The following week is tainted by the break-in. I can’t get over the fact that somebody came into my room and went through my stuff and touched my clothes. My nights become restless, and I am tired and anxious all through the days. I am irritable and annoyed. I’m exhausted by the weather—I want there to be a change, but every day runs around looking exactly like the day before. Even when Darla and Sybil ask if I want to help decorate the Christmas tree, I can’t feel like it is Christmas. It makes me think of singing “Silent Night” that last Christmas with Mom. I haven’t felt so unhinged since then, when I thought I’d had sex with Warren and found out later that it wasn’t Warren. I feel the same sense of being violated now as I did then—as I came to understand that my mother’s drug-dealer boyfriend had given me a spiked drink and forced his way into my room.
I miss my baby.
I hear her in my dreams, crying because she has been hurt, and I can’t get to her. I wake with my pillow wet from tears that I can’t cry when I am awake.
Trey isn’t coming home from Stanford until next week, and I’ll be in Mexico by then. His family will be in Colorado when I get back, so I won’t see him until after Christmas.
I am so depressed.
“Come on.” Cici bursts into our room. She is dressed in soft, gray sweats and a t-shirt that looks like it came from the children’s section of Old Navy.
“Come on, what?” I ask, short-tempered.
“Come shopping with me. You can’t wear scummy t-shirts in Mexico,” Cici explains.
“What? You don’t like my super sexy t-shirts?” I ask, striking a pose, but I’m too depressed to pull it off. I just can’t seem to bring myself back up. Every day I get up and I try to put on the smile and I try to say everything is great, but really I just feel a muddy shade of brown, like all the paints have been mixed together to make the ugliest color in the universe. I don’t even want to go to Mexico. I just want to stay closed in my room.
“No.”
I stretch out, feeling all my bones snapping into place.
“Why not?”
She launches forward, a cat pouncing, and I let my eyes fall closed so I don’t have to see her excitement, which is coming off of her in waves.
“Come on, come on, come on!” she squeals. I don’t want to go shopping. I don’t want to do anything. I just want to sleep. My lack of response finally penetrates Cici’s excitement, and I feel all the last dregs of energy being sucked out of me. “Get up. We are going shopping.”
I lay for another minute, maybe two, while she springs from the walls and off the furniture. I do need some clothes for Mexico. I had planned to go shopping, but that was before all my money was stolen. “I don’t have any money,” I finally say.
“My treat. I owe you.”
I let an eye open to a slit, wondering what she thinks she owes me.
I ride with Cici in her Thunderbird, the music so loud there is no expectation of conversation. I watch out the window, feeling the little ball of anger and depression that lives inside of me.
I have never been one to love shopping, having had little experience with it beyond annual trips to the local Goodwill, but Cici does, and so I let her lead me away from the car and into the bright and shining mall. Cici is on a mission. We bypass the entire lower level and head up the escalator, and I feel like a dull penny next to Cici in her itty-bitty t-shirt and low-slung sweats. There is a whole lot of skin between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her sweats.
We turn right off the escalator, and I see her destination before we arrive—black signage with neon pink glowing from behind, gaudy and somehow suggesting sex simply by the vulgarity of its signage. Frederick’s of Hollywood. I let loose a long sigh, but after a withering look from her, I swallow my argument. There is nothing in this store that I want in my closet. There is black lace and black leather and leopard prints and chairs that look like high-heeled shoes as part of the decor. Is this me? How did I go from Goodwill to Frederick’s of Hollywood? How is that an improvement?
Cici starts touching the fabrics, touching the lace, her shoulders back and her breasts high, drawing attention from the other women in the store. She is marking her territory. She is claiming this sanctuary as her own. I see one of the girls, who is cut from Cici’s own leopard-print cloth, tick her head to the left, as if releasing some tension, then do a slow turn away from us, her long hair swinging like a curtain. Her hip kicks out, her butt shifting like two puppies under a blanket. If Cici even saw the girl, I don’t know, but I feel like I am watching some perverse mating display, or an invitation to a stripper dance-off.
“You need this,” Cici says, taking a tiny, black-lace negligee from a rack and holding it out to drape down over my baggy t-shirt and jeans.
I blush. “Oh, no. I don’t need that.” If I could melt into the carpet, I would.
“Trey needs this,” she corrects.
“Well, he’ll have to find somebody else to wear it.”
“I’d wear it for him; maybe I should get it for me.” Her tone is flippant, playful, and I narrow my eyes at her. It takes a moment before she becomes aware. “Oh, hell, Mildred. I’m just kidding. Geez.” She rolls her eyes and hisses, “Lighten up.”
“There is nothing in this store that I’ll feel comfortable wearing,” I state, crossing my arms over my breasts, planting my feet, refusing to take another step.
Cici turns on me, and I expect a rolling of her eyes or some derision about my old lady-ness, but her eyes are warm and smiling but not laughing. “I bet I can find something in this store that makes you feel pretty in a way you have never felt. Just give me a chance.” Her hand slips into mine, and all the rough, jagged points of her melt away, and I remember her from Life House. I haven’t seen that girl in a long time, and seeing her now makes me realize how much I have missed her. I want to hug her, to try to hold on to this version of her.
“Okay,” I say. “We can look.” She squeezes my hand and turns back to the racks. I follow her, like a docile puppy, into the cave of clothes. In the far back of the store, there is a rack of dresses, velveteen creations in black and pink and animal print. They all look entirely too small, but when she hands me three to try on, I obediently step into the dressing room. I hold the first two up in front of me, hanging them back up as discards without even trying. I don’t want to pretend to be a zebra, and the mauve thing makes my skin look yellow. The black halter almost gets hung with them, because I won’t be able to wear a bra, but if I don’t show her at least one of them, all her jagged edges will come back.
I strip my jeans off, setting them on the bench, followed by my shirt. The black halter dress slips down over my body like a velvet wave. When I have tied the halter behind my neck and let my face come up to see my reflection, I am transformed, still pale, still without makeup, still depressed, but the fit of the dress over my breasts and down to the curve of my waist is very . . . nice. The flare of the skirt gives me better curves than I think I have. The hem falls just above my knees, which is longer than I expected. I stare at my reflection for a long minute, not even pulling the threads of the thoughts in my head. The white straps of my bra still pass up over my shoulders, and I lift one hand to see the effect without the strap.
A breath washes through me. I am beautiful. I see it, suddenly, what John saw, what Dom Devlin saw. My insecurities just flood out from my fingertips. The dress is simple. It suits me. Cici is fussing on the other side of the curtain, and I finally push the thick fabric aside so she can see me. I strike the smallest of poses, with my cheeks drawn in and my lips slightly pursed.
She doesn’t say a word, but comes into the cubicle, walking around me, studying the effect. I watch her in the mirror, feeling her eyes on me, and when she is behind me, I feel her hand between my bare shoulder blades. An instant later, the clasp on my bra is unhinged, and the tension around my breasts lessens. “You can’t wear that bra,” she whispers, and I roll my eyes, because of course I know that. I shrug free of it and set it by my shirt, feeling the soft fabric of the dress against my skin.
“What do you think?” I ask, quiet, my eyes drawn back to my own reflection.
“I think you should dress like this every day,” she says, equally quiet, as if we are in church, not a dressing room. She lets her hands rest on my hips, and a jolt shocks through me. It is a very possessive stance, masculine. I almost shift away, but she folds her arms around me and puts her head on my shoulder. “Trey will love you in this,” she whispers into my ear and chills rise all down my arms and legs. I relax, looking at her in the mirror, seeing a sadness there that I don’t usually see in her. “Can I buy it for you?” Her voice is so familiar now, the voice I remember from across the room at Life House during all those late-night conversations.
I nod, but slowly, not comfortable with her buying it. “I’ll pay you back.”
She sets me free, and another chill washes over me where she has been. “You need shoes,” she says, her voice rising back to her normal pitch, projecting against the mirror. “Of course you’ll need some sundresses, too.” She leaves me alone in the dressing room to change into my own clothes, and when I look at my reflection, I have tears running down my face. I hadn’t even known I was crying.
