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“You cannot go to my party wearing that!” Robin exclaimed as she examined the dress – an actual dress! – that Anne had pulled out of her closet. “Except the shoes. You can wear those.”
“What’s wrong with this dress?”
“First,” Robin answered, holding up a single finger, “that dress screams middle school.”
Eyeing it carefully, Anne considered the dress. “It is possible that I did get it in middle school.”
Tilting her head to the side, Robin shook her head. “Oh sweetie,” she sighed. “There is no way that you could possibly still fit in that dress.” This time she held up another finger, “Secondly, there is no way I’m letting that cutie Derek see you in that pink monstrosity.”
“I don’t have that many other dresses. My mom and aunt bought me tons of dresses and skirts and stuff, but that’s all summer clothes. I can’t wear a sundress to a New Year’s Eve party.”
“No, you really can’t.” Flipping through the closet, Robin dismissed hanger after hanger after hanger of pieces of clothes hanging in the closet. Shirts. Skirts. Dresses. Pants. “You have nothing in your closet!”
“I tend to spend my money on art supplies and reading material,” Anne gestured towards the full bookcase and the desk loaded down with sketchbooks.
“I can see that.”
“What? I’m not shallow and superficial like my sisters!”
“I never said you were,” Robin protested. “But there is nothing wrong with putting any effort into your appearance. I’m sure you did over the summer and I’m positive you did the other day when we had that double date.”
“You’re right,” Anne mumbled.
“What was that?” Robin asked, grinning as she held a hand to her ear as if to hear Anne better.
“You. Are. Right.”
“A little louder for the people in the back?”
Playfully shoving Robin, Anne rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said instead. “Let’s go shopping.”
Squealing, Robin did a little hop. “I need to write this date down in my planner. I never thought I would hear those words come out of your mouth.”
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Several hours later, bags in hand, Anne stared at the mess that had been her room. She had put everything away before going to the mall.
“What happened in here?” Anne asked herself. “Where are my shoes?”
“Hey! Anne!” Mary called from across the hall. “Can I borrow your sweater? The sparkly material is perfect to go over my black dress.”
“Yeah, sure,” Anne distractedly answered her sister. “Just clean up what you messed up.”
“Oh,” Mary drawled. “That wasn’t me. That was Beth. She borrowed your navy-blue heels and a matching cardigan. She needed it so that Dad would let her out of the house. Her dress was cut so low you could almost see her...”
“She has my navy heels?” Anne interrupted. “She borrowed my clothes without asking? My whole outfit is planned around those shoes!” From one of the bags, she pulled out a sleeveless dress that matched her now missing shoes perfectly. “Is she still here?” Sticking her head in the hall, Anne bellowed out, “Beth!”
“She left over an hour ago,” Mary informed her helplessly from where she was still inside Anne’s room.
Anne’s room had clothes scattered all over the place. Shoes that were tossed around on the floor radiating from around her closet. Somehow there was even a skirt that Anne had outgrown years ago on a lamp in the far corner of the room.
“She left. Without even asking me if she could borrow my clothes. Without even picking up the mess she had made in my room. Without sending me a text or calling me.” None of it was a question and Mary – as occasionally dense as she was – caught on to the expression on Anne’s face. “Father is not going to let me leave with my room a mess, even if I didn’t make it!”
Collapsing on her bed, Anne grabbed her phone and quickly sent Robin out a quick emergency text with enough details to explain the situation.
Staring at the dress, Mary started to think. “You have the same sized feet as Beth, right?”
“Yes,” her sister replied, staring at the phone, waiting for Robin to reply.
“Borrow Beth’s red heels. She can’t say anything because she took yours.”
“She will anyway. Besides, they are higher than mine were. I’ll be wobbling around all night like a newborn giraffe.”
“Not her old pair. The pair that looks identical to her new pair except it has a smaller heel. And you can wear your red cardigan over the dress instead of a coat. That will appease Dad. And red and navy look good together.”
Scanning the text that just came in, Anne noted that Robin had unknowingly agreed with Mary’s suggestion. She would never tell Robin that, but she did say, “That’s what Robin suggested as well.”
“Great minds,” Mary smiled before grabbing the sparkly silver and black sweater off of Anne’s bed and dropping it over her head. With the neckline falling off of one shoulder, revealing the wide strap of the dress Mary was wearing underneath, and the hem of the sweater stopping near her waist, Mary’s confidence pulled off the look in a way that Anne feared she never would be able to.
The only problem was that the black made Mary look sickly.
“Wait!” Anne found herself saying before Mary escaped. Scanning her bed, she pulled an emerald green sweater from out of the pile and handed it over. “It’s the same style as the one you are wearing, but I think it’ll add more color to your cheeks.”
“What’s wrong with this sweater?” Mary snapped.
Proceeding with caution, Anne diplomatically pointed out that so much black made Mary look pale.
“But it also makes me look skinnier,” Mary countered, ignoring the fact that the loose-fitting sweater actually made her look the opposite. Then she disappeared back to her room.
Anne took the opportunity to slip into Beth’s room and ‘borrow’ the red heels she found discarded haphazardly in the back corner of Beth’s closet. Even her older sister’s room was a mess of disaster-level proportions.
Once back in her room, she glanced at her clock. Nodding her head, she could only hope that she could get this mess cleaned up and herself ready before Derek arrived to pick her up in an hour.
A moment later, her mother popped her head into her daughter’s room. “What happened in here?”
“Beth borrowed my navy heels without asking,” was all Anne needed to say. “So, I borrowed her red heels without asking.”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“Father won’t let me leave with this room a mess, and I didn’t even make it.”
“I know,” Eliza responded. “I’ll talk to him. You just get ready for Robin’s party.”
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An hour later, dressed in her borrowed heels – which, if Anne was going to be honest with herself, would not be returned until her own heels had been returned –, matching red cardigan, and strapless dress, Anne descended the stairs to face her father’s overprotective scrutiny.
Her father eyed her outfit carefully. If he had been aware of the lack of straps and the strapless bra underneath her sweater, he would have sent her right back upstairs to change. Only, this was Anne, the responsible and more conservative daughter. She would never wear something that was on his unapproved for high school girls list.
Although, those shoes looked a little too grown-up for his seventeen-year-old daughter.
“She’s eighteen, Walter,” Eliza helpfully reminded her husband, aware of the direction his thoughts were heading. “She can wear those heels if she wants to.”
“Eighteen!” he exclaimed. “When did that happen?”
“August ninth,” she replied. “The same day ever since she was born.”
“But Elizabeth is...”
“Twenty,” Eliza answered for him. “And Mary is sixteen and has her driver’s license.”
Eyes wide, he shook his head. “When did all of this happen?”
“While you were in your office doing whatever it is you do in there,” Eliza replied, hinting to Anne that she needed to escape while she still could.
It took a moment for Anne to notice that her mother’s eyes kept darting to the door, but once she did, Anne called out farewells to her parents before grabbing Derek’s hand and tugging him to the door. “Come on,” she whispered. “If we don’t leave now, Father might enact an eleven o’clock curfew.”
“He knows it’s New Year’s Eve, right?”
“Derek,” Anne sighed, her voice louder now that they were almost to his car. “He didn’t even realize that he had missed all three of his daughters’ birthdays this year.”
Nodding his head, Derek opened the door for Anne. “Good point.”
“Now, let’s get to Robin’s so that everybody who thought you were made up can fawn all over you and try to convince you to give them your midnight kiss.”
Leaning down to where their faces were level, he whispered, “Never,” before giving Anne a quick kiss on the lips. “My heart belongs to you and only you.”
“Good,” she grinned. “Now, get in the car and get me out of here.”
