Fortunately, they did seem to sell more casual stuff as well. A little further into the section we found jeans that would make Frederick stand out a lot less the next time he went out.
“Can I help you?”
A slender woman in a black sheath dress, with her dark hair pulled back into a severe but elegant bun, appeared at Frederick’s elbow. I noted her name tag—this was Eleanor M.—and the fact that she looked about my age, albeit far more put together. I wondered if Nordstrom required employees to buy the clothes they wore to work the way The Limited did when I worked there back in college.
“Yes,” Frederick said. “My name is Frederick J. Fitzwilliam. I require clothing.”
The salesperson’s eyebrows shot up. “Clothing?”
“Yes.”
She continued to look expectantly at Frederick, as if waiting for clarification. When none came, she pivoted on one of her expensive-looking, three-inch heels to face me.
“What he means,” I began, feeling a bit awkward, “is he wants to try on some jeans. And some casual shirts. He already has a lot of suits but wants some clothes he can wear, like—around the house, or to a coffee shop. Things like that.”
“Ah.” She gave me a knowing smile. And then, in a conspiratorial stage whisper she added, “Your boyfriend’s a real workaholic, always-at-the-office type, isn’t he?”
Boyfriend.
My heart lodged itself in my esophagus at the same time my stomach did a not entirely unpleasant somersault. I glanced at Frederick. From the thunderstruck look on his face, I could tell he’d heard exactly what she’d just said.
“Oh . . . he’s . . . ,” I stammered. I tried to laugh. “He’s not my—”
But she wasn’t there to hear the end of my sentence, already walking away and gesturing for us to follow her away from the suits and towards the men’s section’s more casual clothing. I glanced at Frederick, following just behind me. I didn’t think a person’s eyes could even get that wide.
“Our store’s men’s department is the largest one out of all the Nordstroms in the Chicagoland area,” she boasted, oblivious to my rioting thoughts. “Our suiting options are especially robust. But I gather you aren’t here for that.”
“No,” Frederick agreed. He gestured to me, adding, “Cassie says I need to wear more casual clothes in order to blend in with modern society.”
The salesperson hummed, nodding sagely. “Yes. Well, you’ve come to the right place.” She stopped walking when we reached several racks of jeans. “Are you interested in distressed jeans or a more classic look?”
Frederick raised a suspicious eyebrow at the salesperson. He gingerly plucked at a pair of jeans that were so distressed they looked like they’d soaked in a vat of acid for two weeks.
“I am not wearing this,” he said, flatly. “God’s thumbs, Cassie. This garment is more hole than fabric.”
“He’d like a more classic look,” I said, very quickly, to the salesperson. I steered Frederick to a rack of jeans that I thought he might find more acceptable.
He blinked. “These?”
“These,” I agreed.
He considered me a moment before asking, “How do I know which of these will fit me?”
At this, the saleswoman turned to Frederick, letting her eyes trail down his long form and then back up again. They lingered on his chest a few beats longer than strictly necessary, given that we were talking about jeans. My hands clenched into involuntary fists at my sides, an unpleasant, hot sensation I was absolutely not going to parse filling my chest.
“What is your inseam?” she asked. “What about your waist measurement?”
Frederick worried his lower lip, looking like he was trying to work out the answer to a difficult math problem in his head.
“It has been some time since I had my measurements taken,” he admitted. “I’ll admit I don’t remember them.”
“I’m happy to measure you,” Eleanor M. offered. She pulled out a fabric measuring tape from somewhere and approached him.
Frederick looked as terrified as if he’d just tripped over a hornet’s nest. He took a reflexive step back and away from the salesperson. “That’s quite all right,” he said, sounding scandalized. He looked at me, then at the rack of jeans. He picked up five pairs at random, holding each of them up to his body in turn. “Which of these do you think look most like they will fit me?”
I considered each of them as he held them up to himself, fighting hard against the instinct to imagine him in that dressing room, taking his trousers off and pulling on the jeans he was holding. “It’s . . . hard to say,” I hedged. “Why not take all of them with you into the dressing room and see?”
He nodded, like this made a lot of sense to him.
“I will be trying these on,” he informed the salesperson. “If you could bring me casual shirts in every size and color available that would be a good use of your time.”
* * *
“Don’t look.”
“I’m not looking.”
“Are you certain you are not looking?”
I rolled my eyes but kept them closed. “The door is closed, Frederick. Even if my eyes were open I couldn’t see you. But yes, I swear on my father’s kombucha that I am not looking.”
A pause. I could hear fabric hitting the floor from within the dressing room. “You swear on your father’s . . . what?”
I huffed a laugh. “It’s this thing my mom and I say when we want to make fun of my dad. In his retirement he’s gotten very into brewing it.”
“Brewing . . . what?”
“Kombucha. It’s this naturally fermented tea stuff. It’s pretty good, but Dad is obsessed with it now. There are dozens of bottles in his garage in various stages of consumption readiness.”
“I see,” he said, though I was certain he didn’t. A loud zipping sound came from within the dressing room. Frederick must have been trying on the jeans. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, trying not to imagine the denim sliding up his bare legs, the waistband settling low on his hips.
“Yeah,” I breathed, shaking my head to clear away unnecessary images. “Anyway, whenever Mom and I want to tease Dad, we’ll preface something mundane with ‘I swear it on my father’s kombucha.’ Mom and I laugh, Dad gets annoyed; it’s a great time.”
Silence from inside the dressing room. More rustling fabric. A hanger being taken from the wall.