a vest trimmed with gold braid. I pulled my wet hair into a high ponytail and wrapped the base of it with gold cord like on I Dream of Jeannie. If only I could grant wishes too.
I slipped on a pair of gold Turkish slippers and made a kale and yogurt smoothie. I drank half and poured the rest into a gold genie bottle that I attached to a loop on the hip of my costume. I went downstairs to pack up the bear costumes. There were more boxes than I expected and there was no way I could strap them to my Vespa. I went behind the counter to the phone on the wall and called Kirby.
“Hey, Margo,” he answered. His voice sounded flat, dejected.
“Hey, Kirby.” I paused. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No. Yeah. Whatever.”
That was clear. “You want to talk about something?”
“Not now. Maybe later. Do you need me to come to the store?”
“If you can. When does school get out?”
“I can leave after Spanish class, so in, like, forty-five minutes. I padded my schedule so I have study hall all afternoon.”
“Perfect.”
“Are you going to be around? I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Sure. See you soon.”
There was barely time to get the register open by eleven. I unlocked the front door and filled a rack with assorted tie-dyed shirts from the ’60s section of the store, and then made a sign: TIE-DYED SHIRTS: $10, OR MAKE YOUR OWN FOR $15. I lined up four buckets of water and added red, blue, and yellow dye to the first three, and a gallon of half vinegar, half water to the fourth one. I set a shoebox filled with various sized rubber bands on the sidewalk and filled the rest of the rack with an assortment of plain white T-shirts from the stockroom. Two girls I guessed to be about Kirby’s age walked up and stopped when they read the sign.
“OMG, you can make tie-dye?”
“Like, seriously?” said the other.
“Sure,” I answered. “You put rubber bands around the T-shirt and then dunk the T-shirt into the dye. The dye bleeds together into abstract patterns, and the rubber bands make interesting negative space—you know, where the dye doesn’t absorb.”
They looked at each other. “This is totally epic. Wanna do it?”
“Abso. It’s like art class with clothes.”
They each selected tees from the rack—I didn’t comment on the fact that both went straight for kids’ sizes instead of ones that were made for adults—and then I instructed them on how to knot the shirt with the rubber bands and then dunk them. Blue water splashed out of the first bucket and I jumped back so as not to stain my Turkish slippers. The first girl went with a dip into all three buckets, but the second stuck with the red.
After they were finished dunking in the colored water, they submerged their shirts into the last bucket. The vinegar/water mixture would help set the color and keep the dye from crocking—the term for when color transfers onto other garments.
“What’s next?” asked the first girl.
“That’s pretty much it,” I said.
“But they’re all wet,” she said.
“And they smell like vinegar,” said the other.
The one thing I hadn’t thought of was the drying process. “The first time you wash it, the vinegar scent will go away completely. But you’re right, they do need to dry.”
Fortunately, the desert air of Proper would suck the moisture into the atmosphere in no time. “Wait here,” I said. I grabbed an empty rack and a handful of hangers from inside. Out front, I had them remove the rubber bands and hang the shirts on the rack. “They’ll be ready in fifteen minutes,” I predicted. “In the meantime, come on inside and browse.”
Hanging the drying shirts out front served the secondary purpose of luring in customers. By the time Kirby arrived, I’d sold fourteen T-shirts and had had to refill the blue dye bucket twice—although the second time was because a child had tipped it over. Blue water flowed across the sidewalk, leaving a trail to the sewer grate. As atrocious as it was, I was thankful he hadn’t tipped over the more ominous, blood-like red.
After tending to the buckets, I went inside and found Kirby behind the counter, a dirty rag and an assortment of car parts scattered in front of him.
Kirby Grizwitz was a tall, lanky high school senior. He had wild curly hair and a swimmer’s body, broad shoulders, narrow hips, low body fat. He’d found his way to a job in the store under my dad’s management. As I’d gotten to know him, I’d learned of his crush on Varla, the head of the high school drama club. We’d worked out a deal where the drama club would provide us with the occasional backdrop for our widow displays in exchange for a 20 percent discount on costumes for their annual performances. This meant Varla had become something of a regular, a fact that left Kirby in a constant state of embarrassment when she was around, even though he’d proven his creativity in the form of costumes over Halloween when he’d convinced the swim team to help with the unexpected crowds.
“Hey, Margo,” he said in the same voice he’d used on the phone earlier.
“Hi, Kirby. What’s this?” I asked.
He sighed. “My parents said I can’t get a dune buggy until my sophomore year of college. So I have two choices: drive my mom’s miniv
an or my dad’s minivan.”
“Or assemble your own car from the ground up?” I asked, indicating the parts on the towel in front of him.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time at the dealerships out at the end of Main Line Road. Red Harkonnen has a dune buggy on his lot that I can almost afford, but it needs a lot of work. He said I could work on the carburetor in my spare time since it’s just sitting there not going anywhere.”
I was impressed. “I didn’t know you knew how to rebuild a carburetor.”
“I don’t.” He picked up the book in front of him, displaying the title Auto Repair for Dummies. He set the book back down. “Auto Shop’s been no help. I missed the last couple of classes because of swim meets and now my grades are slipping. If my grades drop any lower, I’ll lose my scholarship to college in the fall. None of this is going as planned.” He tossed the metal piece that he’d been holding onto the counter and it bounced off of another piece, and then knocked into a smaller bolt. The bolt rolled to the end of the counter and fell. Soot, appearing from under the rack of fringed flapper dresses, ran forward and tapped it a couple of times, and then swatted it across the highly polished concrete floor. It skidded against the surface and disappeared under a bookcase filled with slippers shaped like Godzilla feet.
“Great,” Kirby said. He tossed the rag onto the counter next to the other car parts, but didn’t make a move to retrieve the bolt.
“Come on. The two of us can move that bookcase without unloading it. I’ve been meaning to rearrange that wall anyway.”
He followed me to the bookcase and we each took a side. Slowly, we shifted it away from the wall. “Bring your end toward me,” I said. Kirby scooted his side in a semicircle. As he looked down at the floor to make sure nothing was in his way, the bookcase tipped. Furry Godzilla feet showered the floor. Soot, who had caused the impromptu floor move with his game of hide-the-bolt and now oversaw the move of the bookcase like a curious onlooker, jumped out of the way and scurried up the stairs.
Kirby righted the now-empty bookcase and dropped onto a lime green beanbag chair that sat close by. “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything right these days.”
I scooped up several Godzilla feet and set them on the empty shelf. “You seem distracted. What’s up? This all can’t be about a car.”
“Angus O’Toole,” he said. “Captain of the football team.”
“What does this Angus O’Toole have to do with anything?”
“He likes Varla.”
The picture came into focus. “Does Varla like him?”
He looked at me like I’d missed a vital part of the conversation. “Did you not hear me say he’s the captain of the football team?”
“So what? You’re the captain of the swim team.”
“It’s not the same.”
“I don’t see why not. Swimming is as cool as football.”
“You can’t compare the two. He’s out there on the field padded up to look like a warrior. I’m on the side of a pool stripped down to a Speedo.”
Kirby had never before indicated that there was a class distinction to the jocks at his school. Last I’d heard, the swim team was undefeated, something that couldn’t be said for any of the other sports teams. There was a reason the Proper City High School mascot was the prawn.
“Do you really think Varla cares about football players? She’s the president of the drama club. I didn’t think drama people mixed with the regular jocks.”
He shrugged. “They don’t, usually, except that Varla’s different. She acts like she doesn’t need anybody.”
“The old hard-to-get routine.”
“She’s not a game player. She’s independent and she does her own thing. But it’s hard to compete with the homecoming king.”
“I thought you said he was the captain of the football team?”
“He’s both. You know how high school works.” He looked down at the toe of his Converse sneakers and bounced his feet against each other. “Her birthday is next week too, and he’s taking her out this weekend. I wanted to do something special for her, but what’s the point? No way can I compete with him.”
“I think you’re projecting a lot onto this Angus guy. What makes you think he can impress her more than you can? Maybe he’ll buy her a cake and think that’s good enough.”
“Angus O’Toole. Grady’s little brother. Remember Grady? Their family is rolling in money. Angus is like a pit bull with red hair. He’s capable of buying her more than a cake.”
I was beginning to see why Kirby was depressed about his chances. “I don’t care how much money his family has, you have the entire creative staff of Disguise DeLimit at your disposal,” I said. “We can talk more about this later. Right now I have to go see Dig about a car.”
“Sure.”
I left Kirby with instructions on the tie-dye process and then caught the Zip-Two. Minutes later, I got off and walked half a block to Dig’s Towing.
Dig’s business was a small property set a few blocks away from the Main Line. Though his primary income came from roadside assistance, he always had a few cars scattered around the lot that he tinkered on throughout the day. Today, the lot was empty except for a long, yellow Zip bus in front. I recognized the graffitied images of dice and game pieces that I’d first noticed last night.
“Dig?” I called out.
“Under here,” he said. A few seconds later, he wriggled out from under the bus and stood up. “Whoever’s idea it was to go with repurposed school buses for the Zip line was a genius. School buses are easy to work on. But this thing”—he waved a wrench at the bus—“is a nightmare. The wiring is held together with electrical tape and bubblegum.”
I laughed. “Come on, it can’t be that bad. Besides, you’re Dig. You can do anything.”
He bent his arm in front of him and flexed his bicep, making Tweety Bird jump twice. “Make sure you tell Ebony that,” he said. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Shouldn’t you be at the store?”
“Kirby’s minding the store,” I said. “I’m here because I need some transportation.”
He glanced at my outfit. “I’m all out of magic carpets.”
“I’ll take whatever you have. I have to take a couple boxes of costumes to the festival.”
“How big are these boxes? I don’t have any trucks. Except mine, and you’re not driving my tow truck.”
“I don’t need a truck. The boxes are about the size of shoe boxes. Six of them.”
“What kind of costumes fit in boxes like that?”
“Teddy bear costumes.”
“‘Teddy bear costumes,’” he repeated, with a look that suggested he didn’t believe me. “You finally run out of human customers?”
“Hey, at least the teddy bears stand still for their fittings,” I said.
I followed Dig inside his office and waited while he sorted through a bowl of keys. He pulled out a set with BUICK written on the tag and handed them to me. “It’s a Le Sabre. Around back. Not the best-looking car in the world, but I just gassed her up so you’ll be in good shape.”
“Thanks.” I took the keys and tucked them into a hidden pocket on my harem pants.
Dig tipped his head to the side. “I haven’t seen Tak Hoshiyama around much lately. You didn’t scare him off with the way you dress, did you?”
“I dress like a person who runs a costume shop. Why should that scare him? He dresses like a city planner and that doesn’t scare me.”
“He have any luck finding a job?”
“I don’t know. I mean, nobody around here is hiring. The mayor kept him pretty busy zoning out the park for the festival, but that’s done now. He’s been on interviews for the past two weeks. Other than that, it’s freelance work.”
“He’s been doing a lot of freelance work,” Dig said. “One of these days a company is goi
ng to offer him a steady paycheck. What’s going to happen then?”
“If it’s a job he wants, he’ll probably take it.”
“What happens to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, long distance doesn’t work. You’re here. If he doesn’t want to be here, then maybe that’s a sign.”
“Sign, schmine. You’ve been spending too much time talking to Ebony.”
“See, that’s the difference. Ebony wants to be in Proper City. I want to be in Proper City. All I have to do is convince Ebony that she wants to be with me.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“She’ll come around.”
We walked around the back to the Le Sabre. “Thanks for the loaner,” I said to Dig. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I drop off the costumes.”
“No rush. I’ll be working on that yellow beast out front for the rest of the day.”
“You can’t work under the bus after the sun goes down,” I said. “How will you see anything?”
He tipped his head to the side. “Easier to work on it from the inside than underneath, anyway. I was only down there to grease the hinges on the trapdoor.”
“What trapdoor?”
“On the bus. All buses and trailers have them. You never noticed that? Must be one of the people who likes to sit in the front.”
“I like to keep the driver company.”
“Sure, sure.” He wiped the back of his hands across his dirty jeans. “In the back of the bus, there’s an access panel. Twelve inches by twenty-four, usually. Big enough for me to open up, light the bus from underneath, and work on it from inside. Gives me a rush with my head hanging upside down like that, but it’s good for the circulation. Not as good as a headstand, but better than nothing. Why are you looking at me like that?”
I turned off the engine to the Le Sabre and got out. “You’re saying trailers all have trapdoors that can be accessed from the inside?” He nodded. “All of them?” He nodded again. “Show me.”
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