Cleo took after her mother in coloring, but she supposed she favored her father’s people in shape. Orlaith made enough passive-aggressive comments about the size of Cleo’s’ boobs and butt over the years that growing up, Cleo had believed her mother absolutely. Of course she did. The only thing her father had left her, according to her mother, was her last name and unruly hips.
Cleo breathed through her nose. Calm thoughts. Rushing water. Waterfalls. Babbling brooks.
Apparently Cleo needed to pee. She was near the outskirts of town, near an odd antiques store she’d passed by on her way out of town. Even though it was tidied and had cheerful blossoms in huge pots surrounding it, Cleo had never wanted to go in. She wasn’t sure if the alarm bells in her mind were warranted or not, she just knew she wanted to avoid it. Her bladder made it unavoidable.
The bell above the door jangled merrily as Cleo walked in. The air was blessedly cool against her arms.
“Be right there, dear!” a woman’s voice called from the back.
“Okay,” Cleo called back. She spotted the hand-printed LADIES sign and made her way through the shop. It was a mix of old and new, lots of furniture, lots of knick knacks and semi-decent jewelry. The air smelled of sandalwood and a little patchouli. Still, a weird vibe lingered. It should’ve been welcoming and homey. It wasn’t.
As she made her way out of the tidy restroom, Cleo walked through the space, a feeling of unease keeping her spine straight. The shopkeeper made her way towards Cleo, winding through furniture and bookshelves and some unidentifiable antiques. She was all circles: round body, gently spiraling gray and black curls generously streaked with white, circular glasses perched about a round little mouth. Her necklace was the cycles of the moon. Interesting. She was like a black hippie Mrs. Claus, and Cleo liked her instantly. The feeling was uncomfortable. Instantly liking someone was a path she didn’t want to go down.
“Looking for anything in particular?” Mrs. Claus asked, clearly not expecting an answer other than ‘just browsing, thanks!’
Cleo paused. Maybe she was.
Instead of answering, Cleo asked “Where do you get your merchandise?”
Mrs. Claus looked surprised but pleased. She leaned one hip on the arm of a beautiful Mission-style chair.
“Mix of places. My business partner makes quite a bit of the furniture. I go to a lot of swap meets and flea markets. Some furniture and crafts come from local folk, or nearby enough, I suppose. Some are donations, but I’m careful with those.”
“People trying to pass off their garbage?” Cleo asked.
“Sometimes. And some things just have bad vibes, you know?” Mrs. Claus’ face creased in consternation, but then she caught Cleo’s eye and winked.
Cleo introduced herself then. This situation had potential.
Not Mrs. Claus, then, but rather Opal Millerhouse was the co-owner of this shop. Opal had all the gossip. It didn’t matter that Cleo didn’t know three-quarters of the people Opal chatted with; both women were lonely. And this was a way to get business, Cleo told herself, not to make connections. Friendships were flat out, but friendly business associates were okay. Cleo had learned the hard way she couldn’t go further than that. Her barista days had ended with a spectacular bang.
Cleo chatted about her small hobby farm, supplying greens to a few local restaurants. That was the easy part of the conversation. It was normal. The next part was the risk, but Cleo had to take it.
“I also have a side job,” Cleo said, feeling her face heat up. She hadn’t figured out a way to talk about this without sounding stupid or fake.
Opal’s head cocked to one side. Hippies were open to things, right? Opal would be cool with this.
“I also do a… healing cleaning business. Where me and some… associates of mine work to, uh, take bad vibes off objects.”
Opal didn’t laugh, which was always a good sign. Older people tended to be cooler about this. People in their 50’s thought they had the world all figured out and were apt to laugh. But someone in their 70’s? Their world had changed. They’d seen things. And some of them weren’t so quick to dismiss the strange out-of-hand.
“Huh,” Opal said. “Huh.”
“So if you ever have anything you’d like for me to look at,” Cleo said in a rush, “I’d be open to that.”
“You work for free?” Opal’s eyebrow raised impressively high. Cleo was always jealous of expressive eyebrows. They could hit so many notes so easily. Opal’s left eyebrow was currently skeptical, or least willing to judge Cleo as foolish.
“Right now it’s more of a barter system,” Cleo assured Opal. Opal’s eyebrow arched even higher. So impressive.
“Hard to eat on a barter system,” Opal said mildly. Her eyebrow vehemently disagreed with her easy tone, however.
“I mean, I could charge you money if you wanted…?”
Opal’s eyebrow dropped. “I don’t like to see women working for free, or devaluing their talents. So much of women’s work is worthy, but we don’t treat it as such, culturally speaking, you know.”
Cleo paused. “Traditionally,” Cleo mused, working it out, “the women in my family did, er, this type of work for their neighbors. And the neighbors repaid them in things like meals and assistance with, I don’t know, house stuff.”
“House stuff?” Opal looked amused.
“This is according to my gran’s gran, so take it with a grain of salt. Actually, knowing my gran, probably a whole salt-shaker of salt. My family hasn’t done this type
