She popped the bread in her mouth, smiling while she chewed. "You're the kick-ass private eye. You figure it out. In the meantime, let's go buy you some clothes and then we can make the run into Montebello."

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

We shopped until the stores closed at 9:00. Reba kept up a running commentary as I tried things on. In the interests of education, she let me make my choices without reference to her opinion. At first, I tried gauging her reaction as I lifted a garment off the rack, but she looked on with the same deadpan expression she must have donned at the poker table. With no guidelines whatever, I picked out two dresses, a pantsuit, and three cotton skirts. "Okay," I said.

Her brow went up about an eighth of an inch. "That's it?"

"Isn't this enough?"

"You like that green deal, that pantsuit thing?"

"Well, yeah. You know, it's dark and it won't show spots."

"All riiiight," she said, with a tone suggesting that you have to let kids make boo-boos in order for them to learn.

She trailed behind me as far as the line of dressing cubicles in the rear. She looked on idly while I opened door after door, trying to find a room not in use. When I finally found an empty cubicle, she gave every impression of following me in.

"Hold on a sec. You're coming in here with me?"

"What if something doesn't fit? You can't stroll around out there in your underwear."

"I wasn't planning to. I was going to try on stuff back here and then decide."

"Deciding is my job. You try on clothes and I'll explain how misguided you are."

She sat on a plain wooden chair in a space that was six feet on a side with floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three. The fluorescent lighting guaranteed your skin would look sallow and every tiny body flaw would appear in bas relief.

I took my shoes off and began to strip down with the same enthusiasm I feel before a pelvic exam. "I can tell I have a better developed sense of modesty than you do," I said.

"Oh, please. Prison knocked that out of me. The shower stalls were a quarter this size with these skimpy canvas curtains designed to keep your head and feet in view. That was to prevent the inmates from having sex in private. Little did they know. Aside from that, you might as well forget privacy altogether. It was simpler to prance around nude like everybody else."

During these revelations, I was trying to step gracefully out of my blue jeans, but my foot caught and I nearly toppled sideways. Reba pretended not to notice. I said, "Didn't that bother you?"