White is for Virgins (56 page)

“Bring all the cash you can!” Lily advised. “We’re going hard tomorrow, from dusk ‘til dawn. It’s a full day project.”

‘Kay now I seriously feel like a fixer-upper going to an auto shop.

I hung up the phone and checked on Fox through the glass. His face was expressionless as he nodded and said a few more things. He came back inside a couple minutes later.

“Everything alright?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

He nodded slowly. “Fine.”

***

I pulled back the curtain of the makeshift dressing room Lily’s (British) aunt, Lorraine, had set up prior to our visit. Stepping out, I modeled the crimson Cinderella-esque dress for Lorraine while Lily changed into her next dress.

“Hmm…” she sighed. “This dress does nothing for you, love.”

“I agree,” Lily nodded, imitating her aunt’s accent. She looked flawless in a sky-blue shimmery number. “You look sickly pale, darling.”

“Well thanks, you look hot,” I muttered, turning around so she could unzip me before returning the same courtesy. We waddled back to our ‘dressing rooms’ and tried on the next batch of gowns. We’d been doing this for over three hours. All of these amazing dresses were starting to melt together and look the same to me.

“Lorraine?” I called, stepping out of the red thing and slipping into a silky black number.

“Call me
Raine, love,” she returned. “What is it?”

“Am I supposed to be half-naked?” I asked uncertainly, pulling the curtain back and stepping out. Lily peeked from behind her curtain to inspect my gown.

It was a halter with a plunging, and I mean
plunging
, neckline. A single thread of silver connected the gown and kept it from opening to reveal the goods. From my waist the soft, cold midnight fabric fell and pooled at my feet. Lily gestured for me to turn around. Like a puppet I twirled slowly, revealing the back of the dress or rather, a lack thereof.

“Emery…” Lily started.
Raine was speechless.

“What? I can’t pull it off, right?” I winced, looking down at myself and the cleavage the dress revealed.
Not bad,
I thought,
not bad at all, girls.
“It’s too sexy for me.”

“No!”
Raine and Lily said simultaneously.

“It’s definitely beyond sexy,” Lily laughed, looking me over again. “But that’s the point. It’s almost like it was made for you – you’ve got the three main points: boobs, back, and butt, covered. Or,
uncovered,
I should say,” she winked. “I think you just found your dress.”

“Really?” I looked at myself in the full-length mirror on the wall across from me. I did look great. I just didn’t know how I felt about it, yet. I liked it, definitely. But did I want to spend an entire night half naked? Would I be comfortable?

“Can I have a couple days to think about it?” I asked, biting my lip and turning to look at my back in the mirror.

“Of course,”
Raine nodded. “It’s always good to think things over. I can tell you’re still not completely sold on it. Is it the plain color you’re not sure of?”

I shrugged. “The color’s okay, I think black automatically discards it from sticking out, but with all this skin I can see why you’d use a dark fabric instead of like bright pink. That’d be too overwhelming.”

“Right,” she nodded. “You’ve got enough going with this one, that’s for sure. You look lovely, love.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, “for everything.”

“Anything for a friend of Lily’s.”

Lily came out from behind the curtain looking for more dresses. She was seemingly just as uncertain as I was, except she didn’t mind showing it. We scoured the basement for every color and style we could find. She seems particularly fond of shimmery dresses.

“What about this one?” I asked, pulling a gold dress out from behind a mannequin.

Raine
gasped at my discovery. “Oh my goodness! I forgot all about that one! It’s absolutely divine,” she said, taking the dress and shoving Lily behind the curtain with it. “It’s yours, I can feel it.”

A minute later Lily emerged shyly from behind the curtain, stepping forward and twirling almost in slow motion to give the dress the entrance it deserved. It really was ‘divine’. The dress stuck closely to her frame, though it wasn’t exactly tight or stretchy. Its light-gold fabric resembled the color of champagne and shimmered like a million diamonds. The excess material collected at her feet and as she turned it followed suit. A single champagne strap held the dress up and ran down her back before meeting the rest of the gown at her lower backside. A gold thread wrapped around her torso to connect the front half of the gown together, making up for the lack of fabric in the back.

“It’s like it was made for you,” I commented. Raine seconded my statement.

“
Ahhhh!” Lily shrieked, jumping up and down and giggling as her ponytail fell apart and her hair fell in her face. “I found my dress!”

“You look stunning,”
Raine praised, “You ladies are going to be the hottest ones at the dance.”

“Definitely,” Lily agreed, checking out her back as she held her hair up. “Oh my God, I love it. Thanks so much Auntie
Raine.”

“What’s this ‘Auntie’ nonsense?” her aunt mock-scolded. “Go change, you’ll miss your hair appointments.”

“Hair?” I inquired, having not heard that part of Lily’s plan yesterday on the phone.

“Yeah, we have 12 o’clock appointments, remember?” Lily asked running back behind the curtain to change.

“Oh!” I said, feigning recognition, “Right, 12 o’clock.”

“Yeah, silly,” Lily chuckled. “We can’t forget the highlights!”

“Highlights,” I reiterated, trying not to sound shocked.

“And lowlights,” Lily nodded, carrying the dress over to her aunt who gave her a bag to place it in.

“How much for this one, Raine?” Lily asked her.

Her aunt waved her off. “Don’t even start, Lil. Both are free of charge.”

“Raine, I can’t let you–” I started.

“Nonsense! You can, and you
will
let me give you both a gift. The only thing I require in exchange is a smile, an amazing night, and
safe
choices during… whatever it is that occurs after these dances of yours.”

“Lorraine!” Lily scolded playfully, hugging her aunt. I, however, made no comment.

“Thank you, again,” I said, hugging her as well. “I’ll get back to you on the dress.”

“I’ll keep it here for a few more days, love,”
Raine promised. “Good luck, girls!”

***

“White blonde for her, and a dark brown for me just to dramatize our natural colors, y’know? We don’t want anything too different,” Lily told the stylists who would be doing our hair. They nodded and suggested a few things to her, using technical terms that I had no clue how to translate. Lily mentioned getting a choppy angled cut like Posh just above her shoulders.

“What about you,
Em?” she asked, “Are you getting anything cut?”

“Um,” I sighed, staring at my hair in the mirror. It’d grown quite a bit. “What would you suggest?”

My stylist, Greg, took over. “Well, I’d definitely put some layers in here,” he started tousling my hair and pointing to the parts he wanted to touch up. “We should definitely frame your face with a few shorter layers – just to open up this lovely heart-shaped you’ve got going on. You are an adorable creature, honey, but this bland cut isn’t doing you justice. I’m so glad Lily called us in for highlights; we’re going to reawaken your inner goddess.”

“Oh wow,” I nodded enthusiastically, “Well then I’m down. Reawaken my goddess; do what you have to.”

We all laughed and got to it. I was anxious for the change, eager to see how it all came out.

“So, Miss Emery,” Greg said, painting thin strips of my hair with bleach and folding them up in tin foil, “Who’s taking you to prom?”

“Fox Evans,” I stated.

“One of the hottest boys in school,” Lily clarified, “White blonde, spikey hair that
kinda falls into his eyes. And those eyes! They’re like leaf-green but sprinkled with yellow; gorgeous things, you’d never shut up about them if you met him. He runs track, plays guitar,
use
to play
girls,
and fixes up cars.”

“Oh damn, girl,” Val, Lily’s stylist commented. “Sounds dreamy.”

“Damn indeed,” Greg agreed. “So you’ve changed this bad boy’s heart, I presume? Fairytale romance?”

I blushed, covering my face. Lily filled them in.

“So, he’s what, like your official boyfriend now, right?” Greg continued. “How exciting; first love.”

“Well, not exactly,” I shrugged.

“Not exactly?” Val questioned.

“Explain,” Greg demanded.

“We haven’t really brought up the whole label ordeal yet,” I explained, “which I’m totally okay with… he’s not really the type to have ‘girlfriends’, so I’m not going to push anything on him… because I’m not really the type to have ‘boyfriends’, either.” It was a choppy explanation, but it was the truth. I never really paid attention to the idea of being Fox’s official girlfriend. That kind of title came with specific obligations that I wasn’t sure I could fulfill as fast as most girls these days did.

“Honey,” Greg stated. “You seem like an amazing girl for not pushing commitment on this guy; he loves you for that, I’m sure. But if you’re serious about him, don’t extend the leash too far. ‘Cause from what it sounds like, he doesn’t even know he’s got one on. There’s nothing worse than a dog that goes to chase a squirrel and realizes that he’s tied up after a ten foot leap. He will flip. Literally. And pursue that squirrel any damn way.”

My eyes bulged at the analogy.
Who’s this
squirrel
Fox could possibly want?

“Greg, don’t freak her out,” Lily told him. “She’s taking things slow. They both are. Very, very slow. Dating’s a whole new ballpark for them.”