“What is it with me?” I threw my arms into the air when Sindi and Noah came inside. “I’ve got this weird thing with animals. They all seem to hate me.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Sindi said, flicking the lights on.
“Trust me, it’s not. In the last few days I’ve been attacked by two birds, a rat ran away from me, lizards tried to eat my face and now I’ve been dive-bombed by a bat!”
“It’s true! I can vouch for it,” Noah said.
Sindi put her hand on her hip and looked at me. “Maybe you’re a pet psychic.”
“A what?”
“This chick that lives next door to me hired one when her dog started peeing on the floor. The psychic reckoned that a dog had died in the flat before they moved in and its spirit was still there haunting the place so her dog was marking its territory.” We all looked at each other then, as if timed, burst out laughing.
“She paid three hundred Rand a session for it,” Sindi said, which made us laugh even more. Once our laughter tapered off I took in my surroundings.
“This is . . . I wasn’t expecting so much!” I stared at the racks of clothes in front of me, tightly packed together in rows with a small path down the side that looked like only one person could squeeze down. Sindi walked up to the first rack of clothing and pulled it towards me. All the racks were on wheels, making it easier to move them around in the tight space.
“This is what I was thinking for you,” she said, as I walked up to the clothes and looked at them. I ran my hand over them: jeans, T-shirts, some cardigans and pullovers. White, blue, gray, black and beige.
“These are some essentials I keep for shoots. You always need a pair of jeans and a white tee. Try on whatever you like,” she said.
“I don’t know my size.”
Sindi looked me up and down a few times. “You’re a small in T-shirts, and I would say a twelve in jeans. You’ve got a great figure, actually.” She took some things off the rack and handed them to me. “There’s a makeshift change room at the back, and a mirror, if you want to try these on.”
I looked at the clothes in my hands, and back at the clothes on the rack. They all seemed to blur into one another. None of the colors popped or shouted at me. None of the shapes and lines spoke to me like the art on the walls outside had, or Sindi’s bright green wall, or the blue abstract sculpture.
“Is this all you have? I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, but, I don’t know. These are all so . . . plain?”
“You don’t think these are you?”
“Well, I’m not sure I know what me is, but these don’t really seem to be me. If that makes sense.” I looked at Noah and he nodded.
“It does,” he said.
“I know these are similar to the clothes I went to the hospital in, but those clothes don’t feel like me either. Maybe I was going to a smart meeting, maybe those were work clothes or . . . I don’t know how to explain it. But blue jeans and beige tops just don’t feel like me.”
“I have other clothes at the back,” Sindi said, “but those aren’t ordinary clothes. They’re more like costumes that I made for shows . . . stuff like that.”
“Let’s see,” I said, as she led me past the racks to the back of the storeroom. A smallish space had been cleared there and a full-length mirror was attached to one of the walls and, in the corner, a sheet had been draped on a wooden frame to create a changing area.
“I have these.” She pointed to the last few racks.
I cast my eye over them and smiled: yellow and blue and green. Bright and bold and twirling together. Twists and pops of color shouting and screaming at me. I reached out and touched one of the items, a long dress, and as soon as my fingertips came into contact with the dress, I knew.
“These. I like these.” Excitement made my voice loud and high-pitched. “What are they?”
Sindi laughed. “Those are costumes from the musicalHairI did a few years back. I tie-dyed them myself. Very sixties.”
“I love them!” I pulled the dress from the rack and held it in front of me. I could feel myself smiling at the piece, as if it was out of my control. As if this unique blend of colors was forcing the smile onto my face. I saw Noah and Sindi exchange a look.
“What?” I turned to Noah. “You think it doesn’t suit me?”
“With a smile like that, you’ll suit anything,” Sindi said, then she looked over at her brother and raised her brows.
“Yes,” he said. “With a smile like that . . .” His voice tapered off and I got that rising hot feeling on my skin again.
“Do you want to try it on?” Sindi pulled the curtain aside.
