Saturday mornings are for sleeping. Except today.
“Jessie!” My mother knocked on my headboard. “Your friend is downstairs waiting for you.”
“Who?” I rasped. “What?”
And before I even opened my eyes, I got my answer.
“Omigod!” Sara yanked away my duvet and flung it to the floor. “We’re going shopping for dance dresses!”
“When?”
“Right now!”
A horn honked in my driveway to illustrate her point.
“Come on, my brother won’t wait for long!” She pulled on my arm. “It’s a good thing you go for the natural look. No one will even notice you just woke up!”
I pulled a pair of jeans off the floor and put on the T-shirt at the top of my basket of clean laundry. Sara literally pushed me out the door and down the stairs.
“What’s the rush? The mall isn’t going anywhere, is it?”
“Um, no. But any dress worth having will be gone before you can say ‘Daddy’s Amex’!”
She flashed what I assumed was her father’s American Express card.
For the record, I didn’t have my parents’ plastic. I had eleven dollars balled up in my front pocket. And it was a ten and a single, so I couldn’t even pretend to be flush with cash. The only place I could afford to splurge was Cinnabon. This, by the way, got my vote for the first stop on our shopping trip because Sara had dragged me out the door without any breakfast. She didn’t even let me put my sneakers on. I was still barefoot when she shoved me into the backseat next to a bunch of shopping bags. Sara slid in beside me and started shouting commands at the teenage boy behind the wheel. Or rather, teenage man. He had a beard.
“To the mall! In a hurry!”
“Yes, your majesty,” the teenage man replied sarcastically, tugging on the brim of his Pineville High School baseball cap.
“Is this your brother?”
Sara has a brother who is a senior at Pineville High School. I waited for her to introduce us, like how Hope had introduced me to Heath.
“Allegedly,” Sara replied, checking the messages on her cell phone.
“Unfortunately,” Sara’s brother replied.
She did not introduce us. And neither did he.
“Hope’s meeting us at the mall,” Sara said instead, not looking up from her phone.
Whew. What a relief. I’d never hung out with Sara all by myself before, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle being the sole target of her intensity.
“What about Scout?” I asked.
“DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SCOUT.”
“Whoops,” Sara’s brother muttered under his breath. “Shoulda warned you.…”
“You know what she told me? She’s wearing her uniform on dance day. HER UNIFORM. That completely wrecks the color scheme for our square.…”
“Color scheme?” I asked.
“Of course we have a color scheme!” Sara said. “We want to win, don’t we?”
You want to win, I thought, but I knew better than to say it.
“Sara,” I began tentatively. “I’ve only got eleven dollars. I don’t think I can afford your color scheme.”
And before I could even begin to argue, Sara’s brother—named Joe I think?—pulled up to the entrance of Ocean County Mall.
“Grab the returns.” Sara gestured toward the Chic Boutique bags stacked next to me. She turned to her brother. “Be back here at four o’clock sharp.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Sara’s brother said, barely waiting for us to get to the curb before peeling out of the parking lot.
“Four o’clock? That’s six hours from now!”
“Actually, that’s five hours and thirty-eight minutes from now,” Sara corrected. “Because someone couldn’t get out of bed and threw off my whole schedule.”
With Daddy’s credit card in hand, Sara was literally and figuratively ready to take charge. To make up for lost time, she powered her way through the front doors, zooming past a pack of tracksuited senior-citizen mall walkers. I’m a fast runner, but I struggled to keep up because I was weighed down by four Chic Boutique shopping bags.
“Is your brother always so, um…” I searched for the right word. “Slavish?”
“He is when I have major dirt on him that he doesn’t want my parents to find out about,” she said. “Which I totally do.”
I imagined a teenage man like him could get himself into all sorts of trouble.
“Ooh.” I was intrigued. “What did you catch him doing?”
Sara came to a sudden stop. She pressed her hands on my shoulders and got all intense and Mr. Wall–like.
“My brother is off topic! Get your act together! Focus! We only have five hours and thirty-six and a half minutes left to shop.”
I doubt I’ve shopped for five hours and thirty-six and a half minutes in my entire life, let alone in one day. Sara relaxed her grip.
“Omigod! Are you ready to shop till you drop?”
“I’d have to actually wake up first before I’d be capable of dropping,” I said. “I’m still seventy-five percent asleep.”
Sara stopped again.
“I don’t think you heard me,” she said, barely containing her frustration. “ARE YOU READY TO SHOP TILL YOU DROP?”
There was only one acceptable answer.
“Yes,” I replied. “I am ready to shop till I drop.”
“Excellent. Because we have arrived.”
She swept her arm in front of the Chic Boutique window display of featureless mannequins who were attending a formal dance that looked a lot like Sara’s original description of the Glamarama Gala: black-and-white dress code, floor-length formals, tuxedos, crystal accents, orchids and roses and lilies, and that silver carpet—not red carpet, because red can be so harsh in photos…
Sara pointed to the mannequin right in the center of the crowd. It was decked out in a shiny black-and-white polka-dot dress that poufed out at the bottom. More important, it wore a homecoming-queen sash and crown.
“My dream dress!” she squealed. “You make the returns while I scope the store to find dresses that will go with it. It’s the best use of both of our time.”
She handed me Daddy’s Amex and nudged me toward the register.
“How many dresses do you need to buy?” I asked.
“Omigod! For all of us in the square.”
Wait. What? Whoa.
“You’re buying dresses for the whole square?” I asked.
“Yes! Even Scout! Because there’s no way she’s getting away with wearing her uniform. Why do you think I’m so stressed?”
Curious, I opened one of the shopping bags and pulled out a dress that looked like it fit me, and I mean that in every way. Like, it suited my figure AND my personality because it was basically a greenish-blue T-shirt but longer. Sara had done a better job shopping for me than I ever could have done for myself. Then again, this shouldn’t be such a surprise. She is a professional spender.
“Why are you returning these?”
I held up a long, flowy dress in the same greenish-blue color. It looked perfect for Hope.
“Because they just won’t work anymore, that’s why,” Sara snapped.
“But they’re cute and they all match.”
If Sara had had Mr. Wall’s whistle, she would have blown it right in my face.
“LOOK HERE, SLEEPYHEAD. We’re down to five hours and twenty-eight minutes, and I’ve got the practically impossible task of finding flattering outfits for all of us. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a dress for Hope that won’t come up too short on her or clash with her hair? Or anything that gives some sort of shape to your…” She vaguely gestured in my general direction, as if there were no words to describe the absence of shape that is my body. “You do your job and I’ll do mine. So make! Those! Returns!”
Sara took off and immediately started pulling black-and-white dresses off the racks. A salesgirl scurried behind her, struggling to keep up.
I timidly approached the register. Where was Hope when I needed her?
I didn’t know how to go about returning hundreds of dollars of clothes, including a dress more expensive than the contents of my entire closet that I hadn’t even known Sara had bought for me until she’d ordered me to send it back. Thankfully, this was business as usual for the salesgirl behind the counter.
“Welcome to Chic Boutique I’m Kirsten are you making returns for Miss D’Abruzzi.”
She said it just like that. Without punctuation. Without feeling.
“Um… yes.”
“My pleasure Miss D’Abruzzi is a valued Chic Boutique client I’ll just need the items and do you have the credit card used to make the purchases.”
It took me a second to hand it over because I hadn’t realized she had asked me a question. Kirsten’s teeth were sort of smiling, but her eyes were not. Otherwise, she looked like she’d stepped right out of a Chic Boutique catalog. Everyone who worked at the store did, even the poor girl chasing Sara. They all looked a lot like my sister, who, not coincidentally, works at a different Chic Boutique closer to her school.
Sara rushed up to me clutching the homecoming queen’s dress to her heart.
“Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! They have it!” she gushed. “In my size!”
Kirsten smiled at Sara so hard her teeth looked like they were about to crumble down to the nubs.
“You know,” she said. “We can always special order anything in”—her eyes narrowed—“your size.”
It was the first time Kirsten’s voice revealed any trace of human emotion. And that emotion was MEAN. Sara shops here often, so this salesgirl must know she’s supersensitive about her size. It’s why she eats carrots and celery at lunch every day. She’s not fat, but she’s not shaped like the Chic Boutique girls, either. She’s sort of squarish, I guess, but she wears her clothes well. I mean, Sara is by far the best-dressed girl in school. I worried about how she’d react to the rude salesgirl, but there was no need. I should’ve assumed Sara has what it takes to handle herself in any tough retail situation.
“I’ll remember to do that,” Sara said in her sweetest voice, “when you’re not here to get the ten percent commission.”
ZING! KA-CHING! And OFF SHE WENT.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t follow. I had one more return to get through. The first three dresses had gone just fine. The fourth and final dress, however, was a problem.
“We can’t take this back not even for store credit I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.”
She was back to her automated voice. She didn’t sound sorry or not sorry. She didn’t sound like anything.
“Um, why not?” I asked, wishing Sara would come back to deal with this.
“It’s damaged goods the zipper is broken and all the tags have been removed.”
Sure enough, she was right. The side zipper had been torn away from the fabric.
“Hey, Sara,” I called out tentatively. “I’m having a little bit of a situation over here.”
Sara shouted to me from the dressing room at the opposite end of the store.
“AND I’M HAVING A HUGE OMIGOD SITUATION OVER HERE. COME! QUICK!”
I bashfully placed the unreturnable dress in the shopping bag, retreated from the register, and took off for the dressing room. Guess who was there wearing Sara’s perfect dress? Hint: It wasn’t Sara.
“Take it off!” Sara shouted at Manda.
“No way!” Manda shouted at Sara.
“You’re not even going to the Down-Home Harvest Dance!” Sara protested. “You don’t need it!”
“Puh-leeze. Like your stupid hoedown is the only reason to buy a new dress.”
Sara spun around to redirect her anger at Hope, who was standing off to the side but had little chance of hiding because of her height and hair and all the mirrors.
“And you,” Sara seethed, “are a traitor to the square for even coming in here with her! You were supposed to shop with me!”
“She just dragged me into the dressing room when she saw me!” Hope said in defense. “I was practically kidnapped.”
I gave Hope a sympathetic look that said “Me too.” Hope responded with that familiar look of hers, the one that said “We are smarter than this.” And I gave her the look that replied “Well, obviously we are not.” And she looked back like “Why do we keep letting this happen to us?” and I looked at her like “I honestly don’t know,” and I swear Hope and I can have entire conversations without ever saying a word out loud. This is a convenient skill to have when many of our conversations are about girls who are standing right in front of us screaming at each other.
“Girls! This is not Chic Boutique behavior!”
This come-to-your-senses moment was brought to us by Bridget, who had entered the dressing room at some point during my telepathic conversation with Hope.
“Bridget? What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I work here,” she said proudly.
“You work here?” I asked. “You’re twelve.”
“Well, not work exactly.” She giggled nervously. “It’s an educational junior training program.”
“Educational junior training program?” Hope asked.
“Yes! Kirsten saw me shopping and stopped me and said I have Chic Boutique potential and that qualifies me for this highly selective educational junior training program that allows me to observe from the inside how Chic Boutique is managed.”
Manda, Sara, Hope, and I had the same response.
“What?!?”
Bridget smoothed out invisible wrinkles in her one-shouldered pink-sequined top.
“They give me Chic Boutique clothes, and I wear them.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” she replied.
Emphasis on pretty. Bridget was recruited by Chic Boutique because she looks like someone who would work at Chic Boutique when she’s actually old enough to work at Chic Boutique. Like Kirsten. Like the blonde following Sara around the store. Like my sister.
“Omigod! I spend thousands of dollars in this store, and they give you clothes for free! It’s not fair!”
And before Sara could get Daddy’s lawyer on it, Manda restored order to the room. Or rather, disorder.
“Attention!” [clap clap] “Attention!”
All eyes returned to Manda in Sara’s perfect dress.
“I’d like to discuss with Bridget how she might use her educational-junior-training-program discount to get this dress for me.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” Bridget said. “I mean, like, all the clothes I get are in a certain size, and—”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Manda snapped. “Are you saying my dress is the wrong size?”
Well, yeah. That’s exactly what Bridget was saying. Manda’s dress was the wrong size for Bridget. She didn’t mean anything bad by it; she was just speaking the truth that we all could see with our own eyes. Bridget is at least three inches taller. And Manda more than makes up for those inches… elsewhere.
“My dress,” Sara said. “And I don’t need a discount to buy it.”
“Your dress? I don’t see your name on it,” Manda said mockingly. “And the zipper is still intact and the seams haven’t split, so it can’t be yours.”
Manda of all people should know how sensitive Sara is about her body. Sure, Sara had handled Kirsten’s comment without resorting to violence, but I was ready for her to go all-out nuclear now. But she stunned me—and everyone in that tiny dressing room—by keeping her cool.
“Bridget, sweetie?”
“Y-y-yes?” Bridget, too, was petrified.
“Please tell Kirsten that I will purchase this dress…”
“Don’t you want to try it on?” she asked.
“Please let me finish,” Sara said. “I will purchase this dress in every size you have in stock, including”—she gestured toward Manda without actually looking at her—“that one.”
“Puh-leeze. You can’t do that!”
“Omigod. I totally can.”
“Bridget! Can she do that?”
“Yes? No! Maybe? I don’t know! This wasn’t covered in the educational-junior-training-program pamphlet!”
Bridget ran out of the dressing room to get help from Kirsten, leaving Hope and me alone to keep these BFFs from killing each other.
“This is just one store in one mall in a huge universe of fashion,” Hope said, bravely stepping between them. “So let’s compromise.”
The fact that Manda and Sara had stopped fighting long enough to listen to her says so much about what a powerful, peacemaking presence Hope has been in their lives. Without Hope around, these two surely would have murdered each other by now. In her calmest, most reasonable voice, Hope offered a solution.
“No one gets the dress.”
And Manda and Sara responded as I pretty much knew they would.
“I GET THE DRESS!”
They said it at the same time. And I swear they both flinched as they fought the instinct to high-five and shout “Bee-Eff-Effs!”
Hope gave me a look that said “Worst Best Friends Forever Ever,” and I had to stifle a laugh. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more dramatic, it did: Sara raised her hand and “zeroed” her WBFFE.
“Oh yeah? Right back at you!” Manda hissed, copying the gesture. “It’s the closest you’ll ever get to fitting into a size zero!”
“Omigod! Your boobs are totally hanging out! That dress is mine!”
“Puh-leeze. You couldn’t even get it over those linebacker shoulders of yours! This dress is mine!”
“Let’s hide in the food court,” Hope whispered in my ear, “until my parents rescue us.”
Together, we quietly tiptoed backward out of the dressing room. As we exited Chic Boutique, Hope led the way, and I trusted her to get me out of there in one piece.