Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) (11 page)

Satiated and walking like a drunk for a
few steps, Darla radiated health and natural beauty. She had a
sweetheart of a face, with dimples to make even Shirley Temple
jealous.

She waved goodbye to Drew as he slid
over into the driver’s seat of his truck, returned her wave with a
dazed, happy look plastered over his handsome mug, and took off
down the street like a bat out of hell.

I took it that Drew didn’t mind her
driving his prized pickup truck any longer…

Wonders never ceased.

Darla sauntered our way, swinging her
hips like the mini sex goddess she was.

“
Hey girls,” Darla twanged
sweetly. “Are we ready to shop till we drop or what?”

Darla and Bette clutched each other in
a sisterly hug and giggled like long time girlfriends.

I felt a tiny twinge of jealousy… which
was just… well…

I shoved that feeling down into a
mental sock drawer to look at later, over some wine and ice
cream.

The two turned to me, arm in arm, and
they had the same look on their faces. Actually, it was a series of
expressions that taken in together, shifting over the two’s faces
at the exact same time, was just creepy.

First disapproval, then appraisal, and
finally twin smirks of anticipation; it seemed taking me shopping
for a dress was going to be a mission of the utmost importance—I
felt a shiver as they turned and gave each other a knowing
look.

Shit, I was in it deep. And Bette and
Darla were the freaking alligators!

***

Bette let Darla drive, so we screamed
through town like the Caddy had flaming wheels and Satan himself
was at the wheel. Again I had the feeling I was on a roller
coaster, and when we finally stopped it took a few beats before my
stomach caught up with us. And then it flipped over and played
dead, my breakfast suddenly heavy and clumped at the bottom of my
gut.

“
Maybe I should drive us
back,” I said, hand on my stomach, feeling like I’d been literally
sucked through a straw and was now splattered over the
sidewalk.

Darla looked over to Bette. Bette shook
her head.

“
She drives like a little
old lady with cataracts. We’ll never get home with her at the
wheel.”

They shared a smile—okay, feeling
jealous again. Okay, feeling jealous and really, really
nauseous.

“
Come on Cinderella,” Bette
called out as she slid out of the passenger side door. “We’ve got
to get you ready for the ball.”

Darla followed suit, so I grudgingly
followed, swallowing down the bile that threatened to make an
encore appearance… and any tattered shred of my pride I had
left.

This was going to get ugly.

I just hoped I’d come out looking more
like a swan than an ugly stepsister.

I opened the car door and crawled out
onto the sidewalk…

And gaped…

I don’t know what I’d expected: maybe a
pretentious, over priced boutique, or a glamorous high-end fashion
Mecca like Saks…

What we stood in front of
was a secondhand dress store.
Vintage
Elegance
sizzled in gold letters across the
store’s front window.

I gave Bette a look. “I can
afford a
new
dress!” I wasn’t that far gone.

Well, maybe I couldn’t afford a dress
from Saks, but still, a second hand store?

I felt like I was walking into
Goodwill.

Which, truthfully I did on a regular
basis, to search their used books. But I’d never even thought about
wearing or buying clothes that someone else had worn.

It just made my skin crawl.

Bette took me by the arm and led me to
the front door. She looked to the right and said to Darla, “Be a
dear and grab Hope here a ginger ale over there at that
7-11.”

She guided me in through the front
doors—the glass sparkled and shone, so I felt a little better about
the place. Not that I’m some OCD nut-job, afraid of every germ and
speck of dust… but the thought of wearing used clothing just got to
me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep
breath, steeling myself. The place smelled of cinnamon and vanilla,
and silk, and cashmere, and leather.

When I opened my eyes I was surrounded
by tidy racks of high-end clothes. I didn’t know the names of the
designers, but I’d seen then on the covers of some of the fashion
magazines I’d prowled, looking for inspiration in the fancy
photographs used for ads.

The place was wall to wall elegance,
just as the name said. There were a few mannequins dressed in silk
gowns and tastefully beaded dresses.

I gulped. No matter what Bette and
Darla did to me, I’d never look that good in one of those
dresses…

Wasn’t that a kick in the teeth? I’d
never look as good as a stupid mannequin.

A woman in her early forties, dressed
in a simple, casual ivory suit, her salt and pepper hair long and
twisted in a knot on top of her head, strolled out from the back
and shot us a sweet, lovely smile. But that smile turned downright
delighted when she saw Bette.

“
Good god, girl,” the woman
said, advancing on us. “You were in just yesterday! I don’t have
anything new yet.”

Bette gave the woman a sisterly
hug.

What the…

Did she hug everyone? Was I
the only friend she
didn’t
hug?

Miserable, I stood there and waited for
them to disengage, and to stop giggling like school
girls.

Was it me, or had everyone fallen back
into puberty?

“
It’s not for me,” Bette
explained as she turned and looked to me. The woman turned and
gazed at me too.

Oh no, not again…

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see a
reenactment of the looks she and Darla had given me only minutes
before.

“
I see,” the woman said
gravely.

“
And Mona,” Bette said
conspiratorially, “she has to be jaw dropping in three
days.”

Jaw dropping? No matter what they did
to me, I didn’t think they’d ever get “jaw dropping” out of
me.

“
I was thinking maybe that
little Prada dress you had in the back,” Bette said.

“
Ah… the black one with the
beaded bodice?” Mona replied.

“
That’s the one.”

I heard her tsk tsk. “Maybe, maybe… but
I have a few other dresses you might want to see her in as well.
I’m just not sure the color will go with her complexion, and I
think the effect to her figure would be… unfortunate.”

Unfortunate?
Dear god in heaven, get me though this.

Just then Darla came in, a
bottle of ginger ale in her hand. I took it gratefully and twisted
off the cap, chugging three mouthfuls before Bette admonished, “Sip
it sweetie, we don’t want to reenact that scene from
Bridesmaids
.

The three women chuckled. I glared at
them and took another sip.

What happened next was a whirlwind of
motion, pulling, yelping (on my part) and the stripping off of my
clothes. Between Bette and Darla being in the changing room with
me, and Mona passing dress after dress over the door, it felt like
I was a car in a NASCAR pit, getting my wheels and oil changed, my
windows cleaned, and my gas tank filled.

I freaking hated it.

I would no sooner get a glimpse of the
dress I was about to try on when they’d fling it on over my head,
or make me jump into it like some sort of trained dog. Then the two
would take all of five seconds to appraise me in the new frock
before declaring “All wrong for you,” “Too long,” “I can almost see
her va-jay-jay,” “She doesn’t have enough up top to hold it up,” or
“Makes her look jaundiced.”

The little black number Bette had asked
for came over the door. Bette and Darla just looked down at my
hips, grabbed hold of me and started stripping it off. “You don’t
want to know,” was all Bette said.

When a red velvet number
came over the rampart I got excited. I loved red, and always equate
red velvet gowns with Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
.

Unfortunately, when I was finally
pushed and jerked and zipped into the thing Bette’s eyes flared to
life, but Darla shook her head.

Indecision?

“
She looks fantastic,” Bette
stage whispered.

“
She looks like a big ‘ho,”
Darla said flatly.

Oh boy, I had to see this. I’d never
came close to looking like a ‘ho before, not to mention a big
one.

I pushed past them and out the door to
the mirrored area. Why they didn’t have a mirror in the dressing
rooms was beyond me. Maybe in boutiques they wanted to sell you on
how you looked before you could decide for yourself?

I didn’t get more than a couple steps
out of the stall when I got a long, really good look at myself in
the mirror.

Mary, mother of god. I really did look
like a ‘ho. A saloon prostitute ready to pour you a drink while we
haggled over my price.

I turned and stepped back into the
stall.

“
Told you,” Darla
said.

“
I still like it on
her.”

I closed my eyes and wished
to god, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost
causes, to let the next dress be the one, so
I could get the hell out of there!

“
Just get the thing off me,
please!”

There was a moment of hushed silence,
and then their indelicate hands were on me once more, and within
seconds I was out of the dress.

There was a long pause before Mona
cleared her throat and handed over a long, silky brown dress. Bette
and Darla ooohed and ahhed.

“
I hate brown,” I said. I’d
hated brown since I was a little girl. My mother read somewhere
that brown matched absolutely everything… so she bought me only
brown clothing for nearly three years.

“
This isn’t just brown!”
Bette held the slinky gown up to the light.

Darla sighed. “This is a mix of dark
and light chocolate with caramel threading.”

Sounded like a candy bar… which
reminded me that I was hungry. I’d only eaten the zucchini bread
Raphael had made. I’d eaten the entire loaf myself, but that had
been hours ago.

I shook my head as my stomach growled
and rumbled. “Fine, fine… get the damn thing on me so you can tell
me how bad it looks!”

Darla pursed her pretty,
unadorned lips. Bette tilted her head and shot me a
Get
a hold of
yourself
look.

“
Sorry,” I
mumbled.

Bette started taking the thing off the
hanger, and Darla leaned in and whispered, “It’s fine. Shopping
just isn’t your thing. We’ll try and get through this as fast as we
can.”

That made my eyes bug out. Any faster
and they might rip me out of my skin along with the next
dress.

I tried to stay calm, to breathe slowly
as they helped me step on into the surprisingly lightweight gown.
And it did feel like heaven getting into it, all that silk sliding
over my body.

It fit pretty well too, because I
didn’t even have to exhale all my air out just to get the zipper to
go up.

I turned around to the two women and
they both had a quizzical look on their faces.

“
Mona, darling…” Bette
chimed.

The door to the changing room opened
and Mona walked in. “Yes.”

“
What is all of that?” Bette
pointed up at my chest.

Mona leaned in and gently told Bette,
“It comes with a built in bra.”

“
Oh,” Bette and Darla said
at once, and then reached out for me.

“
Wait!” I screeched, holding
out my hands to fend them off. “I can get it myself.”

I’d be damned if I was going to let
them strip my bra off too. The way they whipped clothes on and off
me I’d find out I was missing a nipple when I got home.

I turned around and reached back to
unzipped the back of the dress, slid the silky straps off and let
the dress slink down to my hips. Then I undid my front-loading,
boring white bra and took it off. It was weird being naked on top,
especially in front of other women. Even with my back to
them.

Felt like freshman PE all over
again.

I pulled the dress back up, slipping
the straps onto my shoulders, and then zipped the dress up
again.

I turned and held out my
arms.

“
Well?”

Darla gulped and held a hand over her
mouth, holding back a laugh.

Bette just rolled her eyes and walked
over, taking hold of the straps and brusquely rearranging my
boobs.

“
For crying out loud, Hope…
you’d think you’ve never played with these suckers
before!”