Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
As we sped through the city in the back of a car, I thought about Miles. I’d forgiven JD for what he said: I knew he was only trying to protect me. But I hadn’t expected his crazy theory to take root in the dark depths of my mind.
I’d tell myself it was insane: this was Miles. Miles who used to do magic tricks and I knew secretly still did. Miles who’d camped with me in a little two-man tent in the backyard when we were five and nine, and who’d volunteered to sleep in front by the door so I’d feel safer. Miles who, when one of my Lego towers fell over and knocked a glass paperweight from our dad’s desk, shattering it, lied and told my dad it was his fault so I wouldn’t get in trouble. Miles.
But then I’d start thinking about how he wasn’t there in Mexico, or on the boat at the marina. How he’d seemed differently, these last few months, withdrawn and moody. How he’d known we were going to Poland. And my mind would slowly see-saw the other way and suddenly it felt obvious, and I was stupid for denying it. Argh!
“We’re here,” said JD.
He got out first and looked up and down the street, jaw set, brooding and silent. Then he frowned at the buildings across the street and my stomach knotted when I realized he was checking the windows for shooters. Finally, he opened my door.
I looked at him, worried. Is it safe?
He nodded and offered his hand. I took it, feeling myself relax. If JD said it was safe, it was safe.
He led me into the store…and my jaw dropped. It was like no store I’d ever been in. The floor was glossy black tiles with tiny, glittering flakes of silver trapped in them. The lighting was low and a path wound back and forth through a forest of mannequins in ball gowns, each one on a raised pedestal and lit by a spotlight. The dresses were stunning: there were fabrics I’d never seen before: a pale red one so gauzy it looked like smoke, a dusky pink one that looked soft as rose petals. There were patterns picked out in gold and silver thread so intricate I could have stared at them for hours. And there were designs that hugged the mannequin’s bodies like lovers, and used ribbons, spaghetti straps and laced bodices to tempt and taunt and hint. It was breathtaking.
And I couldn’t imagine myself wearing any of it. I looked up at a dress that seemed to be the star of the whole store, the mannequin hanging on wires and lit from above as if she was an angel ascending to heaven. The dress was a delicate pink that reminded me of a dawn sky. It was made of hundreds of super-thin panels, stitched together with silver thread, and it was the most beautiful and intricately-made thing I’d ever seen. But it was insanely over-the-top glamorous, made for someone who was twenty-three and a movie star.
Two assistants hurried over…then tried to hide their surprise when they saw me. Maybe it was my thrown-on make-up, maybe it was my curves or the way I stood, shyly ducking my head. I so obviously didn’t belong there.
But my suit and the Mercedes parked out front said money so they pasted on smiles. I told them apologetically that I had no idea what sort of dress would suit me, so one of the assistants ran off to find me some choices. The other asked, “Would your boyfriend like a coffee while he waits?”
We turned to each other. JD was so surprised, he forgot to be gruff for a second. He looked innocently sweet and the longing in his eyes made me catch my breath.
Then he turned to the assistant and the mask came down again. “I’m just her security,” he told her. “And no thank you.”
The other assistant returned with a huge green dress and I followed her to the fitting room. JD! What was it that kept making him pull away?
I pulled off my clothes and hauled the dress up around me. Then I turned to the mirror…and winced. It was beautiful, the fabric an iridescent sea-green. But with the huge, thick skirt I felt like a flamenco dancer. It would look fantastic on someone who knew how to move and twirl and make the most of it, but I just felt overwhelmed. “No,” I said sadly.
“No problem,” said the assistant, and passed another one over the door.
This one was very different, a long blue tube of clingy fabric covered in tiny sequins that caught the light. But it was designed for someone without curves…or with curves and bags of confidence. “Sorry, no,” I said meekly.
And so it went on, dress after dress. The assistant, who’d started off chirpy and upbeat, became awkward and embarrassed. By the tenth dress, I was close to tears. What was I doing? This was me: big, shy, geeky me. I wore sneakers and jeans and had concrete dust under my fingernails. I was curvy, not some willowy thing who wore ball gowns. That’s why Adrian had only pretended to love me long enough to get his claws into my dad’s clients. Most of all, I was a mom pushing forty. Any tiny shreds of glamor I’d had when I was young had been stripped away by years of diaper changes and getting PlayDoh in my hair.