She looked in the mirror, noting the wild brown hair and her tired eyes.
“A lot, apparently,” she answered herself.
With the brush, she tried to get through her locks again. No luck. In fact, the movement had sent some bristles to their deathbed.
She shook her head, the brush still stuck in her hair. “Time to call in the big guns…part two.”
She grabbed her phone and called Claire, but not before she saw a text message from Tabby that read: Doing better…next time we go to Oriceran, I’m bringing a big ass can of Raid, which made Maria chuckle.
Once Claire picked up the phone, Maria only had to say two words: “Fashion emergency.”
And Claire answered with, “On my way.”
Five minutes later, Sherlock was barking in the garage, and Claire was knocking on the door.
“Wow, record time,” Maria whispered, then added a, “Thank God” for good measure.
The brush was still in her hair as she went down the steps. It smacked against the side of her face a few times before she even realized it was there, and she was not fast enough getting it out before Claire took it on herself to come in.
Maria froze halfway down the hall as Claire looked her over, her hand coming up to her face to hide her laughter.
“When did you get a key?” Maria asked.
Through the laughter, Claire said, “I’ve known you pretty much my whole life. Don’t act like I don’t know that your grandpa hides a spare key at the bottom of the bird bath.”
“I keep telling him to move it because one of these days a bird is gonna end up swallowing it whole, but he never listens.”
“Glad he didn’t,” Claire replied. “Now, honey, what in the holy hell is wrong with you? You look like you got in a fight with your hairbrush and the hairbrush won…and is still winning.”
“That’s why I called you. You’ve got a knack for fashion, and I need to look good.”
Claire waved the comment away. “Oh, Maria, you always look good.” But she couldn’t hide the fact she was snickering.
“Yeah, yeah, just help me.”
“All right, I will, but it won’t be easy.” Claire checked the time on her iPhone. Joe would be in the driveway in twenty-five minutes. “80s movie montage?”
“Oh, God, not again,” Maria said.
From the garage, where Maria could faintly hear the ripping of cardboard and soft growls, Sherlock spoke up. Is that Claire? If it is, tell her I take back what I said about her and I not going to Dog Prom!
Maria ignored him.
“To start, you’re going to have to hop in the shower—no, don’t hop. You might break a leg and that’d be bad,” Claire went on, her hands motioning while she talked.
“Har-har.”
“Seriously, you need to tame that wild mane, and the only way I see that happening is by showering…plus, Maria, you kind of smell like—” She sniffed the air deeply. “Is that Milkbone?”
Maria sighed. “Yeah…long story. I’m just glad you didn’t say I smelled like dog pee or Gnome.”
“Better than Gnome pee.”
“Is it?”
Both of them cracked smiles and lost themselves to uncontrollable laughter.
“Go, shower, go!”
Maria showered and when she got out only five minutes later, Claire was standing in the steamy bathroom, holding out a towel in one hand, and covering her eyes with the other.
“Don’t tell me you have a key to my bathroom, too,” Maria said.
“Nope, you didn’t lock it. Hurry up and dry off. And don’t give me that look.”
“I thought your eyes were covered.”
“Maria, please, you’ve seen one pair, you’ve seen them all—at least that’s what my grandma always said…around the time the dementia set in, and she would go gardening in her front yard as naked as the day she was born…”
“Wise words to live by. Can’t beat an old woman who’s bold enough to garden in the nude.”
“Yeah,” Claire said, “I miss her.”
“How’s Tabby?” Maria asked, wanting to quickly change the subject from Claire’s naked grandma—which was a picture she wasn’t going to get out of her head anytime soon.
“She’s good, at home resting. But no more talk. It’s time.”
“Please, Claire, don’t play—”
It was too late. Claire pushed a button, and her iPhone blared ‘Eye of the Tiger’ from the Rocky movies.
The 80s movie montage had begun.
“Holy shit!” Maria said a quarter of an hour later. “I look like a princess!”
Joe would be there in five minutes.
“Where did you even get this outfit? I don’t own this…do I?”
Claire’s only answer was a grin.
“Seriously, where?”
“Magic,” Claire said, waving her hands in an arc.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Okay, I stole it from Ted’s wife…there, ya happy?” Claire said. She stuck her tongue out immediately after. Ted was Maria’s former boss at the Popcorn Palace—a small store in the food court that specialized in all sorts of rare popcorn flavors. Maria had been fired there only a day or two ago—she wasn’t sure which. Ever since going to Oriceran, her internal clock was all messed up.
“Ted doesn’t have a wife. God have mercy on any woman who’d sleep in the same bed as him.”
“I don’t know where it’s from, but it was in your grandpa’s closet.”
Maria paled. “You went in there?”
“Relax, I didn’t see anything weirder than what I saw on a different planet. Some pretty weird stuff—why would he have a stuffed ferret and for what purpose?—but nothing too crazy. The dress was hanging next to a bunch of other weird outfits that I haven’t seen him wear. I see your eyes getting big; don’t worry, it was in plastic and doesn’t smell like mothballs or Gnome pee.”
“I wonder whose it was,” Maria said, mostly to herself. An odd feeling came over her. Was this dress, this ornately decorated blue dress that sparkled like crystals in the sun, something my mother might’ve worn on Oriceran? With the odd feeling and hopeful thought came the sadness. She wished she’d known her mother. She wished she could’ve been there helping Claire get her ready for
