“Polly Hunt,” she said with a wide smile. “I’m so ecstatic to finally meet you!”
I stuck my hand out in a friendly gesture, but she rolled her eyes playfully. “Oh, please!” She snorted softly through her pert nose as she waved off my somewhat formal greeting. “We’re going to be shopping all day together. In my world, that’s like having sex.” She giggled and then grabbed me for a quick hug. “This is for you, by the way,” she said, handing me a pink bag.
“Clothes?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Yes, ma’am. Say, what happened to all of your clothes anyway?”
“About that …,” I hedged, not having a clue how to answer. “My moving here to be with Noah was kind of a rushed decision, and I didn’t really have time to pack very much. What little I did bring didn’t seem to be up to par with the styles and trends you guys wear around here, so I got rid of them.”
There. That sounded like fashion-speak, right?
Polly arched a perfectly manicured brow, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. She squinted her eyes at me in doubt. “And you were naked when you did this?”
“Um, no,” I half laughed. “Of course not, silly. The clothes I had on are just dirty. Yeah, they’re dirty.”
“Uh-huh.” She eyed me suspiciously. “Well, why don’t you go ahead and get changed and we’ll get going?”
~$~
Riding in Polly’s little red Beamer scared the shit out of me. Multitasking was a gift, but I wasn’t so sure it was a gift that should’ve been used while driving. She was doing well over the legal speed limit while bopping along to the radio and talking even faster than she drove without taking so much as a breath that I could tell. Every now and then she honked the horn and cursed at a fellow motorist for going too slow or changing lanes at a time that wasn’t convenient for her.
“It’s Chicago. Learn to keep up or get off the road, assholes!” She looked at me and shook her head while rolling her eyes. “People who are obviously scared are dangerous and have no business behind the wheel of a car.”
I agreed, but hyperactive, road-rage types who were strung out on caffeine shouldn’t be allowed behind the wheel either, for that matter.
She whipped into a spot just vacated by another vehicle. And when I say “just vacated,” I mean the other car was barely even out of the spot before she parallel-parked without slowing down, running up on the curb and forcing some of the pedestrians walking on the sidewalk to scramble out of the way.
I managed to wrench my fingertips out of the dashboard, where I was sure there would be lingering imprints, and got out of the car. I would have been perfectly willing to kiss the ground had it not been so grotesque. Public streets and sidewalks were like petri dishes cultivating death cocktails.
Polly popped her sunglasses on, threw her purse strap over her shoulder, and said, “Let’s go, chica.” Her three-inch heels and short dress, which looked like it was made for a little girl instead of a grown woman, would’ve been a big no-no for me, but she pulled it off without a hitch. Seriously, the woman was too cute with a side of come-here-lovah-boy.
We went into the first shop, and the ladies behind the counter recognized her immediately, even calling her by name.
“Friends of yours?” I asked.
“Professionally, not socially,” she said under her breath. “You might say I’m a frequent flyer here. Plus I tip very well.”
“Ladies,” she said, turning back to them and holding up Noah’s gold card, “if you would be so kind as to hook my new friend up with your finest.”
I was rushed into a dressing room to strip, and before I even had all of my clothes off, garments were being slung over the door. I groaned inwardly, because shopping just was not my thing, but I had to admit that I felt sort of like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, being fussed over like that.
Polly stood outside the door praising things she approved of and scoffing at things she didn’t. I thought I was safe in my own little room, closed off from the rest of the world, but Polly wasn’t having that. She pushed open the door and strolled right on in like I didn’t have anything she hadn’t ever seen before. I supposed I didn’t, but still, I might have wanted to retain a wee bit of privacy.
I was beginning to learn quickly that in Noah’s world, apparently my body was a free-for-all. So I gave up caring and let what my mama gave me hang out like I was a centerfold to be envied, though I was far from it.
“So,” Polly sighed as she sat down on the bench in my dressing room and watched me. “Tell me all about how you and Noah met.”
“Um, I guess like anyone else does,” I said, trying to figure out the contraption of a dress that she’d handed to me to try on next.
“No one meets in exactly the same way. Everyone has a story. Give me the details, girlfriend,” she said, helping me with the dress.
And then I got giddy because her curiosity was going to let me play with Noah a bit. He had told me to say as much as I wanted. “Well, he’d probably kill me for telling you this, so I’ll have to swear you to secrecy.”
“Bitch’s honor.” She put her middle and index fingers directly under her eyes like Samantha on Bewitched. She won me over completely with that little maneuver—a psycho after my own heart.
“I met him outside a drag queen show,” I said in a hushed whisper. “He was so pretty that I thought he was one of the performers.”
“Noah Crawford was at a drag queen show?” Polly shrieked, and then started giggling when I cupped my hand over her mouth and shushed her.
“He said that he wasn’t familiar with the area, wanted a drink, and wandered in there by mistake,” I embellished. “He was outside smoking a cigarette when I showed up, and I’ve always secretly wondered if it was because he’d just gotten his rocks off.”
Polly and I laughed together, and it felt really nice.
“Then what?” she asked, hanging on my every word.
“Well, I might have given him the ‘uh-huh, like I’m going to believe that’ look, at which point he proceeded to ogle the girls,” I said, flexing the boobage. “Just to prove a point, I’m sure.”
“You do have nice tits.” She shrugged, as if to say, That makes sense.
“So anyway, he asked me out for a drink, and because he was so cute, trying to prove how manly he was, I let him fuck me. I haven’t been able to get rid of him since,” I laughed.