Page 21 of The Spirit of Love

Chapter Thirteen

That evening, Jude waits for me outside a warehouse named for legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head.

It’s a warm night, the sunset golden in the sky behind the building, and he’s taken off his suit jacket.

It’s the first time I can see the shape of his shoulders, the lean muscles of his chest. With the top button of his oxford shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up, exposing strong forearms, Jude’s whole enchilada is giving me the kind of buzz I get when I meet a Tinder guy for drinks and he looks the same as he did in his photos online, yet also somehow better.

Jude holds two badges on lanyards, and I wait as he leans forward and slips one over my head. His fingers brush my collarbone, then the chain Sam’s stone hangs from. I meet his eyes, surprised by how intensely he holds my gaze.

Chemistry: It’s never a one-way street. But what’s in it for Jude ?

I’ve not exactly been warm to him since we first met, and I have no plans to change that.

Maybe he’s the kind of closed-off weirdo who’s into it when women are mean to him?

It’s clear enough that on my end, any chemistry with Jude—however bizarre and undesired—has everything to do with Sam.

It makes a kind of sense that I keep conflating Sam and Jude, using Jude’s eyes and his hands and those lips, which are right there , very close, as a way to wean myself off the intensity of my fling with Sam.

Lorena said it might mean there’s something “not quite right” about my time with Sam, but I’ve had no time to ponder that conundrum this week.

And what does that really matter anyway if I never see Sam again?

For now, I’m content to let the memory stay golden, to call on Sam’s sexy, teasing smile when I need a boost. Like every second for the past two days.

“Ever been here before?” Jude asks, holding open the door. “They close at five, but they opened it especially for me.”

Inside, it smells like mothballs, leather, and Chanel.

We flash our badges at reception and round a corner, and I have to suppress my audible awe at the vast treasure stretching out before me.

I’m not telling Jude I’ve always wanted to see this place, that I deep-dived it on YouTube when I first moved to LA.

This giant vortex of a warehouse stores every item of clothing and accessories that anyone in almost any film or TV show has ever worn or would ever possibly want to wear.

It’s room after room of double-racked costumes, from eighteenth-century ballgowns, to postapocalyptic armor, from the golden age jewelry to the world’s largest selection of MC Hammer pants. I fucking love Hammer pants.

“So what are we looking for?” I ask, running my hand along a rack of beaded Boogie Nights –style vests.

I follow Jude because he seems to know where he’s going, down the seventies aisle and around the corner into the Wild West. I touch a pink taffeta gown that looks like it could suit a very badass saloon owner. “Is there a zombie aisle?”

Jude turns back to face me, confused. “Oh, no. We’re not here for the show. Not directly anyway.”

I narrow my eyes, suddenly guarded, sensing a trap. “Then what am I doing here?”

Jude flicks absently through a rack of colorful men’s peasant blouses, the kind Westley wore in The Princess Bride , thereby cementing them as an evergreen stud clothing article.

I picture Jude in the pale-green blouse at his fingertips.

Actually, I picture him changing into it, unbuttoning his oxford shirt all the way to his navel, letting it drop to the floor.

I wonder: Could my erotic conflation condition make Jude’s chest look like Sam’s, too? Because I might be into something like that.

No. I’m not seeing Jude shirtless tonight. Or ever. The less of him I see, the better.

“I like it here,” he says. “When I was a kid, my mom worked a bunch of different jobs. One of them was at our town’s only costume shop. She took extra shifts the month of Halloween, and when I was in sixth grade, I got suspended from school for a week—”

“Because?”

“I might have skateboarded off the school’s roof, narrowly avoiding my former kindergarten teacher’s head. Stuck the landing though.”

I give Jude an appraising look. The polished brogues, the permasuit. “I don’t see it.”

He laughs. “You think I’m making this up to impress you?”

“Maybe try giving me a night off from you and see how impressed I am.”

“How’s tomorrow night?” he asks, meeting my eyes in this way that almost feels like he’s asking me out. But he’s not.

“You mean, not to hang out with you?”

He nods, but it feels flirty. To the point where I’m getting a little hot.

“I’d love that,” I say, and I think it sounds like I’m flirting back. I take a breath, try to find my way out of this flustering moment. “So you were a wild child?”

“I used to be. And I thought my mom was going to be furious that I couldn’t go to school the one week she made the most money.

She was strict, you know, single mom, no patience for my shit.

But that week, she let me spend every day in the shop with her.

When it was slow, we’d talk. She’d ask me tough questions.

Stuff I never wanted to talk about. But she made me answer her, dressed up in one ridiculous costume after the next.

Something shifted. I started opening up.

Neither of us could keep a straight face, even talked about my dad leaving, when I was dressed like Ace Ventura. ”

“I’m sorry,” I say, “about your dad, and that I’m picturing how ridiculous you would look as Ace Ventura.”

“When I moved here ten years ago,” he says, “I started working on Brujo with my friend Matt.”

I nod, putting it together that Matt is his DP, the ponytailed guy he brought on set with him today.

“That film came out of this nightmare I used to have as a kid. Matt and I were friends from high school, and he was always encouraging me to make something out of the idea. I didn’t know where to start.

The brujo in my dream was invisible, so when Matt told me about this place, I thought I might begin to see what he’d look like, what he’d wear. ”

“That’s how you started working on your film?”

“Groping in the dark my whole way through,” he says. “But this place”—he looks up at the racks of clothing triple-stacked to the high ceiling—“it became more than that for me. It reminded me of that week with my mom. I started coming here more often, when I was depressed.”

“Are you depressed?” I ask.

He tosses his head. “I mean, yeah, on and off, but earlier today, I thought that you might have been feeling low…” He trails off, looks around again, and I understand. He brought me here to try to cheer me up.

It’s strange and ironic and somewhat embarrassing. And at its heart, I think it also might be kind.

“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I’m moving through some feelings of—”

“Hold on.” Jude’s hand stop-signs me. He takes my shoulders gently in his hands.

His hands that feel like Sam’s on my skin.

And he moves me down the aisle, a few feet to the left, until I’m standing before a mirror.

He grabs a stiff, broad-brimmed turquoise velvet hat with a giant feather plume and plops it on my head.

It’s huge, sinking over my eyes so I can barely see my reflection.

“Say it with the hat on,” Jude instructs.

I straighten my spine, spread my arms, and enunciate like I’m on stage. “I’m moving through some feelings of indecision and inadequacy due to—” It’s as far as I can get before I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and burst out laughing.

Jude’s already laughing, face in the clothing rack and shoulders shaking.

“Your turn, asshole,” I say, whipping off the hat.

I grab another from the rack, this one a navy satin turban printed with golden stars and a heavy crystal ball wedged in the center front.

I tug it down on Jude’s head, but it’s a little small, pinching his forehead, making his ears stick out.

With his glasses askew, he looks absurd.

He softly shoulder-bumps me out of the way so he can stand before the mirror.

“So what’s your problem, genie-us ?” I ask.

He looks at himself. Shakes his head at his reflection. “I think my dog hates me.”

I crack up.

“I’m serious,” he says, but he’s laughing, too. “It’s so awful. I’ve bought every toy for him, tried every trainer, but he treats me with such contempt.”

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“Walter Matthau.”

“Because he’s a grumpy old man?”

He shakes his head.

I think a moment. “Because you’re turning over A New Leaf by getting a dog?”

“You got it! I’ve never met anyone who knows that movie.”

“You aren’t so mysterious,” I say. “A little Wes Anderson, a little Japanese horror, and an industry that hasn’t seen any film pre– Home Alone .”

“Oh, is that my entire aesthetic?” he asks, his eyebrows shooting up inside the turban, which cracks me up again.

“I can’t look at you in that,” I wheeze. “Take it off.”

He frisbees the turban at me, and we both catch our breath.

Finally, he says, his voice serious again. “You’re so far from inadequate, Fenny. You’re very talented.”

I nod. It doesn’t feel like he’s paying me lip service. I know he likes my writing. But he doesn’t know what he took from me, and I don’t want to tell him. “I just want…more, you know?”

He studies me in the mirror. “Keep wanting it.”

“Sorry about your dog,” I say. “Maybe he doesn’t get to see you enough. Forget the trainers and the toys. You probably need to make some time to bond. Do some stuff he likes to do?”

“Sniff ass and chew up my shoes? I guess I could try that.”

“Try it,” I say. “Hey, before we go, as payment for dragging me here, I’m going to need you to try this on.” From the nearest rack, I lift a gold-brocaded men’s Renaissance doublet with matching pleated shorts and a shimmery golden cape.