by Kris Jayne
“Do they have plus sizes?” The doubt in my voice made my lips bunch up in suspicion.
“Yes. They have all sizes, and I’m not sure you need plus size anymore. You’re probably a 14 or a 12 now. Depends.”
Abby eyed me up and down and headed for the knee-length cocktail dresses. I followed and stood behind her. She began pulling options from the rack and shoving hangers of clothes at me. I held them away from my body like poop on a stick. She was about to push another gown at me when a perky saleswoman swooped in and took the bundle.
“Shopping for New Year’s, ladies?”
“She is,” Abby piped up. “Something sexy.”
“Something festive but comfortable,” I countered.
“This one is lovely.” The graceful woman with a polished, blond bob held up a sparkling, pale gold halter dress with enough of a plunge at the neckline to give my tits the bends.
“Whoa. Way too much here.” I circled my hand over my chest.
My friend nudged me. “You’ll look so hot.”
The saleswoman raised a brow and smiled with her perfect rosy lips. “It’s very sexy on.”
“No. Absolutely not.” A creeping, prickling itch spread from my cheeks down my neck. “I can show my arms. I can show a little leg. The girls have to be covered.”
Necklines that hinted on some women were a heavy-boobed two-by-four to the forehead on me.
The saleslady cleared her throat. “I understand.”
Abby grabbed me by the shoulders. “You’re going to pooh pooh everything. Go to the room and wait. I’ll bring you dresses, and you’ll try them on.”
“But—”
She cut me off with a scowl and a firm swing of her arm pointing to the dressing room. I surrendered.
The saleswoman’s chuckle, the jangle of her keys, and the faint cheer of retail holiday music followed me across the showroom to the back. The older woman opened one of the changing rooms.
“Here you go,” she said with a wink.
Once she left me alone, I turned to the mirror and noticed a wrinkle in my sweater. A roll. My face flamed nearly to the color of my hair. I closed my eyes.
Aren’t you a sight, Cinnamon Roll?
I inhaled deeply to push the twist out of my stomach and my dad’s slurred voice from my head. He’d been sober since the year after Sean’s death. I’d forgiven him. I still avoided him like the plague, but I’d let it go. Unfortunately, the echoes reverberated once in a while.
Like now, as I spotted a roll at my waist.
I started getting those when I was ten. The first layer of weight descended upon me in the fifth grade.
Early one Saturday morning, Dad stumbled into the kitchen. He’d been out all night. I remember sitting silently at the table with Sean and my mother, eating scrambled eggs.
Still stinking of liquor from his night out, he bounded in and dropped a bakery counter in the center of the table. “I brought you all breakfast.”
My mother said nothing. She got up and retrieved a plate from the cabinet and put it in front of my father’s usual spot at the head of the table where he now sat. He palmed his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut.
“What’d you get?” I scooted up to my knees in the chair and lifted the corner of the container.
He sneered at me with watery, unfocused eyes. “I got them for you.”
“What?” I repeated and pulled the white cardboard lid off the treats. I’d guessed glazed donuts, but I was wrong. “Cinnamon rolls!”
I remember the bubble of anticipation in my chest. I loved the sweet and the heat of the spice and unrolling them bit by bit until you reached the Holy Grail of the saturated cinnamon and sugar epicenter. The perfect bite. My mouth watered at the memory.
Dad had rubbed his hands together. “I knew it. They’re your favorite. Cinnamon rolls for my Cinnamon Roll.”
I stared at him, confusion overtaking my hunger. He hacked a half cough, half laugh. Back then, he still smoked too.
“I shouldn’t have brought ‘em home. That’s probably the problem.” He laughed again. “You’re already a redhead. You get any chunkier, you’ll never land a good boyfriend.”
Meaning slowly sank in. I fell back into my seat, but not before my dad poked me in the softness covering my ribs.
My mother’s tear-stained cheeks flexed as she mouthed a silent “I’m sorry” and shook her head. “Joe. You shouldn’t say that.”
“Why not?” His voice thundered. “I’m doing her a favor. Only losers like fat girls.”
“Can’t be just fat girls. Mom’s got you, and she’s skinny.” Sean’s snide retort rumbled in the room. He would have been almost fourteen then. I remember freezing. Everything in my body would stop when the shit would start. I’d close my eyes. The air would halt in my chest. If I stayed still, maybe trouble would pass me by.
It would happen around me.
The sound of an overturned chair. My mother shouting. My dad crashing into the stove. A pan hitting the floor. My brother crying and telling my father, “I hate you. You leave her alone.”
I ran. I always ran when the shit started. Usually, Mom got Dad to calm down before he did any physical damage—to us, at least. He liked to storm and rage, sometimes nose-to-nose, but he’d only hit a few times. And only my mother. She’d let him.
“He doesn’t mean any of this. He had a hard life. He loves you and Sean,” she’d say.
I supposed he did in every way he could. He was just a mess. He stopped drinking after Sean died, but he didn’t stop being an asshole. My father had pickled his heart along with his liver. Mom stayed with him, mouthing sorrys and keeping him calm-ish.
He called me Cinnamon Roll to this day. The man had trouble shaking his cruel reflexes. I’d be stuck with the moniker no matter what I looked like.
“Thank you so much. I think she’ll like these even if she says she doesn’t.”
Abby’s banter with her saleslady conspirator came at me over the door along with the flowing gold dress.
I snatched my gaze away from my glassbound twin. “Really?” My nose curled upward. “Abby—”
“No arguments. This is what you do. You try everything on. Then, we pick.”
I sighed but didn’t argue. I knew when I was beaten.
Chapter 6
Erin
I spent the next hour in a horrific rom-com montage of sequins and silk. Abby helped me pull, pinch, and smooth every option. Many of the choices were too short, too tight, and too revealing.
“I want something simple. I’m not trying to be sexy,” I groaned.
My friend flashed me her most encouraging smile. “You don’t have to try. That’s why you’re mad. Eighty percent of the stuff you’ve tried was unbelievable. The gold number was a knock-out. And the off-black one with the sequins is a showstopper.”
“Of course, my boobs are falling out.” My hands flew up to cover my cleavage.
“I’m gonna say this, but don’t freak out.” She squinted one eye shut. “You need to size up to accommodate your chest and then have the rest altered.”
I whirled around in my underwear and began grabbing at my street clothes.
Fuck that.
I hadn’t been waking up with roosters four or five days a week and sweating in a field every Saturday morning to go up a size because designers couldn’t make clothes for actual human females. Why should I always have to be tweaking and adjusting as if my body was the problem? If the clothes don’t fit, fuck the clothes.
“I don’t have time for that,” I clipped.
Abby’s tone took on the warmth of a comforting bowl of soup. “They do same-day alterations here. It’s late, but the tailor might still deliver the dress by the end of the day tomorrow.”
As much as I wanted to grunt and grumble and be an Eeyore about the whole thing, I had to buy something. I couldn’t be in yoga pants and a fleece when Luke showed up in a tuxedo.
I dropped my clothes back on the little bench and turned to my s
hopping coach. “For the record, I fucking hate this.”
She sighed. “I was under no illusions you didn’t. I’m here to make sure you don’t give up and end up wearing a potato sack for your new boyfriend.”
“Luke isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just…” Nothing fit anymore. My lungs seized, and like so many times before in so many dressing rooms before, I cried. Why couldn’t it be easy? For one second, I wanted to be one of those effortless women who slipped into a dress with elegance and glided out of the house—all her bits in the right place.
I wanted to belong on Luke’s arm. I hated the nagging feeling that I didn’t even more than the shopping.
Abby dug through her purse for a pack of Kleenex, pulled out two, and shoved them at my face. Her growling whisper broke through my weeping storm. “No tears, sister. Drop all the nonsense in your head. You have a hot date with a guy you’ve crushed on for almost fifteen years. And he adores you. The ‘wah wah’ crap has to go.”
“His last girlfriend was a fitness model. Then, I think, there was a bodybuilder. A UT cheerleader. The yoga instructor. Need I go on?”
“You act like I haven’t been around the two of you. I’ve seen all his ex-girlfriends. And none of them could compete. He’s liked you forever.” She handed me another tissue. “Wipe your nose. Try the gold one and the dark one on again.”
“I didn’t like the gold. The off-black might work.” I pinched the neckline and held it up in front of me.
The gray silk was cut like a strapless dress and so dark it was almost black. Swirling pattern of silvery sequins and beads played in the light enough to be festive but not flashy. The neck came up high enough to cover my chest and had two lengths of organza on each side that tied into a bow behind my neck. I credited the knee-length, formfitting cut for accentuating the sexy without making me uncomfortable. However, I had the same persistent problem. The one that fit my hips was still too small across the chest and gaped at the waist.
“Okay. I’ll go up a size and ask if they can alter by tomorrow.” Resignation twisted my mouth, but I resolved to embrace the positive.
Yet another hour later, the store’s tailor, Petra, had fitted me and promised the dress would be ready the next afternoon.
“We do this alteration all the time.” The clip of her Eastern European accent rose up to me from her position on the floor. She worked quickly, securing the hem at the perfect spot to cover my thighs and not ride up too high when I sat. “Women have more bosom now. Designers haven’t learned.”
I inhaled as much air as I could without disturbing the elaborate placement of pins and clips down my back and stared in the mirror. She looked good—that girl in the mirror. I cringed at the thought of my body shame meltdown and batted away the Furies of doubt.
“You have a date?” Petra asked through clenched teeth and plucked a pin from her mouth, securing another spot along the hem.
“I do.” I smiled.
“A man?”
“Yes.” I laughed.
The middle-aged woman shrugged. “I hate to assume.”
“Luke is definitely a man.” My grin grew.
Abby giggled. “Yes, he is, and he’s going to lose his mind when he sees you.”
The seamstress rose to her full height, surveyed my image in the mirror, and smiled like a loving aunt. “You are very beautiful.”
A blush appeared at my hairline and flowed down to my ankles.
“You know it.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Let him know. Men need to know that you know you have options.”
“He has options.” Fear trickled down my spine again.
Abby piped in, sounding exhausted. “But he wants you.”
I think he did. He said he did. Pondering what he wanted to tell me gave me a headache. Thinking about how I felt, how he felt, and how I felt about how he felt sent my emotions tumbling. I studied the me in the mirror to steady myself. What did he see?
I looked sexy. Even with the pins. Once I did my hair and my makeup…I could pass for one of Luke’s dates.
“Are we done?” I asked.
“You’re done. I get to work,” Petra replied. “I’ll work on yours first thing. It will be ready tomorrow afternoon. I’ll call you.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. I was worried nothing would work on my body.” My voice caught, and I willed myself not to freaking cry again.
“Psssh.” She waved her had. “So easy.”
I suppressed the urge to hug her. Petra didn’t come across like a hugger. I grinned. She gave me another pat on the arm, and I was ready.
Chapter 7
Luke
At 10:40, I frowned at my fitness watch for what was probably the fortieth time in the last two minutes.
She wouldn’t not show up. She wouldn’t. I’d already texted her once, and I didn’t want to blow up her phone. Instead of continuing to pace, I slipped my phone in the pocket of my hiking shorts and sat atop a stanchion at the trailhead, hands stuffed in my windbreaker.
My foot started tapping, but I spotted Erin’s car sliding into a spot in the lot across the street. She hustled over, shouldering her backpack.
Our gazes met through sunglasses. She smiled.
“You came,” I said as she hitched her daypack higher on her shoulders. “For a minute, I thought you might stand me up.”
She laughed, and I felt silly.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I’m kidding.”
Awkwardness settled uncomfortably between us. Sunlight was a sanitizer, right?
I hoped it wouldn’t burn away the last forty-eight hours and send us back into our confusing pattern of flirtation and inaction. Or worse—if I told her the truth.
Could it cleanse a conscience? Could it burn away my stomach-churning dread of telling Erin the truth?
She waded into conversation. “Which way do we go? The out-of-doors is your forte, not mine. My inner compass is compromised by booze and GPS.”
“But look at me, I’ve gotten you into the out-of-doors like a dozen times now.” I pointed to the dirt path carved into the hillside. “There’s a short, half-a-mile mini hike and then, past the pond, is a larger trail with a panoramic view of the hills.”
“How long is this again?” She followed the imaginary line from my finger with trepidatious eyes.
“A little over five miles out and back. It’ll take about three hours.” I pulled my sunglasses to my hairline, plotting. “You still up for our quest? We can go out as far as you want. Say the word, and we’ll head back. I don’t want you to do anything you can’t manage.”
Erin’s uncertainty never survived provocation.
“It’s a hill. Not K2. I’ll be okay.” She sniffed with irritation. “You said there’s a waterfall?”
“Small waterfalls,” I corrected, “make this one of the prettiest day hikes in Austin. The climb will help you train for the Kili trip, which is also not K2. Totally doable.” I held out hope the challenge might spark her to join the Kilimanjaro group trip even if she once swore she’d rather have a root canal every day for a week than spend nine straight days pooping in a hole and sleeping outside.
“I love how you think you can provoke me into anything with your patronizing little digs.” Her grin calmed the sting in her words.
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked in my best imitation of a Southern belle.
“Just because you bamboozled me into bootcamp—”
“Bamboozled?” I flung my hands to my chest in offense.
“Yes. Bamboozled.” Erin thrust her finger at me. “But I’m not mad—even though I was sure the first few weeks you were trying to kill me.”
“Now, you’re ready to tackle some hikes.”
“Am I?”
“For sure.” I gave her my most charming and encouraging smile, and her cheeks flushed. I closed the distance between us and grabbed her hands, entwining our fingers. “I wouldn’t bring you otherwise. Plus, I can share my favorite Austin adventure with yo
u.”
She squeezed my hand, then retrieved hers from my grasp. “Let’s move. I’m following you, Mr. Expert.”
We started the hike in companionable silence. Various ways to broach the subject of Ricky warred in my imagination.
I waited like a coward until we were about a mile and a half in, carving our way up the hill over forested stair steps.
“Did you hear anything else from Ricky?”
“Ricky?” Surprise turned his name into a question. “No. He’s on to the next woman, it seems.”
“He sounded like he had more to say the other day.” Thankfully, I’d interrupted him.
“We’re over.” Erin stomped as she spoke. I wanted to believe her.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Seeing him again only cemented what I already knew. We had to break up.”
“Even with how hurt you were?”
I tilted my head to see her reaction beside me as we walked. With sunglasses concealing her eyes, I could read nothing but the upturn of disgust around her nose. She waved a bug away from her face. “We were talking about getting married for a while. Can you imagine?”
Unfortunately, yes. I did imagine. “Why didn’t you? You wanted to.”
“I guess. I waited for him to prove he could be more...adult. Take some responsibility for himself. Sometimes he did. He’d get excited about his art and make plans but do nothing. He was tired of my nagging.”
“What would he expect? You were supporting him,” I snapped, crisp as the late December air. I couldn’t make out Erin’s mumbled response.
I almost kept going, but her energy tightened next to me. She felt foolish enough. I suppressed the rant and focused on what I needed her to tell me.
“So...no matter what happened...you’re relieved?”
I measured my words before delivering them between paced inhalations and exhalations. Otherwise, the urge to hold my breath might send me keeling over into the brushy creek below.
“Absolutely.”
“I’m glad. Listen—” I launched, but she cut me off.
“I mean, I put up with everything a shitty boyfriend can throw at you except him sleeping with other people. Ding ding!” She stopped and extended her hand for a high five. I froze, so she dropped her arm to her side with a laugh. “At least, he didn’t cheat on me. I’m making progress. The last two idiots I dated before Ricky both cheated on me.”
