by Camy Tang
Venus had never been that small, and never could be, with her bone structure. She wisely looked away before she did something dumb. Like smack her.
“I’d like to meet your mom,” Mika said.
Oh, Lord, I hope this isn’t a mistake.
Meanwhile, at the table, Josh shoved his last bite into his mouth and collapsed onto the floor.
FIFTEEN
What Mom had lost out on in Venus’s four years in high school, she made up for in two hours at Valley Fair Mall.
After church on Sunday, luckily, a group of boys from the youth group decided to go to the mall. Herman and Drake agreed to go, as well, which helped Venus out because she had no idea how to legally squeeze six girls into her little Beamer.
Valley Fair was packed, as usual, but they found parking. The girls in Drake and Herman’s cars had been instructed to meet them at Tiffany, where Venus arranged to meet her mom. She suspected Mom would arrive early so she could do a little jewelry shopping beforehand. Sure enough, when Venus entered the store with the collected girls, a sales associate had just handed her mother a baby blue bag.
“Hello, darling. I picked up a little something. Want to see?”
The teen girls stopped their awed ogling at the glass cases and suddenly scrambled around them, as if the blue box was a magnet. Venus noted the pained expressions of the sales associates, so she hustled the girls outside the store first.
Mom delighted to show the girls the “little something”—a sapphire and diamond pendant. Venus’s breath caught in her throat and stuck there painfully—not at the sight of the jewelry, but at the fact it probably cost a few thousand dollars and Grandma paid her mom’s Visa bill way too often.
“Now.” Mom put the bauble away. “Let’s get started. This is going to be so much fun!” She beamed at the teens, the very picture of a way hip mother.
What was the point in disillusioning them?
Oh, she shouldn’t be so catty. Mom had been extremely gracious about the invite to shop with six teenage girls. In typical Mom fashion, she’d pretended the argument hadn’t happened. Beautiful in a flowered dress, Mom radiated maternal warmth to the girls. It contrasted the ugly scene Venus anticipated when unresolved things between them would blow up.
Why worry about it now? Mom was happy and in a good mood.
They headed down the mall, but Mom turned into a store only a few shops down from Tiffany. “Let’s start here.” She disappeared inside before Venus could hurry and stop her. Despite her normal languid stride, Mom could book it when doing something she enjoyed.
Venus skirted the few girls between them and lowered her voice. “Mom! This place is too expensive for these girls.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Amadea’s is my favorite shop. I bought that gown for Grandma’s Christmas party here. They’ll find wonderful dresses for their little ball.”
She was doing it again—her “earplug syndrome.” Well, no harm in letting the girls look around. They’d realize they couldn’t afford anything pretty quick and ask to leave.
Naomi and Sarah gave a few soft squeals as they pawed through a few gowns on the rack. Rachel circled a mannequin in a cream duchess satin wedding gown.
Mika held back, her hands behind her, gazing at the gowns hanging from the wall with a look that reminded Venus of…herself. Fifteen years ago, in a shop like this one, with her mother. Mom had dragged Venus along while she tried on dress after dress for some party. Venus had no ball to go to, and a figure too large to wear most of the clothes with any style.
Venus approached the girl and gazed up at a gauze gown. “Too bottom-heavy.”
“What?” Mika looked at her as if she’d just insulted the Queen.
“The dress. It’s made for a woman with an apple shape—or rectangular. See? The belt gives the illusion of a nipped-in waist.”
“I think it’s pretty.”
“Oh, it is. But for you…” She pulled her over to a mannequin with a pale rose bridesmaid gown. “These satin roses”—she pointed to the blooms dotting the off-the-shoulder straps and lining the edge of the V-shaped bodice—“draw the eye toward your face and make your shoulders and bosom look larger.”
Mika giggled. “The only thing that could make my boobs bigger is a water bra.”
A saleswoman coughed behind her. Oh, no. Was she going to scold them for fingering the merchandise? Venus turned, head high and gaze icy, ready for a setdown, but she relaxed as she realized the woman’s open smile enveloped Mika. “What would look really good on you is this.” She pointed to a gown on the wall, a stunning beaded halter top gown with flowing lines draping down.
Mika sighed.
“When you get married,” the saleswoman whispered, “you’ll look great in something like this. The beads draw the eye, and you don’t have to wear a water bra to keep it up.” She winked.
Venus couldn’t stop the smile cracking her cheeks as Mika drank in that gown. It was a sight to—
She stopped and stared at another gown on a mannequin next to it. “Is that a Marchesa?”
The saleswoman glanced up, her dark eyes sparkling. “We just got that in.”
The cream gown had the signature romantic lines of sinuous fabric, but with ruby gems along the shoulders, in a delicate pattern at the waist, running down the skirt in narrowing swirls. The soft fabric and the twisting design would compliment Venus’s hourglass figure.
Sure. If she had a few thousand dollars to burn.
“Try it on.” Mika tugged at Venus’s sleeve.
“No.” She glanced up at the girls, who had stopped their window shopping and now stood around in a cluster in the middle of the store. The other sale associates, less friendly than this one, had gathered near the back of the store, shooting Begone, you infidels! looks at the teens, while an older woman chatted with her mother at the far corner. “Let’s go somewhere you guys can afford.”
She walked over and tapped Mom’s shoulder. “We’re going to another store.”
Startled eyes met hers. “Why?”
“I told you already, Mom. These teenage girls can’t afford these dresses.” Please, God, help her to get it this time. I don’t want to get into an argument with her right here in the middle of Amadea’s Boutique.
Mom laughed, a tinkling sound that usually spelled doom for Venus in some way or another. “Don’t worry. I’ll buy their dresses for them.”
“Mom!” Venus started at her own sharp tone, then lowered her voice. “That’s inappropriate. You don’t even know their parents. They won’t accept that.” And Grandma would fly through the roof at the Visa bill.
Storm clouds gathered in Mom’s gaze, but Venus sparked some lightning in her own. “We’re leaving now. You can stay if you want.” Venus whirled away. “Come on, chickies.”
She thought she heard a collective sigh of relief from the sale associates near the back, but didn’t stop to freeze them with a White Witch glance the way she wanted to. She needed to get the girls out before Mom got it into her head to verbally promise them dresses without their parents’ approval.
They paused outside Amadea’s, where her mother hustled up. “You didn’t have to get snippy.”
Venus met her with a neutral gaze to mask her burning desire to strangle her. “Sorry, Mother. Let’s go, girls.”
Jessica McClintock had a better selection for their pocketbooks, and louder colors to appeal to their more youthful tastes. The girls darted from rack to rack, squealing over fabrics, designs, and nuances of shade, and Mom darted and squealed right along with them (well, okay, Mom didn’t exactly squeal, but her coos were close enough).
Mika tried on a few dresses, but the brighter the gown, the more depressed she seemed. Venus wavered between asking her what was wrong and letting her deal with it on her own. In Mika’s place, Venus knew she would want to mourn in peace, but other girls might not. She already knew she wasn’t like most women, but she also didn’t have a clue what another woman would do.
Mom finally
made the decision for her. She sidled up to Venus and whispered, “Mika seems a little down, dear.”
“Her mom won’t let her go to the Monster’s Ball with the other girls.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Why don’t you go talk to her? And if trying on dresses makes her feel worse, take her out to some other shops. Jewelry shops are always good.” Mom’s smoky purple eyeshadow had creased with the concern in her eyes.
That was a great idea. There was a small crystal jewelry shop with pretty but inexpensive pieces just down the way. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll do that. I’m…I’m glad you’re here.” Otherwise, Venus might have wasted time vacillating over what to do.
Her mother’s smile rivaled the rhinestones in the girls’ gowns, and she patted Venus’s arm. Then in a flash, her attention turned back to Sarah, who had exited the dressing room with a slinky emerald satin number.
“Mika.” Venus took her aside. “I’m going to the jeweler’s a few stores down. Want to come with?” She almost didn’t recognize herself—a few weeks in the youth group, and she sounded fifteen.
Mika’s face lit up like a Swarovski figurine. “Sure.”
They spent a few minutes looking at crystal earrings and necklaces set in gold and silver filigree. A little too antique-y for Venus, and apparently for Mika too—she flitted through the shop once and then stood by the open door, ready to leave whenever Venus was.
Once outside, Mika headed back the way they’d come. “Can we go back to that one store? With the wedding dresses?”
“The super expensive one? Why?”
“Do you think they’d let me try on that dress?” Her footsteps faltered. “They’re awful snobby…”
“Not that one girl.” Venus grabbed Mika’s arm and pulled her along. “Let’s do it.” And maybe she’d get up the courage to slip into that Marchesa.
The saleswoman from before greeted them as they entered. “Hi there. I didn’t introduce myself before—I’m Jasmine. I was hoping you’d come back to try on those dresses.”
A few of the other sale associates hung back near the dressing room doors with neutral expressions but half-lidded eyes. Venus shoved a poker down her spine and stared them down the way Audrey Hepburn would put a peon in his place in Roman Holiday. “We’d love to.”
Jasmine collected the beaded halter top gown she’d pointed out before. Mika looked like she’d rip the dress from Jasmine’s hand, until she realized the saleswoman was waiting for her to enter the dressing room.
She emerged timidly, like a little girl playing dress-up. Venus gasped. The dress was a little too large for her, and a bit too long, but Jasmine pinned the back for her and then spun her in front of the large mirrors.
Mika had aged five, ten years. Lucy Liu couldn’t look more stunning in the rose-kissed cream dress, glittering with crystal beads. The halter and the flowing skirt gave more balance to her small chest and wider hips, making her body blossom.
Mika stared at her image, then screamed.
Venus and Jasmine laughed, although Venus glanced out the open doorway of the shop and saw a few passer-bys peer inside. One tired looking mother smiled at the sight of Mika lifting her skirts and twirling like Cinderella.
Venus had never cared much for dresses—she liked stiletto heels for the height and power they gave her, but she always wore pants powersuits and slacks, which straightened her curves. Skirts made her feel weak and too feminine. Now, watching Mika—her shoulders straighter, her chest lifted, her neck elongated and as delicate as a Lladró figurine—Venus was reminded of the mysterious world of feminine beauty, its allure, and the inner confidence it gave. Mika, in a beautiful dress, had seen and fully realized the beauty in herself—inside and out.
Venus, on the other hand, had only the outward beauty. She wasn’t beautiful inside, she’d never been beautiful inside—even in her younger days, she’d been aggressive and hard-nosed. Now, she was aggressive, hard-nosed, and bitter.
She liked not being chubby and invisible anymore—she had vowed never to be invisible and overlooked ever again. But at the same time, a part of her despised the fact that she desired and liked something so shallow as her own physical appeal. Also, her new body hadn’t done the miracles for her career that she thought it would—men took her less seriously, not more.
Which was why she sat on the couch to the side of the mirrors, watching Mika model like a superstar, rather than jumping into that Marchesa dress the way she wanted to. As if making her outsides look beautiful and feminine was somehow wrong.
A soft rustle, the tink of crystal beads, and Jasmine appeared at her side holding the dress she’d been trying not to think about. “Did you want to try this on?”
It shimmered. Venus drooled over every Marchesa gown in her fashion magazines. So strange to love a design team known for their enchantress styles, dreamy fabrics and colors, when she herself held tight to straight, simple lines and dark colors in her work clothes.
As if putting on this dress would somehow change who she was.
How ridiculous. And she looked completely idiotic sitting here, refusing to try on a confection in satin and crystal when her fifteen-year-old charge pranced around in a six-thousand-dollar wedding dress she was too young to buy.
She stepped into the dressing room, and Jasmine followed to help fasten the complicated tapes and tug at the fabric so it draped correctly. Venus kept her back to the mirror. Not for drama, but because the less time she spent looking at herself, the less vain she imagined herself to be. She swept out of the dressing room to the mirrors.
Mika’s jaw fell to the floor. Jasmine’s smile made her eyes almost disappear. A few of the other saleswomen gasped.
This was who she wished to be.
The dress hugged her curves like water, swirling at her feet in a waterfall of satin. Ruby beads sparkled and winked, making her hair glisten as if more beads hid in the strands. She was grace and light, powers imparted by the nature of the dress. Every movement had an elegant swish of fabric, a bright flash of crystal.
The sight took her breath away, while at the same time a part inside her scolded for how much she enjoyed being beautiful.
Her head was so messed up.
She wasn’t used to walking slowly, so her first steps tangled in the cloth. Then she took more languid strides—reminding herself of her grandmother—letting the dress carry her, versus herself carrying the dress. She felt like the Queen of England, or a cover model, or a bride waiting for her groom.
At that moment, she looked up and out the doorway of the shop, and saw Drake frozen and staring at her.
SIXTEEN
Her heart stopped.
Her breathing stopped too, but since her heart had stopped, it didn’t matter if her lungs were working or not.
He was arrested mid-step, as if he’d been passing the shop and only happened to look inside. Why had he looked in this shop? Why had he been walking past it at this moment?
Someone called his name, but he didn’t turn. His eyes, even across the twenty yards that separated them, captured hers as firmly as if his hands clasped each side of her head to keep her from looking away, from retreating. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to pass out.
Suddenly one of the high school boys ran up to him, and he dragged his eyes away from her.
Venus picked up her skirts and escaped into the dressing room.
“You spent how much?”
“Daaaaad.” Venus shifted the phone to her other ear as she scrubbed at her toilet rim.
“For a dress?”
“It was a Marchesa.”
“Do you intend to get married in it?”
“It’s for Grandma’s Christmas party.” She swiped at a lock of hair falling into her eyes and inhaled deeply the nostril-searing cleanliness of bleach. She attacked a non-existent bowl ring.
“Grandma invited you this year?”
Not everyone in the family was invited, since it was a special gathering put on by the bank. “Sh
e’s going to introduce me to some people for my company.”
“Oh. And you didn’t have anything else you could wear?”
Grandma’s Christmas parties were always formal attire. She had a simple black number she used for evening parties—floor length, unadorned, scoop neck. The opposite of the Marchesa.
But how she wanted that gown. And she felt so guilty in wanting it that she thrust it in the back of her closet as if she could convince herself she hadn’t given in to her vanity and laid down quite so many thousands of dollars for it. “This dress will make me memorable. Remember? You always told me to be memorable, especially when meeting important business contacts.”
He sighed. “I guess.” After a short pause, “Are you cleaning your bathroom?”
“Uh…yeah. How’d you know?”
“I hear you scrubbing.”
“Oh.”
“Is, uh…everything okay?”
Venus sat up on her heels and adjusted the cordless phone closer to her ear. “What do you mean?” She tossed the sponge into her bleach and water bucket.
“Well…you always clean the bathroom when something’s wrong.”
Hmph. Dad knew perfectly well she cleaned when she was upset, but in all her years living at home with him, he never said anything to her about it. This was the first time. “I’m fine, Dad.” She wasn’t about to discuss with him what her counselor had told her, that she went on a germ hunt every time her life felt “out of control.”
“Do you need anything? Money to pay for that expensive dress?”
Dad’s fix-it side was showing. “No, I don’t need anything.”
“So how’s work? It’s a computer-based company, right?”
“I had enough experience with PC games that it hasn’t been a problem.” Not too much, anyway. “I’ve got a rhythm going by now.”
“How’s your software coming along?”
Venus poured the bleach water into the toilet and flushed it. “I’ve been working on it at night. It’s still having problems with MoCap data.”
