The Sunshine of a Wandering Lady - Noel Gallagher

Sifter's mingled thrifters

note: Smoking.

"Takes to the sky like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?
All your life you've never seen
Woman taken by the wind"
- Rhiannon, Fleetwood Mac

Jade Vriard, 1987

The cold weather in Manchester still hadn't gotten to her. It was dreadful, and she felt like she was in a constant tundra. Her nose turned red, making it look like she'd been crying for hours, giving her a rather sickly appearance. On top of that, the incessant rain stressed her out since, whenever she went out, she always forgot to take an umbrella with her. But she'd become a bit more cautious... or, well, relatively speaking.

That day, however, she'd left it in her other bag.

She'd had the brilliant idea of swapping her usual bag—the one that held all her essentials—for one that matched the new sweater she'd picked up from a second-hand shop. She was on her way to a girl she'd grown up with, who was now living in Manchester. Her friend had invited her over for lunch, so in a rush, she hadn't noticed she'd forgotten the most important thing in her other bag.

Jade Vriard had always been the type of person who couldn't settle in one place. It was just her, her ash-blonde hair, and her well-worn leather bag against the world—no schedules, no plans. She was like the breeze, coming and going. She was everywhere at once and all the time.

Since arriving in Manchester, she'd struggled a bit to adapt to the city in general. It felt much noisier than Bristol or Leeds. Though all three shared a commonality of being too different from her hometown of Sedbergh, and smelling of hobo urine. Still, she didn't miss that place in the slightest. But she didn't want to dwell on that hole of a town where she was born. It gave her goosebumps.

She walked up to a small awning protruding from a shop she couldn't quite make out, and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her bag, placing one in her mouth to kill some time.

As she fumbled for her lighter, her eyes caught the display window overlooking the platform. There were heaps of posters covering it. Bands like The Smiths, The Beatles, the American band The Doors, and... Fleetwood Mac.

That grabbed her attention entirely.

She took the cigarette out of her mouth and put it back in the pack. She wasn't going to walk into the shop soaking wet and with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She was cheeky, but not disrespectful.

She brushed her hair back a bit before pushing the door open. She decided she'd wait for the rain to ease up a bit before continuing her journey to Eunice's house. She'd hopefully understand.

A small bell announced her arrival, and she was immediately greeted by the smell of newspaper and old wood. There were guitars, more posters, and shelves filled with vinyl records decorating the walls. The place was divided by aisles, with hand-written signs indicating the type of music available on each shelf.

There was a girl at the counter who completely ignored her entrance. She was too busy chewing gum and reading a magazine to even welcome her to the shop. Anyone else might have found that lack of decorum annoying, but Jade couldn't care less. She didn't need anyone's help because she knew why she'd come in.

There were two other people in the shop, but Jade was focused on the Fleetwood Mac vinyl, so she approached the girl with the magazine and cleared her throat a bit.

"Excuse me?" she said in a tone that tried to be friendly. "D'you have the Fleetwood Mac vinyl from '75?"

The girl looked up from her magazine, full of disdain, and raised an eyebrow as she assessed Jade. "Aisle three," she replied curtly before turning her gaze back to the magazine.