serial fiction

Delroy and the Cheese — Part Fifteen

A little retail therapy to soothe the soul

This is the fifteenth chapter of an 18 chapter series about life in a Canadian tree-planting camp. If you’re new, you may want to start at the beginning or go to the complete list of Delroy and the Cheese chapters.

There were two options for clothes shopping in Fort Nelson. One was Tucker’s Work and Western Wear. The other was the charity shop. Neither of them sold dairy products of any kind. But, to be honest, the novelty of searching for gourmet cheese in a small town was starting to wear off for me.

We decided that if we were going to fail at finding the cheese, we might as well try to bring a little joy into Mario’s life. And for that, we would need some nicer-looking duds. We had a brief look around Tucker’s, but we figured cowboy hats and lumberjack shirts were probably not all that common in Italy, so we moved on to the charity shop.

I’ve been in a lot of charity shops in my time, but there was something special about the one in Fort Nelson. Centre stage in the shop window was a pair of rainbow-colored 4-inch platform disco boots. This wouldn’t have been unusual in Vancouver or Toronto, but what they were doing in Fort Nelson was a mystery to me. This didn’t seem like a town for a disco.

There are places in the world that just seem to grow mystery like a fungus. And, plainly, this charity shop was such a place.

A bell jingled as we went inside. The bell was made of brass and shaped like a sparrow. It dangled from a bracket attached to the corner of the door. We were greeted by a cheerful woman in her 40s wearing purple bell bottoms and a yellow blouse with enormously wide sleeves — the kind of sleeves that any decent magician could use to hide several rabbits and possibly an elk. I got the sense that whatever mystical force had drawn the disco boots here, was also responsible for her presence. Like the boots, she had a look of defiant faded glamour. Her name tag read, “Maeve.”

“Welcome,” she said. “Can I help with anything?”

“We’re looking for some nice clothes,” said Andrea.

“We need to get spruced up for a special occasion,” added Susan.

“How lovely!” said Maeve. “What kind of special occasion?”

“A passeggiata. It’s an Italian thing. I think it’s mostly just walking and talking. But we have to look fabulous. In my head, we need to look like we’re strolling along the deck of an ocean liner after having dinner with the captain. But with less ocean.”

“Like a wedding?” asked Maeve.

“No. Classier than that, but less formal, if that makes any sense.”

“So, kind of a garden cocktail party kind of vibe?” suggested Maeve.

“Exactly!” said Susan. “A Buckingham Palace kind of garden party!”

Maeve led Susan and Andrea to a corner of the room with several racks of dresses.

“Have a look through these,” she said. “This is our Italian garden party section. It’s also our one-careful-owner prom dress section, and our vintage section, and our why-on-earth-did-I-buy-that section.”

I wandered over to look at the disco boots in the window. I suspected they weren’t quite right for a passeggiata, but they did look very cool.

Maeve came over to join me.

“I think these are my favorite thing in the store right now. They belonged to Jeffrey Collins, a local boy. He and the Miller boys were in a band for a while. He works at the mill now.” She looked down at my battered hiking books. “Think what a step up they would be from those! And think how much taller they would make you! I think tall would be a good look for you.”

“They are pretty cool,” I said. “But they might be a little too sparkly for the look I’m going for. Clean and classy, yes. Sparkly, not so much.”

“No problem,” said Maeve. She lead me over to a shelf that had six or seven pairs of black and brown leather dress shoes. There were all in various stages of wear, but all were definitely more suited to a passeggiata than what I was wearing. “Are you a size 10?”

“Usually,” I said.

Maeve handed me one pair of black shoes and one pair of brown shoes.

“Try these,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. I took them and gestured at the boots in the window. “Do you mind if I try those as well? Just for fun?”

Maeve smiled.

“Not at all.” She turned and went back to the girls.

Susan was trying on a turquoise prom dress with puffy shoulders and a sash draped diagonally across the front of the dress like that of a beauty queen.

“I love this!” she said.

Andrea wasn’t so sure.

“It’s fun, but I think we’re looking for something a little less soap opera and a little more Audrey Hepburn. You look like a fluorescent gummy bear in that thing.”

Maeve flipped through the racks and pulled out a light blue summer dress.

“What about this?” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Susan. “It‘s classy. Classy isn’t me.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Andrea. “And you’re beautiful. The two of you deserve each other. Try it on!”

Susan tried on the blue dress. I clomped over in the disco boots wearing a brown suit I’d found.

Susan exploded with glee when she saw the boots.

“Those are fantastic!”

I bent one leg so that the toe of one of the boots was pointed down and the heel was resting against my standing leg.

“I don’t think they’re quite right for the passeggiata. In fact, I’m not sure what they’d be right for.”

Andrea came out of the changing room wearing a tunic-style dress. It was mostly black, dotted with tiny yellow daffodils. She’d wound her dreads into a bun and hid them under a black wide-brimmed hat that Maeve found for her. An inadvertent “Wow” slipped out of my mouth. Andrea smiled.

The three of us stood in front of the mirror. I felt a little thrill that I was taller than Andrea for once. We all looked surprisingly civilized — as long as you ignored the disco boots.

After a bit more shopping, I ended up with two suits and two pairs of shoes, plus the disco boots. Andrea and Susan picked out a second outfit each of matching skirts and cardigans — kind of a 50’s Happy Days vibe.

There was a bouquet of fake flowers on the desk next to the cash register.

“How much for those?” I asked.

Maeve took them out of the vase and added them to the pile.

“They’re on the house,” she said. She started ringing everything up, “You all look so splendid in your new clothes. I’m sure you will be the hit of whatever it is that you’re going to.”

“We’d better be,” said Andrea. “We’ll probably be the only ones there.”

“You should come!” said Susan.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Maeve. “What is it, again? Some kind of party?”

“It’s a passeggiata!” said Susan.

“A passa-what?”

“A passeggiata,” said Andrea. “It’s an Italian thing. Do you know Mario at the pizza place? We’re doing it for him. Apparently, where he’s from everyone goes for a walk in the evening.”

“But you have to be dressed nice, apparently,” said Susan. “Thus, the frocks. You should join us! It’ll be fun! The more, the merrier!”

“It sounds lovely,” said Maeve. “I’ll think about it. When is it?”

“We hadn’t really thought about that,” I said. “But from the way, Mario was describing it, it sounded like something that happened every night, like a kind of ritual. How about we meet in front of the pizza place at about 8 o’clock?”

“Yeah!” said Susan. “Maybe we can start a trend. Maybe the whole town will join us.”

Next Chapter…

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