Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [53]
“No way.” Shipley swiped the earmuffs away and tucked them under her arm. “Don’t worry. My family has an account here,” she confessed. “I usually get whatever I want and just sign for it. Pick out anything you like. Honestly. My parents won’t mind.”
Eliza hesitated. She’d been prepared to hate Shipley forever, but as the day progressed, she felt herself soften. She’d thought Shipley would be more spoiled. Sure, her house was a showcase, but there was no one in it to dote on her, not even a well-groomed Labrador. Shipley had invited her home for Thanksgiving because she couldn’t face going home alone. And she was totally right about the earmuffs. Maybe Shipley knew her better than she thought. “You can’t buy me,” she insisted halfheartedly. “I’m not for sale.”
“Oh, shut up.” Shipley slung her arm through Eliza’s and steered her toward the jeans. “Look. An entire shelf of black denim. Go on. You know you want to.”
They tried on twelve pairs of jeans in a tiny shared dressing room. Eliza decided on two particularly flattering pairs that she would have to cut up and distress herself. Then she broke down and picked out a camping stove for Nick, an insulated sports bra for the frosty-titted Maine winter, two black turtlenecks, six pairs of black wool kneesocks, and an ankle-length black down coat that was basically like a sleeping bag she could walk in. It occurred to her that she could zip her new coat right onto Nick’s sleeping bag so they’d have a double-wide in which to have hot and sweaty down-insulated sex inside his yurt. Or not.
The total came to more than $2,000. Shipley signed for it before Eliza could see. “There, that was fun, wasn’t it?” she asked as they carried their bags out to the car.
It was an unseasonably warm Thanksgiving, but Eliza wore her earmuffs and her new coat out of the store. “That was awesome.”
Shipley had a closet full of clothes at home, so she hadn’t bothered with a bag for the trip. Eliza had thrown her duffel bag into the backseat. And so, for the first time since she’d gone to college, Shipley popped open the trunk of the Mercedes to accommodate their large Darien Sports Shop shopping bags.
“Holy shit,” Eliza said.
The trunk of the car was full of food: bagels, muffins, donuts, rolls, bruised fruit, moldy cheese, bags of crushed tortilla chips, and a battered gallon jug of water.
“What the fuck?” Eliza demanded. “Do you have an eating disorder?”
Shipley closed the trunk. The stranger must have been living out of her car, using the trunk as his pantry. She opened one of the back doors and tossed the bags onto the seat. “It’s not my food. It belongs to someone else.”
“What do you mean, ‘someone else’?” Eliza persisted. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Shipley said. “Just someone I let use my car when I’m not using it.”
All that week Shipley had left the car in the Dexter lot with an empty tank to guarantee that it would be there on Thanksgiving morning when she needed it. She felt a little guilty for doing so, and even guiltier for removing the car from the premises without any explanation, but hopefully the warm clothes would make up for it.
Eliza stared at her. “You let this someone drive your car, and you don’t know them?”
“Right.” It made even less sense to Shipley now that she’d said it out loud. She opened the driver’s side door and got in. “Come on,” she said. “Grab the map out of the glove compartment. I’m looking for Oliver Road, in Bedford.”
Tom hadn’t gone home for Thanksgiving. Ever since Shipley had posed with the Macy’s bag over her head, he’d been holed up in his room, painting. Shipley left him to it. She could have taken the opportunity to rush right into Adam’s arms, but Tom was her first real boyfriend, and she loved him—she did! She loved everything about him, except for his horrible naked Eliza paintings and how hyper and sweaty he got on ecstasy and his sometimes indelicate language. Adam was handsome—in a freckly, awkward sort of way—and measured and polite, but he was basically a townie, and a timid one at that. He hadn’t even come after her since their kiss in