Page 18 of Her Wonderful Wonder Bell
“Tillie! Are you around?” I shout toward the back room.
“Coming!” a woman yells back, right before the sound of a cardboard box avalanche. “One more sec!”
Pearl looks at me questioningly but I just shrug. Tillie’s a bit of a whirlwind. The two of us look at cards and fancy paper for a couple of minutes until she comes out, hair flying out wildly from a messy bun, t-shirt covered in dust.
“How can I help you?” Tillie asks breathlessly.
“I’m wondering if you could print me something on thebigprinter, please.” I pull up the images on my phone as Tillie leans over the counter to look. “I need these to fit Pearl. Meet Pearl, by the way.”
I point at an enthusiastically waving Pearl.
“Hi, Pearl. You’re, um, flat? Right? Just asking because I’m gonna need measurements and I want to make sure I’m not losing my mind,” Tillie says as she rubs her eyes. “Or maybe it was getting hit in the head by those boxes. Again.”
“Oh, I’m flat, yes. Made of paper. Don’t worry about your head.”
“Well, paper I’m used to. Let’s get going then,” Tillie says with a smile as she pulls a toad-shaped tape measure from a drawer.
About an hour later Tillie walks out from the back room where she’s been altering images,printing them, then fitting them to Pearl, in order to make a new paper wardrobe. Hopefully it’s worked. They’ve refused to let me see during the process. Tillie clears her throat and says:
“Please welcome our very own movie star and baseball bombshell, Pearl Monroe.” She steps aside then out comes Pearl.
My heart skips a beat when I see her there, laughing and doing exaggerated modeling poses, as if this isn’t serious. As if I haven’t just realized I’ve got itbadfor a hundred-something-year-old cursed lady who’s made of paper, filled with bubblegum, and who my evil boss wants to erase from existence. When I see her smiling in that blue fit and flare shirtwaist dress, with its red poppy pattern matching the adorable red shoes they even managed to craft, it somehow makes everything finally feelreal. She’s not a baseball card; she’sPearl Monroe. And I want her to be mine.
Chapter Seven
Pearl
Idon’t really get how it works, but it does. Tillie made them out of paper, fitted them to me, and they went from stiff to moving fine—as long as I’m the one doing the moving, of course. That’s some kind of magic Valentina had!
I’m glad now because I’ve got a whole new wardrobe. Delia offered to carry the folder of clothes back home for us, but it’s several feet tall and quite heavy, so that was unrealistic. She used her phone to request a driver to come get us instead. Paid the fee with the phone and everything! I swear, next she’ll tell me the damn thing has buttons to bring her food too.
Delia drags the heavy folder into her room and leans it against her closet. She runs herfingers through her sweaty hair before asking me a question.
“So, are you gonna show me the rest of them? I didn’t get to see everything at the store.”
“Where’s the fun in that? You can see them as I wear them each day.”
“Boo,” she lowers one thumb at me, “No fun. I’m gonna take a shower. Get the giant slime and sweat off of me. You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with this.”
Delia digs through her drawers until she finds what she wants, then heads off to the bathroom. When I hear the water running, I turn on her phone with the stylus, pull up the history site she showed me, and start to read from 1947. She’s not in the shower long, so I don’t get far, but I’m determined to continue every chance I get. When Delia comes into the room, however, there’s no way I’ll be able to retain any information. Not with how she looks right now.
Delia’s wearing a men’s undershirt, one of the thin, sleeveless, white ones. There’s something odd about how her nipples look under it. I don’t want to be rude by askingabout it, but the shirt is quite revealing. It’s making me quite curious.
“You’re staring at my tits. It’s getting weird,” Delia says, interrupting my internal debate.
“What if I am? You’re the one walking around here like some kind of floozy,” I toss my hair behind my shoulders and inspect my nails.
Delia stares at me silently for a moment before tossing the towel into a basket across the room. “A floozy? Hmm. That’s definitely a new one for me.”
“If it fits, it fits. You’re practically offering your bosom on display.”
Delia rolls her eyes at me and my attempt at a serious expression fails. I smile at her as she grabs her hairbrush and crawls onto the bed, relaxing with her back against the pillows and brushing her wet hair back out of her face.
With all that hair out of the way, I can see all her face at once; she’s gorgeous. She has high, angular cheekbones, full lips, hooded eyes, and a slightly crooked nose that she must have broken at some point. The nostril piercing, lip ring, and fun hair distracted me before so much that Ididn’t notice she has a little tattoo on the side of herneck.Well, it’s by her ear. A little, cracked and bent baseball bat. Her eyes dart to mine again and when she sees me watching her, she drops the brush with a sigh.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just really like looking at you a whole lot,” I say softly as I sit down next to her. “And I’m looking forward to kissing you some more.”
