Chapter 20
‘Our ideas are so different.’
However I’d imagined the shopping trip with my future mother-in-law, it was not even remotely like how it played out.
When we got out of the car, the heat hit me like a wall.
The tarmac beneath my sandals felt as if it might melt them clean off.
Bunny marched across the car park like she had somewhere better to be and pushed open the doors of a warehouse with the words Larry’s Rack plastered above them in peeling red letters.
Inside, it was all flickering fluorescent strip lighting and carpets that had seen too many sales. Racks of tightly crammed clothes stretched in every direction. Women were pushing shopping carts, rifling through garments like they were panning for gold.
Bunny gave me a once-over. I could practically hear her internal sigh at the flimsy orange sundress I’d worn, which she’d already informed me, on the doorstep, was ‘more suited to Hawaii than Hillsborough.’
‘You’re a six,’ she declared, already halfway to a rack against the wall.
The way she moved was almost hypnotic. Ruthless fingers flicked through hangers, labels checked with quick, clinical glances. It was clear she was no stranger to Larry’s Rack. In less than five minutes, she’d pulled together a dozen outfits, none of which I would’ve picked even at gunpoint.
We trailed behind a woman with a bulging trolley towards a curtained-off zone. A frowning, bespectacled staff member blocked our path.
‘Hi, Mrs Fuller,’ she said, without warmth. ‘It’s busy in there. Try and find space.’
The woman with the cart was stopped with a curt, ‘You’ll have to wait.’ Bunny, of course, sailed right in like a first-class passenger.
What lay behind that curtain made me want to crawl back to London and never look at another American store again.
The room was full of women in various states of undress – skirts around ankles, bras on display, swimwear stretched mid-thigh.
No cubicles. Just mirrors. Huge mirrors, reflecting back every angle of every woman in unforgiving bright light.
We wedged ourselves between a tall, skeletal woman in tights, and a sweating round woman battling a pair of tight jeans. Bunny dumped her pile of clothes on a nearby bench and patted the seat beside her.
‘Try this one first,’ she said, handing me a lime-green padded-shoulder number that looked like it had beamed in from Star Trek.
Every instinct in me screamed to flee, but I was cornered. I peeled off my dress with the elegance of a startled animal.
‘My God, you’ve got a neat figure!’ Bunny said, far too loudly. ‘What I wouldn’t give to look like that again.’
Every head turned. There I stood, pale and prickly in my white M&S lace bra and pants, clutching a lime-green monster.
I wriggled into it.
‘That’s a goddamn awful colour on you,’ Bunny announced. ‘Try this one. It’s from Sacs. Last season.’
The next was lemon yellow with a ruched waist and silver trim.
I looked like a Victorian jelly mould. We kept going.
I paraded past Bunny in variations on ‘pale socialite meets cupcake.’ Each one worse than the last. The final option was a navy-blue number with a Peter Pan collar, hemline just below the knee.
‘Now that’s perfect!’ Bunny clapped. ‘Pearls, navy pantyhose, ballet flats – we’re done!’
In the mirror, I saw a school uniform. Out of the corner of my eye, the tall woman was giving me a silent ‘don’t do it’ shake of the head.
‘Sorry, Bunny, I can’t. I just can’t wear this.’
She stared at me. For a second I braced myself for a fight, but instead she let out a sudden snort of laughter. ‘You remind me of me,’ she said, with a surprising softness. ‘When I moved up here from LA, I was all glitz and flash. Chase’s grandmother thought I was a chorus girl.’
I blinked. I didn’t know if that was comforting or ominous. But it was a rare moment of something close to connection. I nodded.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, standing. ‘We’re not done yet.’
There was no stylish lunch café. Instead, Bunny pulled into a petrol station, handed me a five-dollar bill, and told me to grab pork scratchings and a couple of sodas.
Back in the car, we roared further down the freeway with a torn-open bag of pork crackling between us, sipping from cold Coke cans.
‘God, I think I missed the exit,’ Bunny muttered. ‘Grab the map from the glove box, will you?’
Inside was a crumpled road map of Northern California, half of it torn along the folds. I was squinting at the highway routes when Bunny suddenly accelerated, cutting across lanes like a rally driver.
‘Bunny, it’s a police…’
Too late. The black-and-white CHP cruiser swerved out of our lane, then tucked in neatly behind us. Its siren whooped to life.
We pulled over, tyres kicking up clouds of dust. My heart was thudding against my ribs.
‘Tell him we’re lost in that accent of yours,’ Bunny hissed, winding down the window.
The officer stepped out, mirrored sunglasses in place, a golden badge on his chest and handcuffs swinging at his belt.
Dom and I had grown up on a steady diet of CHiPs and Miami Vice from our family’s limited videotape collection, and as the cop leaned into the window, face blank and unimpressed, I genuinely thought I might faint.
‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ I said, already flushed. ‘We’re… we’re very lost, and my future mother-in-law was hoping you might be able to help.’
The officer looked from me to Bunny. His expression didn’t change. But I swear, beneath the aviators, he was amused.
So was Bunny.
‘You’re good,’ she murmured, as the officer walked back to his car, probably deciding we were more pathetic than criminal.
And just like that, I’d survived my first outing with Bunny Fuller.