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Blue Moon 3.6

by Donna Lamb

Richard shook his head. “That dress is a small, you may be tall but you’re a teeny-tiny girl.”

“Don’t say that!” Jo protested. She’d retrieved the black flats from the bathroom and put them on. They seemed very flimsy but all of her own shoes were missing. The soles felt paper thin as she tried walking in them.

“What? Teeny-tiny?” Richard knew perfectly well what Jo objected to.

She glared at him, knowing that he knew and that he knew that she knew he knew. “I lost almost forty p-pounds! Besides all my stuff!”

“The shoes fit?”

“I guess, they seem pretty cheap, like they’re going to f-fall apart.”

“Melinda’s emergency pair, I guess. Like the dress. They’re a size eight, I looked.”

“Guess my feet shrank, too. I used to w-wear a nine.”

“I don’t think men’s and women’s shoes are measured the same. A women’s eight is smaller than a men’s eight.”

“How do you know that?”

“Three sisters and forty-leven girlfriends.”

“Mmph!”

Richard grinned. “You’re cute when you pout like that.”

“I am not!” Jo paused. “I am?”

He shrugged. “You can’t help it. By the way, you look younger, too. Like nineteen maybe, no way you look twenty-six.”

“M-my ID is gone, too. Oh! F-f-fudge b-brownies!”

Richard laughed, not helping. He handed her something black.

“W-what’s this?”

“Purse, you’ll need one. Found it in the back of my closet. I stuck some money in it, too.”

The tiny black clutch held some tissues, cosmetics, pens and twelve dollars in cash. Jo tried holding it in one hand and then the other. “Thanks, I guess. What’s wrong w-with p-p-pockets?” She debated removing the cosmetics but instead just snapped it closed.

“Dresses with pockets are for gardening grandmas.“ He looked at her critically. “You should have shaved and worn hose.”

“Shave?” She rubbed the smoothness of her cheek then followed Richard’s gaze down. “M-my legs?”

“Pits, too, probably. No time now, but this is your first day at work, you want to make a good impression. I dunno if you can wear the hose without shaving. Oh, shit. Those hose were for Merrilee, you’re too tall. So, no help for it.”

Jo looked and felt relieved. “I’ve worked there for four years, since B-barry won the seat. Nobody is going to expect me to shave my legs.”

Richard shook his head. “How do you think they’re going to react to you showing up with tits and wearing a dress?”

“P-probably not good at first. B-but they can’t run the p-place without m-me. No one else knows computers. They’ll have to let me keep m-my job.” Jo looked convinced.

Richard did not. “If you’re that sure, call in sick and we can shop for clothes.”

The idea of taking time to buy some pants that fit tempted Jo but she shook her head. “No. Tomorrow is payday. I gotta go in, and — and prove I’m still m-m-me.”

“To who?”

She looked away from him. “Can w-we please just go?”

Richard looked her over again. “Jo-baby, they’re not going to believe you’re you.”

“Don’t I look like m-me?”

“Well, you look more like you than my sister’s look like me, I suppose. But that’s a measure of what a wuss Joel was.”

“W-wuss!” Jo felt her lip tremble. “B-but I know everything about that office, they’ll have to b-believe I’m me! W-w-wuss?”

“Yes, Jo. But that’s okay now, you’re supposed to be a bit wussy — you’re a girl, it’s allowed.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Say what?”

“W-w-w-w-girl! I’m not a girl, I just look like one!”

“Right.” Richard decided that the way to handle this was to give her exactly what she wanted. “Okay, let’s go. I’ll drop you off at the office, then do some shopping for you. I’ve got a fare at eleven and probably Patch will have something else for me in the afternoon. I guess, you can take the bus home if I can’t make it in time. Huh?”

“B-b-bus?”

“Let’s go. I wanna show you how to get in and out of a limo wearing a dress before you get downtown and cause a riot with a beaver shot.”

“B-b-b-b-b-b-” But Richard pulled her through the hall and out to the carport before she could say Castor canadiensis.