Getting Married Read Free Page B

of her hours. She’d worked as a freelance seamstress, but she didn’t get enough work to make a decent living.

    “My husband works in sales, so some months he makes enough money to get by, but other months are a little rough,” she said. “I wanted something steady. I heard about this organization that gives loans to women who want to start their own businesses. I figured a recycled clothing store would be pretty inexpensive to start up since at first I’d just get donations of clothes from friends and stuff, so there would be low overhead. I also sell some original clothes I design myself.”

    She showed me pictures of some of her designs that she had in the portfolio she’d brought. The clothes were things like funky polka-dot skirts with faux fur trim; dresses whose hems fell at an angle, shorter on the right side and longer on left; denim bustiers with short lace sleeves. I loved her original designs, though they were all a little too risqué for me to feel comfortable pulling off. I tend toward conservative business suits in classic cuts. Rachel always looks cool and hip, though. She is unequivocally pretty. She’s thin but with curves in all the right places. She has dark hair, pale blue eyes, and a small diamond nose ring. She doesn’t look old enough to be a mom. She reminds me a lot of my own mother, who’d also had kids young and was ridiculously pretty. My mother and Rachel could be described as Hot Moms. They may have children scampering around their ankles, but they are still unequivocal babes.

    That day we first met, I asked Rachel about her kids. When she told me how old they were, I nearly fell off my chair.

    “You look much too young to have an eight year old.”

    “That’s what happens when you’re eighteen and you get wasted and have sex. You have an eight year old when you’re twenty-six.”

    I laughed out loud at how honest and down-to-earth she was. She was such a change of pace from the fake people I’d worked with at the office before I left my corporate job and went out on my own. How could I not love her? And the more I got to know her, the more I grew to respect her. She’s both a mother and a successful businesswoman. (She’s not rolling in money, but she makes a decent living and has a job she enjoys.) She can cook, and sew, and do all manner of craftsy domestic things that I don’t stand a chance at.

    Though I love Rachel, I never buy any of the used clothes. There is something I find disconcerting about the whole idea of putting my ass in a pair of jeans that once housed someone else’s ass. And because I’m pretty conservative clothingwise, I never buy any of her original designs either, a fact she thankfully doesn’t hold against me.

    I hang out with Rachel at her shop whenever I can. She even set up a barstool for me next to hers behind the counter, so that she and I can dish when things are quiet. As with everything she does in her life, Rachel decorated her store in a way that is both funky and classy. Her shop is small but welcoming. She has headless mannequins adorning the place, wearing whatever outfits Rachel wants to highlight that week. Her storefront windows have mannequins modeling the clothes as well, and the window background changes whenever the mood strikes her. This week she has those hula-dancing dolls you suction-cup to your dashboard all over the place—on the ground, taped to the wall, dangling from the ceiling—plus colorful leis draped all around. The headless mannequins are modeling summer clothes, both clothes Rachel designed and sewed herself and preowned items that customers brought in exchange for a few bucks in cash.

    Right now, there is only one customer in the place, a teenage girl sitting on the floor with a pile of T-shirts around her. She picks one up, inspects it, then puts it down and picks up another one. She’s wearing a consternated expression, as if picking out which five dollar T-shirt she wants to buy is the most