“I’m taking a picture,” Call said, pulling out his phone. “Tamara can give us advice. She knows what you’re supposed to wear to stuffy mage events.”
There was a whoosh as Call texted Tamara the photograph. A few seconds later she texted back: Aaron looks like a con man who got hit with a shrink ray and you look like you’re going to Catholic school.
Aaron looked over Call’s padded shoulder and winced at the message.
“Well?” Alastair asked. “We could duct-tape the legs. Make them look shorter.”
“Or,” Call said, “we could go to a different store and not embarrass ourselves in front of the Assembly.”
Alastair looked from Call to Aaron and gave in with a sigh, putting back his vacuum cleaner. “Okay. Let’s go.”
It was a relief to get out of the airless, overheated mall. A short car ride later Call and Aaron were standing in front of a thrift shop that dealt in vintage stuff of all kinds, from doilies to dressers to sewing machines. Call had been here before with his dad and remembered that the proprietor, Miranda Keyes, loved vintage clothes. She wore them constantly, without much respect for matching colors or styles, which meant she was often seen wandering around their town in a poodle skirt, go-go boots, and a sequined tank top with a pattern of angry cats.
But Aaron didn’t know that. He was looking around, smiling hesitantly, and Call’s heart sank. This was going to be even worse than JL Dimes. What had started out kind of funny was starting to make Call feel a little sick inside. He knew his dad was “eccentric” — which was a nice way of saying “weird” — and he’d never really minded, but it wasn’t fair that Aaron had to look “eccentric,” too. What if all Miranda had was red velvet tuxedoes or something even worse?
It was bad enough that Aaron had spent the summer drinking lemonade from a powder mix, instead of from fresh lemons the way they made it at Tamara’s house; sleeping on a military cot that Alastair had set up in Call’s room; running through a sprinkler made from knife holes in a garden hose; and eating regular old cereal for breakfast instead of eggs cooked to order by a chef. If Aaron showed up at this party looking stupid, it might be the final straw. Call might lose the Best Friend War for good.
Alastair got out of the car. Call followed his dad and Aaron inside with a sense of foreboding.
The suits were in the back of the room, behind the tables of odd brass musical instruments and the jadeite bowl of rusty keys. It was a lot like Alastair’s own shop, Now and Again, except that the ceiling was hung with fur-collared coats and silk scarves, while Alastair specialized in the more industrial end of antiques. Miranda came out of the back and talked to Alastair for a few minutes about what she’d brought back from Brimfield — a huge antiques show up north — and who she’d seen there. Call’s dread grew.
Finally, Alastair found his way to telling her what they needed. She gave each of the boys a sharp evaluating look, as though she were looking through them and seeing something else. She did the same thing to Alastair, her eyes narrowing before she disappeared into the back.
Aaron and Call amused themselves by wandering around the store, each one of them trying to find the weirdest object. Aaron had discovered a Batman-shaped alarm clock that said “WAKE UP, BOY WONDER” when he pressed the top, and Call had unearthed a sweater made out of taped-together lollipops, when Miranda reemerged, humming, with a pile of clothes that she stacked on the counter.
The first thing she pulled out was a dressing jacket for Alastair. It looked like it was made from satin with a subtle, deep green pattern to it and a bright silk lining. It was definitely old and weird, but in a not-embarrassing way.
“Now,” she said, pointing at Call and Aaron, “your turn.”
She handed each one of them a folded linen suit. Aaron’s was the color of cream and Call’s was dove gray.
“Same as your eyes, Call,” said Miranda, looking pleased with herself, as Call and Aaron threw the suits on over their shorts and T-shirts. She clapped her hands and gestured for them to look in the mirror.
Call stared at his reflection. He didn’t know much about clothes, but the suit fit him, and he didn’t look bizarre. He actually looked kind of grown up. So did Aaron. The light colors made them both look tan.
“Is this for a special occasion?” asked Miranda.
“You could say that.” Alastair sounded pleased. “They’re both getting awards.”
“For, um, community service,” said Aaron. He met Call’s eyes in the mirror. Call guessed it was only sort of a lie, though most community service didn’t involve severed heads.
“Fantastic!” said Miranda. “They both look so handsome.”
Handsome. Call had never thought of himself as handsome. Aaron was the handsome one. Call was the one who was short, limped, and was too intense and sharp-featured. But he guessed that people selling stuff had to tell you that you looked good. On a whim, Call pulled out his phone, took a picture of his and Aaron’s reflections in the mirror, and sent it to Tamara.
A minute later the reply came back. Nice. Attached to the message was a short video of someone falling off a chair in surprise. Call couldn’t help laughing.
“Do they need anything else?” Alastair asked. “Shoes, cuff links … anything?”
“Well, shirts, obviously,” Miranda said. “I have a lot of nice ties —”
“I don’t need you to buy me anything else, Mr. Hunt,” said Aaron, looking anxious. “Really.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Alastair said with a surprising lightness in his voice. “Miranda and I are in the business. We’ll work out a trade.”
Call looked over at Miranda, to find her smiling. “There was a little Victorian brooch at your store I had my eye on.”
At that, Alastair’s expression stiffened a little, then relaxed almost immediately into a laugh. “Well, for that, we’re definitely taking the cuff links. Shoes, too, if you’ve got them.”
By the time they left, they had huge bags filled with clothes and Call was feeling pretty good. They drove back to the house with barely enough time to take showers and comb their hair. Alastair came out of his bedroom reeking of some ancient cologne and looking snappy in his new jacket and a pair of black trousers he must have unearthed in the back of his closet. Muttering, he immediately started hunting around for his car keys. He barely looked recognizable to Call as the dad who worked around the house in tweed and denim overalls, the dad who’d spent all summer helping them make robots out of spare parts.