She knew Brenden’s reluctance to attend the party stemmed from an incident the past summer. They’d been invited to a Wade Hill picnic by the lake, and Brenden had shown up in a pair of baggy denim cutoffs instead of surfer shorts like the rest of the guys. He was also the only one with two tattoos on his back—a leaping tiger and shamrock. But unlike the Wade Hill preppies, who were baby-soft and pink, regardless of their letterman jackets, Brenden was all tanned sinewy muscle, with a six-pack stomach and protruding hip bones.
“All right.” Brenden sighed. “If you want to go, I’ll take you.”
“You’re sure?” she asked keenly. “I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to.”
“Do I have a choice?” he joked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not really,” she admitted, feeling giddy.
“When have I ever said no to you?” he asked, blushing as she leaned over to kiss him smack on the lips in front of everyone in the food court.
“You won’t regret it, I promise,” she said. “Especially not when I’m wearing you-know-what.”
Now that Brenden had agreed to be her date for the evening—and her mind raced as she wondered how she could convince him to wear something more formal to the event—Kelsey finally allowed herself to be properly excited about Gigi’s party. Because for once in her life, she actually had the perfect outfit to wear for the occasion.
In the far reaches of her closet hung a dress carefully concealed in a plastic garment bag, stuffed with tissues and worn only once before. A real Cristóbal Balenciaga gown from the 1960s, made from the finest Parisian silk taffeta, given to her grandmother by the designer himself. A long, long time ago, Kelsey’s grandmother had been a model in New York, and had even walked the runways of Paris and Milan.
Kelsey’s mom still told stories about how her mother had been discovered by a visiting modeling scout at the bus station, and how she’d left the Midwest for a life of impossible glamour, dating wealthy men twice her age in the big city. Unfortunately, she had gotten pregnant by one of them—a married man, who promptly dumped her and disowned the child she carried. She returned heartbroken to Ohio and died shortly after giving birth to Kelsey’s mom.
The year before, Kelsey and her mom were cleaning out the attic when Kelsey came across a dusty old trunk. Inside she found the remaining tokens from her grandmother’s short life in the beau monde—yellowing magazine clippings of a slim, beautiful blonde whom Kelsey greatly resembled, Stork Club matchbooks, a Pan Am plane ticket to St. Moritz that had never been used. In the bottom of the trunk was a gray plastic garment bag.
“What’s this?” she’d asked her mother.
“Oh, I forgot all about it,” her mom said wistfully. “It was my mother’s and I’ve been meaning to give it to you one day. Open it.”
Inside was a silver silk Balenciaga dress, cut with a dramatic scooped neckline, fitted through the waist, so small and fragile that at first Kelsey was worried it wouldn’t fit—but it did, perfectly skimming her figure. The silk was as soft as rose petals. It was almost fifty years old, but the style was clean and classic, there was nothing dowdy or even faintly old-fashioned about it—it was modern, elegant, drop-dead gorgeous. It was her only real heirloom, the one reminder of a grandmother she had never even met.
The Balenciaga dress was the greatest treasure in her closet, and she’d been saving it for a very, very special occasion. She’d modeled it for Brenden in her room several times but had restrained from pulling it out to wear to any of the school dances. Somehow, slow-dancing across the foul lines on the gym’s basketball court just didn’t seem to do the dress justice.
Gigi McClusky’s swanky party, however, felt like the most opportune time to wear it. Everyone in town was breaking their bank accounts to be able to show up in their finest garments, and Kelsey was determined to look just as good.
They finished their meal and Kelsey, still feeling happy about the combined prospect of finally wearing her dress and having Brenden agree to be her date, excused herself to go to the ladies’ room.
She was just about to exit her stall when she heard the door open and the clicking of heels on the tile floor. Daphne’s and Sarah’s voices carried over the sound of the running water and hand-dryers, and Kelsey’s ears burned when she realized the Wade Hill girls were talking about … her.
“Did you check out the coat? The fur is so fake!”
“She’s not fooling anyone with that Kmart special.”
Hello, it’s from Old Navy, Kelsey thought indignantly.
“I can’t WAIT to see what she wears on Saturday!” Sarah whooped, as if Christmas had come early.
“What are you talking about?” a new voice asked, and Kelsey recognized Gigi’s level tones.
“Gi!” the girls screamed, as if they’d happened upon a celebrity. “What are you doing here?”
“My mom and I are picking out stuff for the gift bags,” Gigi said. “I bumped into the crew at the food court and the guys said you were all in here, as usual. So what’s up? What are we discussing?”
“What Kelsey Cooper’s going to wear to your party,” Sarah informed her.
“Probably that tired black sack she trotted out for Homecoming and Fall formals,” Daphne snipped. “Don’t you think?”
There was an expectant silence. The girls knew Gigi considered Kelsey a friend, and they wondered how she would react to such a nasty breach of etiquette.
Kelsey pressed her ear against the door, just as riveted to hear what her friend would say.
But the silence continued, and for a moment there was no sound but that of Gigi removing the cap from her lip gloss. “I guess,” she replied, applying a wand to her practiced pout.
I guess …
The words were like a blow … even Gigi thought she was a little pathetic for not having new clothes to wear … Gigi hadn’t even had the heart to defend her …
Trapped in the stall, Kelsey’s face burned crimson. I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. If they only knew what a prize she had hidden in her closet! The thought of her grandmother’s Balenciaga dress was a balm on her wounded pride, but it couldn’t take away the hurt she felt at Gigi’s betrayal. How could she?
“I really hope she wears those pleather heels again, they’re priceless. You know she actually told me they were ‘vintage’ designer?” Daphne chortled.
“Yeah, I hear that’s what they’re calling things from the Goodwill these days!”
“Oooh, snap!” Kelsey heard the sound of giggling and of palms slapping high fives.
“Okay, cut it out!” Gigi chastised with a sigh. “Get your claws back in, why don’t you? Give the girl a break.”
Kelsey’s hands were still shaking when she returned to the food court. It was just as she’d suspected—they all saw through her—saw through her discount clothes, the creative thrift-store outfits—they knew she wasn’t one of them, and she never would be. They were privileged and pampered, not so much mean but spoiled rotten. They would never understand what it was like to not have everything they ever wanted.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Brenden asked when he saw the look on Kelsey’s face.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes blinking rapidly. Damn if she would let those stuck-up bitches make her cry! The dress, the dress—think about the dress. Think of how no one else at the party will be wearing a real haute couture gown.
Brenden decided not to push it and they left the food court. Kelsey walked around in a daze until they reached the opposite side of the mall and found themselves in front of Saks Fifth Avenue.
“Let’s go in,” she said, her eyes lighting up at the elegant display of sumptuous shearling coats and jewel-colored gowns on the mannequins. Saks Fifth was by far the nicest store in the mall, and although Kelsey knew she couldn’t afford to buy anything they sold, she loved to browse anyway, getting a contact high from all the fabulous designer merchandise. Maybe it would make her feel better.
Brenden mad
e a face but he followed her inside, slouching in his thin jacket.
Kelsey walked purposefully through the maze of glittering cosmetic counters, ignoring the black-clad salesgirls wielding perfume bottles like spray guns, straight to the shoe salon. Goodwill indeed! She browsed through the tempting array of magnificent Italian footwear, her heart beating quickly at the sight of such fashionable abundance. Luxurious crocodile pumps, sexy velvet stilettos, rhinestone-encrusted sandals with dizzying price tags …
And then she saw them.
Metallic silver leather strappy sandals, with a spindly wooden heel and skating-rink-size crystals in a vertical pattern from ankle to toe.
Oh, what shoes!
“Look at these!” Kelsey cried, her hands trembling as she picked up the pair and showed them to Brenden.
“What’s so great about those shoes?” Brenden asked, hands jammed into his pockets, looking out of place in his gas-station shirt and Levi’s among the white leather couches. Brenden claimed that he never really understood her whole obsession with fashion, which he thought was kind of silly since Kelsey looked great in anything. He found fashion intimidating and elitist, a part of Kelsey’s life and aspirations that excluded him.
“They’re perfect,” Kelsey breathed, stroking the sandals with reverence. “They’ll match my grandmother’s dress perfectly. The silver is the same exact shade.” No one would ever laugh at her in those shoes—those shoes kicked serious ass—those shoes said, I am stylish, hear me stomp! They were a pair of man-killers, defiantly sexy, enviable to the extreme. With these shoes on her feet, the Wade Hill girls would surely shut up. Even Gigi would be impressed.
“Care to try them on, miss?” a salesman asked, appearing quietly by her side.
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head—try them on? Did she dare? She snuck a peek at the sole for the price tag—nine hundred and fifty dollars. Ouch! Was she even worthy of such decadence? But what could it hurt?
“You look about a six and a half?” the salesman purred. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” Kelsey said, feeling faint. She couldn’t believe she was actually going to try them on—that they would be hers if only for a little while.
“Huh,” Brenden said, gingerly taking a seat at the edge of the nearest chair and looking as if he would leap up as soon as anyone so much as looked at him the wrong way.
Kelsey sat down beside him, feeling like an impostor. Who was she to try on shoes of such craftsmanship and caliber? She couldn’t even afford the tax on those things. Part of her was ready to flee, but before she could, the salesman returned bearing an oversized, elegant shoebox, and knelt in front of her feet. He removed the lid and unwrapped the shoes from the crinkly tissue. The crystals refracted the light in a rainbow of brilliant colors.
Hypnotized, Kelsey removed her worn cowboy boots (bought for five bucks at the Value City thrift store) and peeled off her socks. She folded the hems of her jeans up to the knee and only then did she finally slide her feet onto the soles, wiggling her toes through the soft kidskin leather. She bent down to buckle the tiny little straps.
“What do you think?” she asked, looking up at Brenden, her eyes wide and shining. She straightened up and began walking, the high four-inch heels forcing her to walk with a seductive sway.
She smiled at Brenden—a dazzling, heartbreaking smile that lit up her entire face. There was nothing she wanted so much right then as the jeweled sandals on her feet, and yet at the same time she was fully resigned to the fact that they would never be hers to call her own.
Brenden studied her thoughtfully, and after a long time in which she thought he would never say anything, he clasped his hands tightly together. “I think you look absolutely gorgeous,” he said at last. Then he broke his gaze and looked down at the carpet intently, as if the answer to the meaning of life could be found in its plush pile.
Kelsey examined herself in the mirror. What a star-studded entrance to Gigi’s party she would make in her Balenciaga dress and these Jimmy Choo shoes! She could picture the jealous looks on her so-called friends’ faces. Their jaws would drop with their vape pens. But alas, she might as well have asked for the moon. The shoes were impossible to obtain—a glittering, adored prize that would forever be out of her reach.
“You think so?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’m not so sure.”
“Miss?” the salesman queried. “Shall we wrap these up?”
“No, thank you,” Kelsey said politely, sitting back on the chair. “They’re not for me.”
She unbuckled the straps with deliberate, reluctant grace, trying to keep her chin up, but all the while knowing that on Saturday night she would have to pair her grandmother’s fabulous dress with her mother’s old black pumps, which were too big for her and worn at the heel. Worse, those girls were right—they were made of pleather—“plastic leather.”
“Ready?” she asked Brenden, when she could trust herself to speak.
A few days later Kelsey was beginning to seriously freak out about Brenden’s present. The clock was ticking; tomorrow night was Christmas Eve. She caught a bus back to the mall by herself, determined to pick out something. Her budget hadn’t changed—she still had no money of her own to speak of aside from the measly two twenties and a crumpled five. But she couldn’t let Christmas come and go without giving him something.
She stood longingly in front of his favorite guitar store, twisting the ends of her sweater nervously, the shrill forced merriment of the piped-in carols making her antsy. She knew Christmas shopping wasn’t about how much money you spent. It was about watching the face of someone you loved light up in happiness upon receiving a carefully picked-out present. Gifts didn’t have to be expensive to be meaningful. But nevertheless she wished forty-five dollars bought something more substantial than a gift certificate at Radio Shack.
“Kelsey!”
She turned around. Gigi was bearing down on her, holding aloft her signature venti cup of soy-milk mochaccino and a dozen overstuffed shopping bags from a variety of expensive boutiques.
“Oh, hi,” Kelsey said, trying to muster the usual enthusiasm. She still hadn’t quite forgiven her friend for what she’d overheard the other afternoon. Although technically, Gigi hadn’t done anything wrong—she had asked the girls to quit it—albeit after they had already raked Kelsey over the fashion coals. Gigi’s lukewarm “I guess” wasn’t exactly a stab in the back, but Kelsey felt like asking “Et tu, Brute?” just the same.
“You okay?” Gigi asked, smiling nervously, picking up on Kelsey’s aloof manner.
Kelsey shrugged. “I can’t seem to find anything for Brenden for Christmas,” she admitted, although she would rather drink a gallon of her dad’s gross eggnog before she ever confessed she was looking for a gift in the under-forty-five-dollar range.
“Totally! Boys are so hard to shop for,” Gigi sympathized, smiling broadly. “I can’t find anything for Jared either. I’ve been so bad! All I’m doing is buying stuff for myself. They have the cutest things at J. Crew—wanna go see? Maybe you’ll find something for Brenden there.”
Kelsey had no choice. She had to hang out with Gigi now, and give up the perfect-gift quest momentarily. Her friend dragged her from store to store, from Topshop to Zara, and with a sinking heart, Kelsey found herself inside the shoe salon at Saks Fifth Avenue once again.
Gigi tossed her bags on the ground and began barking orders to the scurrying salesmen, who hurried to keep up with her.
Kelsey walked over to the familiar display and found her beloved sandals on a Lucite pedestal. They were just as beautiful as she remembered.
“Those are cute!” Gigi said, suddenly appearing by her side and scooping up the pair. “Can I get these in a six and a half?” she called to the nearest salesman. “For my party?” she asked Kelsey. “Don’t you think?”
Kelsey’s stomach dropped. Gigi probably wouldn’t even wear them. She’d already told Kelsey how she’d picked out a sweet pair of the l
atest platform heels to wear with her dress when her family was in Chicago the other month. The thought of her precious shoes ending up in the bottom of Gigi’s closet was almost too much for Kelsey to bear.
But the owl-faced salesman came back with a frown. “We’re out of the six and a half, ma’am. I believe I sold the last pair this morning. I’m sorry.”
Gigi grimaced. “Oh, well. I’ll just take these Pradas then,” she said, thrusting several pairs of shoeboxes at the guy.
Kelsey exhaled.
That evening, Brenden came over, and they took a walk through the woods behind their houses to look over the ravine. The jagged edge of the sloping cliff opened up to a true wilderness. Growing up, they had chased each other through the forest of trees, falling over logs, collecting frogs, catching poison ivy. Every winter since Kelsey could remember they went sledding down the hill that ran by the frozen creek and afterward her mom would make them hot chocolate with puffy marshmallows on top.
“You’ve been quiet lately. What’s up?” Brenden asked. He himself appeared jumpy and excited, on the verge of telling her something, but then he would bite his lip and look away.
Kelsey shook her head and inhaled deeply. The air was tinged with just a slight edge of burning firewood—a pleasant, smoky aroma that she always associated with Christmas. The moon shone above them, barely a crescent, before disappearing into the clouds.
“C’mon, babe, talk to me,” Brenden said, putting his arms around her and leaning his head on her shoulder. Usually it was Kelsey who tried to draw Brenden out of his shell, but not this time.
“I was just thinking …” She sighed. Thinking of Gigi’s upcoming party, and all the anxieties that it had wrought—the dress, the shoes, the myriad disappointments before she had even stepped one foot inside the heated tents. Part of her wanted to be done with it.
Brenden rubbed his hands up and down the back of her coat, and she ran her fingers through his thick dark hair. He would be so handsome if he just wore it back, so that everyone could see his face—his sculpted, aquiline nose, and his deep, chameleon blue-green eyes. Eyes that were looking at her intently, as if trying to guess the secret behind her sorrowful mood.
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