After a week of work, when he got his first payment – in cash, another benefit of informality – he headed to a nearby department store to get the first thing on his list of wants: clothes.
He wandered around the men’s section for a good half hour, getting dizzy from all the styles and patterns and colors. This was another aspect of life that he had grown accustomed to having decided for him. After living on the run for several years with limited space for personal belongings, and being at Bellevue after that, he wasn’t used to having so many options. It wasn’t until he was faced with the array of styles that he realized he had no idea what his own personal “style” was. In the hospital, he always wore sweat pants and neutral colors, because that’s what they gave him. On the run, he had been satisfied with jeans and a black t-shirt, because that’s all he could afford.
Picking up a blue flannel shirt and examining the texture of the fabric, he tried to think back to how he used to dress, before everything. Clothes had never been important to him, and even before his life was turned upside down, they never had the money for anything fancy. It was jeans and t-shirts back then too.
He headed over to the jeans, and now that he knew his size, it was simple enough to pick up a few pairs in varying shades of blue. From the table of $3 t-shirts, he grabbed a white, a black, and a gray to add to the one black and one gray he already had.
There was comfort in familiarity, but looking down at the stack of clothes in his basket, he couldn’t help but think about the fact that he was supposed to be embracing change, becoming a new man. Of course, clothes weren’t necessarily an important factor in that regard, but as he passed by that blue, flannel shirt again, he grabbed it and tossed it with the others.
Callie and Angela had caught wind of Jacob’s new job, and when they did, they insisted on going out to dinner and a movie to celebrate. It had been a while since he had spent any real time with them, outside of class. They were still friendly, but things had never been quite the same since the Movie Theater Incident. But Jacob was pleasantly surprised when Callie had mentioned that he should invite Jenna to dinner with them. Perhaps she was ready to bury the hatchet and their friendship could return to what it was before.
Jacob smiled at that thought as he fixed his hair in the mirror, still wishing he could afford a haircut, and took another look at himself before heading out the door. He tugged on the ends of his new flannel shirt, unsure of how to wear it. He had it hanging open over a black t-shirt, copying the picture on the ad he had seen in the store. Remembering the way the man in the photo had worn it, he unbuttoned the wrists and rolled one sleeve halfway up his arm, comparing it with the other unrolled one. It was off script, but he decided to go with the unrolled look. It looked slightly more formal, and by the fancy-sounding Italian name Callie had told him, he was pretty sure the restaurant they were going to was a nice one.
Giving one last straighten to his collar, he grabbed his dorm key and headed for the lobby to meet Jenna. The other girls were already out shopping for the day, so they decided to meet up at the restaurant. Jenna was waiting for him in the lobby, sporting bright red lips and a black dress, made edgy by the low neck-line that was crisscrossed with thick, black strings laced through gold rivets. She had even swapped her usual well-worn converse for gold, strappy heels, and he felt vastly underdressed.
She caught sight of him as he stopped and stared at her, preparing to run back to his room and change. Into what, he didn’t know, but clearly what he was wearing wasn’t good enough.
“Hey,” Jenna greeted with a smile, walking up to him. She looked down and gave a light tug on his flannel. “Nice shirt.”
“Really?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah, it looks great on you,” she said, patting it back into place on his chest. “Brings out your eyes. You ready?”
Now that he had confirmation he wasn’t dressed like a homeless person, he relaxed and said, “Yeah, let’s go.”
Jenna yawned as they stepped into the car. “If I start to drift off, you’re in charge of slapping me,” she said as they buckled their seat belts.
“Uh… should I be driving?”
She laughed. “Nah, I’m fine. I just haven’t been sleeping much lately, but I think I’ve gotten a second wind.”
Not fully convinced, Jacob turned on the CD player and cranked up the volume just in case.
The restaurant was about as fancy as Jacob expected. Real silverware and cloth napkins, but no table cloths, for which he was grateful. Table cloths generally indicated hefty prices he was not prepared to pay.
The other girls were already seated on one side of a booth, and as soon as Jacob and Jenna slid in across from them, their waiter came by to take their drink orders.
Jenna ordered a merlot, and Callie and Angela had a few questions about the drink menu they had been studying. They finally settled on virgin margaritas, and the waiter turned to Jacob.
“And for you, sir?” he asked.
“Um,” Jacob began, pretending to look over the drinks for a moment. “Do you have iced tea?”
“Yes, sir. We have regular and peach.”
“I’ll try the peach,” he decided.
“Very well, sir,” the server replied with a small bow as he retreated from the table back to the kitchen.
“So, tell us about the new job!” Angela said with a grin.
All the girls turned their eyes to him. “I’m doing bookkeeping for Jenna’s uncle. He owns Big Al’s diner,” he explained, and Angela gasped.
“Oh my gosh, I would literally kill somebody for one of their shakes right now,” she gushed. “I had no idea that was your uncle,” she said to Jenna.
“Yep,” she smiled.
“I bet you got all the free shakes you wanted growing up,” she mused.
Jenna laughed. “Well, when I was in town, yeah. I’m from Chicago, but I used to visit him and my aunt a lot after they moved down here.”
“Huh,” Jacob muttered, realizing he had never asked Jenna where she was from.
“So… have you always lived in Chicago?” Callie interjected a bit stiffly, and Jacob and Angela glanced between her and Jenna.
“Um,” Jenna stuttered, taken aback by Callie addressing her directly. “Yeah. I grew up there, but I’ve travelled a lot since then.”
“Ooo, really? I’ve never been anywhere,” Angela let out a wistful sigh. “What’s your favorite place you’ve been?”
The waiter returned with their drinks then, and their conversation was put on pause while they delivered their food orders.
“Actually, I really like it here,” Jenna shrugged after the server disappeared.
Angela grimaced. “Really?”
Jenna giggled. “Yeah. I mean, there’s a reason I decided to stick around for four years. People are really nice here. And you can’t see stars like that in the city,” she nodded her head at the window.
Angela looked out the window. “Huh,” she said, still baffled by anyone being in Cottonwood by choice.
There was a lull in the conversation, as everyone focused on their drinks and the breadsticks the waiter had dropped off.
“So, what’s your major, Jenna?” Callie asked, again drawing everyone’s attention.