Zero History

69. THE GIFTING SUITE
Here?” She recognized the nameless denim shop in Upper James Street. Dark, faintly
candlelit. A pulsing glow, almost invisible.
“They’re hosting a pop-up,” said Meredith.
“Won’t start for an hour,” said Clammy, who struck Hollis as uncharacteristically
cheery. “But I’m first.”
“It’s a gifting suite, as far as you’re concerned,” Meredith told him. “Then we’re even.
But no questions. And no bothering Bo later. Ever. Go there again, she won’t know you.”
“Perfect,” said Clammy, drumming a signal of pleased anticipation on the steering
wheel.
“Who’s Bo?”
“You’ve met her,” said Meredith. “Come on. Out with you. They’re waiting.” She
opened the little wagon’s passenger-side door, pulled herself out and up, tipped the
passenger seat forward. Hollis struggled out. “You’ll have a little time before we arrive,”
said Meredith, and got back in. She closed the door and Clammy pulled away, rain
beading on the enamel of the wagon’s low roof.
The handsome graying woman opened the door as Hollis reached it, gestured her in,
then closed and locked it.
“You’re Bo,” said Hollis. The woman nodded. “I’m Hollis.”
“Yes,” said the woman.
It smelled of vanilla and something else, masking jungle indigo. Candles pulsed in retail
twilight, along the massive slab of polished wood that Hollis remembered from her
previous visit. Aromatherapy candles, their complicated tallow poured into expensivelooking
glasses with vertical sides, their wicks paper-thin slabs of wood, crackled softly
as their flames pulsed. Faintly sandblasted on each glass, she saw, the Hounds logo.
Between the candles were a folded pair of jeans, a folded pair of khaki pants, a folded
chambray shirt, and a black ankle-boot. The boot’s smooth leather caught the candlelight.
She touched it with a fingertip.
“Next year,” said Bo. “Also an oxford, brown, but samples not ready.”
Hollis picked up the folded jeans. They were black as ink, unusually heavy. She turned
them over and saw the baby-headed dog, dimly branded into a leather patch on the
waistband. “They’re for sale? Tonight?”
“Friends will come. When you were here, I could not help you. I hope you
understand.”
“I do,” said Hollis, not sure that she did.
“In rear, please. Come.”
Hollis followed her, ducking through a doorway partially concealed by a dark noren