"Boots!" Alex shouted happily. He was in the men's department, surrounded by hiking boots.
I grinned, feeling my cold toes squish against the interiors of my ruined shoes. New boots would be a very good thing.
We wandered upstairs, which seemed to be the province of domestic and sporting goods. Furniture of all kinds was on display, with beds dressed in the finest linens. I paused before an ornately carved four-poster bed and rubbed my hands over the embroidered velvet coverlet. The pillows were down, and the sheets were something called Egyptian cotton. I tried not to drip wax on them as I knelt down to examine the tags. Four-hundred-dollar sheets.
"This must be how the rich English live," I said.
"This is how English with credit cards live," he said.
I frowned. "We only use cash."
"That's smart. Credit cards are a way of getting into a hole, really fast. Getting seduced by luxury goods that will take forever to pay for. It's like selling your soul to the bank."
I stroked the velvet coverlet. Was one's soul worth a velvet coverlet? Maybe it depended on the soul.
"Score. Sporting goods!"
I heard Alex whoop from beyond, and I followed him. He smiled broadly in an aisle surrounded by sleeping bags, tackle boxes, battery-powered lanterns, and camping cookware. "Look!" He swung his arm to the top of the aisle and pointed excitedly: "Tents! Fishing poles!"
I uttered a prayer of thanksgiving. No more sleeping out in the elements.
I heard a frustrated whimper. I turned to see that Fenrir had knocked over a box of "gourmet beef jerky for outdoorsmen." He had a plastic-sealed package between his paws and was shredding at it without much success.
"Come here." I knelt, and Fenrir brought his prize to me. I peeled off the plastic and handed the jerky stick to him. He snatched it from my hand and trotted off in happiness.
I paused beside a display of gourmet foods and chocolates. There were some dried fruits that would be suitable for a horse, once he'd finished stripping the garland downstairs. With a moment's hesitation, I tore into a bag that said it contained "White Peppermint Snowballs." I did not regret it. It contained cookies coated with peppermint. They were possibly the single most delicious thing I'd ever eaten. I closed my eyes in sublime happiness.
When I opened them again, there was a wolf snout in the bag.
I let him have the bag, then stared up at the display of gourmet crockery that my mother never could have imagined. The tags identified the devices as an electric miniature pie maker, a panini press, an ice cream maker, and a convection oven. Copper-bottomed pieces of cookware hung from a rack, so shiny I could see my reflection in them. They were nothing like the cast iron we used at home. I picked up a five-hundred-dollar pan and promptly dropped it, shocked at the price and how light it felt.
"What on earth are we going to do with all of these things?" I muttered in awe.
"We're going to party, Bonnet." Alex came around the corner. He was wearing a ridiculous fur parka, a pair of sunglasses, and a broad grin. He held a volleyball. "We're going to party like it's 1999."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
And party we did.
I felt a momentary stab of guilt at tearing into the luxury goods at the department store. But in the light of our need and the sheer absurdity of the items, that guilt was quickly abandoned.
Alex and I played volleyball across the escalator. We'd found flashlights in the sporting goods department and something called glow sticks in the children's toys. The flexible sticks could be fastened as necklaces and bracelets, and I wore three around my neck as I careened crazily after the ball. Alex was a dismal volleyball player. I served it perfectly off the balcony of the second floor and he missed it entirely. It splashed into the dead fountain, startling poor Horace, who had been noisily taking a drink.
"Damn, Bonnet. You should go pro. Play on the beach." His face was green in the light of the glow sticks.
"We play volleyball a good deal back home," I said. "Often before the Singings, in the summertime, when the youth gather. It's a good sport for both boys and girls to play together."
"You've never seen women's beach volleyball on television, have you?"
I cocked my head. "No."
"Let me show you the uniform." He disappeared into the women's department. I wrinkled my forehead. I hadn't seen any uniforms down there.
I sat down on a bench in the middle of the floor, next to the fountain. We had dragged something called a "fire bowl" down from the "Outdoor Living" section. It was a large copper bowl that held hideously overpriced wood and scented pinecones that one could burn. It was doing a good job of warming up the space, I had to admit. We'd set a couple more around the store for light and warmth. The mannequins around them seemed to twitch in the turning shadows.
"Ta-da!" Alex said. He brought forth a garment on a hanger.
I squinted at it. I guessed from my time surreptitiously leafing through Cosmopolitan magazine that it was a bathing suit. Barely.
I picked it up and stared at it. It was two pieces. The top fabric, held together with beaded strings, was barely enough to cover the br**sts. The bottoms appeared to be similarly engineered. It was bright pink, and cost eighty dollars.
I raised my eyebrows. "Really?"
"Oh, yes," he said enthusiastically. "The ones that the volleyball players wear don't have the strings, of course. That's not very aerodynamic to have beaded strings slapping your ass as you hammer the heck out of your opponent. But that's the gist of it."
"No thank you," I said primly. I knew that he enjoyed teasing me about our cultural differences. I took no offense, but I reserved the right to be fascinated or aghast. Or both.
"You know what we should do . . ." He scanned the shadowy realm of the department store.
"What?" I kicked the volleyball across the floor. Fenrir trotted after it and vanished into the men's section, shedding on thousand-dollar suits.
"We should have a date. A real date. With dinner and dancing and stuff."
I was suddenly unsure. "I, um, can't dance."
But he was on to the idea. "I'll show you," he said enthusiastically. "I can find a CD player around here, probably some cheesy elevator music packaged with some potpourri in the gift section."
I looked on him dubiously. "A real date?"