Across the Line (In The Zone) (11 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Two weeks after their tryst at the Statler, Becca realized she needed to do something she normally avoided at all costs.

Shop.

She had absolutely nothing to wear to the wedding Calder had invited her to before he left. Nothing. She hadn’t worn a dress in two years. Or was it three? The dressiest pants she owned had a rip in them. Too bad it wasn’t a day wedding. Then she might have gotten away with the pantsuit she wore to chamber of commerce meetings. No such luck. Calder said it was a black-tie affair, very fancy.

She resigned herself to a trip to the mall after work which made her cranky. She had two days to find something. “Steve,” she said to her new hire, “I am not paying you to hold the counter up. Wipe down a table, dust the window ledges, check the trash, check the bathroom, restock the straws, cups, spoons, napkins...”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I was just about to bus that table. Sheesh.”

After he squeezed the sanitizer out of a rag and headed toward the café area, Becca went to her office.

“What are you looking at?” she asked Savannah who stood near the espresso machine, which sat mainly unused, except for the staff’s pick-me-ups.

“Someone who got up on the wrong side of the bed today,” Savannah replied, following her into her office. Lowering her voice, she asked, “You and Calder have a fight?”

Becca scowled. “No. Calder and I didn’t have a fight.”

“Then what is it? Something’s bothering you.”

Becca sat at her desk and crossed her arms. “I have to buy a dress.”

Savannah’s eyebrows shot up. “You wear dresses?”

“Very funny. Yes, I wear dresses. Just not lately.” She turned on the computer. “Like since I was twelve.”

“What do you need a dress for?”

Becca shuffled a couple of papers around on her desk. “Calder invited me to a wedding.”

“I was wondering why you had four days blocked out on the schedule. Who’s getting married?”

“One of the guys on his team. Tim Hollander.”

“Well, that should be fun. Where are you planning to shop?”

Becca scrubbed her face with her hands. “The mall.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why? What’s wrong with the mall?” Becca asked, suddenly questioning her decision.

“Nothing, but there are a lot of boutiques here on the Commons. There’s that place, Sashay. They have cute stuff in there.”

Nodding, Becca pursed her lips. “I don’t know.”

“In Any Season is nice too. Then across the way, you can’t go wrong at Midnight to Dawn.”

Becca had never been inside any of those stores. She was either going down to Cups and anxious to get to work, or on her way up to bed, dead tired.

“You need to get something sexy. Something that’ll blow Calder away. Has he ever seen you dressed up?”

“No. Never.
I’ve
barely seen me dressed up. And easy for you to say. Get something sexy? I have no clue as to how to go about doing that. I’m planning to get a black dress. That’s safe, right? And good for funerals, just in case.”

Savannah looked aghast. “I know you’re my boss, but I absolutely forbid you to buy a dress appropriate for both weddings
and
funerals. And incidentally, no such dress exists.”

Becca leaned forward onto the desk and buried her face in her crossed arms. “It’s hopeless. I’m going to tell him I can’t come. I’m too busy with the restaurant. Or I’m sick. I have some horrible disease. Necrotizing fasciitis maybe.”

“I’m not going to even ask what that is.”

Becca sighed. She was clearly doomed to be a fashion cautionary tale. Savannah left the office and Becca got back to work, but about fifteen minutes later, Savannah rapped on the doorjamb.

Becca leaned back in her chair and stretched. “What’s up?”

“What are you doing after work?”

“Calling Calder to tell him I have polio.”

“No, you’re not. You’re coming shopping with me.”

Becca slid down in her chair and let her head flop backward. Going shopping with Savannah violated her no-fraternization rule, and yet Becca not only needed help, she really wanted it. If she thought back to the last time she’d hung out with a girlfriend... She closed her eyes and realized she couldn’t remember. She never had time, or never made the time, to maintain the friendships. She didn’t blame anyone for not inviting her to do anything with them, because a person could only be told no so many times before they stopped asking altogether, but neither could she let off the gas, not if she wanted to make Cups the success she envisioned.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Her resistance waning, Becca protested weakly. “It’ll be too late. The mall closes at nine.”

“I’ve got connections.”

Three hours later, around ten, Becca and Savannah locked up the café. The bars and some of the other restaurants were still open, but other than that, most of the storefronts were dim.

“So, we’re going to the mall, right? Your car or mine?” Becca asked.

“Neither. We’re walking,” Savannah said, hooking her arm in Becca’s.

Confused, Becca went along. Savannah led her to Sashay, a boutique that catered to a young but sophisticated crowd. The woman who shopped there liked to stand out from the crowd, but not too much. She did Pilates. She got facials on a semi-regular basis. She had a lot of clothes in her closet that needed to be dry-cleaned, and the vast majority of her shoes did not have rubber soles. Very unlike Becca.

Becca had checked out their window displays but never ventured inside. As much as she wished she could wear those types of clothes and admired how great other people looked in them, she knew she couldn’t pull anything like that off.

“See? I told you. They’re closed,” Becca said, starting to walk away.

Savannah grabbed Becca’s arm with one hand and knocked on the door with the other. “Not for us.”

A woman appeared in a small halo of light in the back of the store. She waved at Savannah and hurried to the door and unlocked it. Becca recognized her. She came in to Cups once in a while.

“Come in,” she said. She had a roaring twenties-style bob and a sparkly tank and jeans on.

“Becca, this is Jill. She’s the owner of Sashay.”

Jill shook Becca’s hand. “It’s so great to finally really meet you. This is so fun. I feel like I’m in a spy movie where I have to dress the female spy for an undercover mission.” Jill’s green eyes sparkled with excitement. Her hair sparkled too. Becca wondered if she used hairspray with glitter in it, or if they even made that.

Savannah’s head bobbed up and down. “I know! Thank you so much for agreeing to help.”

A knock at the door startled them.

“Oh, there’s Claudine,” Jill said, opening the door for another woman who Becca recognized as a regular customer.

Claudine had a mass of unruly reddish hair that she tried to tame with a headband. She looked to be in her late forties and was wearing a stretchy lavender tracksuit. “Is this a private party?” she asked with a giggle.

“Thanks for coming, Claudine,” Savannah said. “You know Becca.”

“I know her lettuce cups very well.” She patted her ample stomach. “I know her clam chowder even better.”

Becca smiled, flattered but still confused.

“Okay,” Savannah said, “just so we’re all on the same page. Becca has a wedding to go to in a couple of days. Her boyfriend is Calder Griffin, a left-winger for the San Diego Barracudas.”

Jill’s eyebrows went up, but Claudine didn’t seem to be a hockey fan.

“Now, Becca’s not a girly girl and Calder’s never seen her dressed up before, so—”

“You want to knock him dead,” Claudine said.

Becca smiled uncertainly. “That’s the goal, but I’m not sure it’s achievable.”

The three women stared at her.

“What?” Becca asked, sincerely perplexed.

“You have like the perfect body,” Savannah said.

“I do not,” Becca protested. She liked her body but it was far from perfect. Her boobs were small and her eyebrows looked like someone had taken a chisel-point black marker and drawn two fat lines above her eyes. Her butt was on the flat side, her fingers too short. A far cry from perfection.

“You have the type of body that designers design for. Slender and willowy.”

“My boobs are too small,” she protested.

“That’s where I come in,” Claudine said.

Becca glanced at her. “Are you a plastic surgeon?”

Laughing, Claudine shook her head. “No, but I’m the next best thing.”

“She owns Bewitching, the lingerie shop,” Savannah explained. “One of my favorite places to spend money.”

“Probably one of Oliver’s too,” Becca said.

“Sandra Bullock bought a bra and panty set from me once,” Claudine said.

Becca nodded. “Nice.”

“I can make your girls look luscious, but we need to pick a dress first so I know what kind of neckline we’re working with.”

“Which is why we met here first,” Savannah said.

Jill walked them toward the area of the store displaying dresses. Becca immediately saw one she liked but didn’t think she could pull off. It was a deep, dark and vivid red, first of all. Except for lime-green, she didn’t wear a lot of colors. It was vampish, strapless, long and narrow with a disturbingly high slit. It looked like something a starlet would wear on the red carpet. And it was made of velvet.

To Becca’s dismay, this was the dress Jill pulled off the wall. The other women cooed over it and exclaimed that it was perfect for her.

“When Savannah called to recruit me for this, I immediately thought of this dress.”

“Try it on,” Savannah said, pressing the dress into Becca’s arms. “The dressing room is over there.”

After checking it was her size, Becca closeted herself in the stall. As she pulled it up over her hips, she realized it was stretchy. She had some jeans that had Lycra in the fabric and supposed they’d done the same thing with velvet. She zipped it up and risked a look in the mirror.

She was pleasantly surprised.

“Come out here and let us get a look at you,” Savannah said.

Becca came out to gasps of delight and even some clapping.

“Oh my God, you look gorgeous,” Jill said, her hands clasped in front of her chest.

“Absolutely gorgeous,” Savannah agreed.

Claudine came closer and examined the bust area, then turned Becca around and checked out the back. “I have a bra that will make you look even better.”

The other two women agreed. Becca’s current bra was not particularly flattering.

“It’s too long and the slit’s too high.”

“The slit is perfect,” Savannah said, pulling the hair elastic out of Becca’s hair and fluffing it up, “and don’t worry about the length. You’re going to be wearing heels.”

“I am?” Becca winced. “I was kind of hoping I could get away with ballet flats. Something sparkly maybe, you know, because it’s a wedding...”

That got her three looks of horror and a quick but thorough lecture on how many fashion commandments that would heinously violate.

Savannah put her hands on her hips. “Look, it boils down to this. Do you want to blow the socks off Calder or not?”

Becca had never really cared about looking sexy for a man before. Her attitude had always been, WYSIWYG—what you see is what you get. It had almost been a test for them. Were they okay with her looks just the way they were? Because she wasn’t the type of woman who dolled up to go to the movies. She didn’t spend an hour—or even fifteen minutes—in front of the mirror putting her face on. Her face was her face. But with Calder, it was the exact opposite. He seemed to love the way she looked, which oddly seemed to motivate her to switch it up on him.

“I do. I do want to knock his socks off,” she admitted.

“Then hold up your right hand and repeat after me,” Savannah said in a tone of voice that Becca recognized. It was one Becca herself sometimes used in the café, except now it was the employee using it on the boss.

Dimly aware she might be undermining her authority in the workplace, she put her right hand in the air and repeated after Savannah.

“In the interests of blowing away Calder Griffin of the San Diego Barracudas, I solemnly promise to follow the fashion advice of Savannah, Jill and Claudine to the best of my ability. Whether it be about underthings, shoes, hair or makeup. Because they are my gurus, my guiding light, my—”

“Okay, enough’s enough,” Becca said, lowering her hand.

“Did we really hit the nail on the head with the first dress?” Jill asked.

Becca flicked her gaze over the other dresses on the wall. She flipped some hangers on a metal stand and nodded her head. “I think so. I like this dress.”

Savannah pumped her fist as Becca pulled out her wallet.

Jill scanned the tag on the dress. $249. Shit. She couldn’t afford that. She was already forking out for airfare, having refused to let Calder pay. Becca gulped and almost opened her mouth to admit to her poverty, when a split second later, the price changed to $99. Becca glanced up at Jill questioningly.

“Special discount for people who promise to send me pictures of themselves at the event,” Jill explained. “With Alex Sullivan. That man’s to die for.”

“Of course,” Becca said gratefully. “I’ll send all of you pictures.”

The three of them left Sashay and headed for Bewitching, the lingerie shop. The inside looked like a room where Marie Antoinette might have gotten dressed. Becca liked the color scheme of the store, a pale peach, cream and gold. Antique armoires and dressers with open drawers displayed a treasure trove of lacy undergarments. Bras of all different shapes, colors and sizes covered two entire walls. There was even one of those couches with the scrolling arms and no back.

“Have you ever been measured for a bra before?” Claudine asked, snapping out a tape measure like a whip.

“No.” Becca’s usual method of bra shopping consisted of pulling a bra off the rack at Target and trying it on. If it covered her up decently and wasn’t too baggy, she bought four of them, two white, one beige and one black. Mission accomplished.

Claudine instructed her to take her shirt off and put her hands on her hips. “Now exhale.”

The woman wrapped the tape under Becca’s breasts and adjusted it. Then she rewrapped around her breasts at their fullest. “Thirty-two A.”