Threaded memory

I'm in Ashland this weekend with my soul sister Carly. This morning we ate at Brothers, a restaurant my parents used to take us to for breakfast from time to time when we lived in Medford.
 
My freshman year of high school I made National Honors Society, and as a treat they brought us down to Ashland from Bend for the Shakespeare Festival. Then too we ate at Brothers. There was a vintage clothing store across the street from the restaurant where I bought a yellow silk brocade men's shirt that was too big for me.

Later, in art class, a classmate accidentally marked the back of that shirt with a fine-point Sharpie. He felt horrible about it, and I shrugged it off. It was this same art class in which, for the first time in my life, someone publicly expressed interest in me. My classmates burst out laughing, so I did too.

From the time of the marking I only wore the shirt under my dad's corduroy vest that had been part of his suit for playing shows, the same suit I imagine (but do not know) he wore the night he met my mother at a coffee shop in Ashland. The vest was also too big for me.

Once I went into my place of work wearing the yellow brocade shirt and asked my supervisor where the store manager was. He told me, and then said, "Pretty sure." I repeated back to him, "Pretty sure?" He said, "Pretty sure" again, slowly, as if correcting me, and he looked sincere. I was confused, so I said again, "You're pretty sure he's up at the registers?" and my manager said, more slowly and loudly, "That's a pretty shirt." I blushed and looked and the floor. "Oh. Thanks," I murmured, and my manager was blushing too, and I walked away.