Falling From Grace (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  He handed me the two bags, and nodded, “Your dress, a pair of matching sandals, and some extras to pick and choose at your discretion.”

  I eyed them warily. “Will I know how to put them all on?”

  A voice from behind me answered, “I’ll help you.” Janice grabbed the bags out of my hands and nudged me towards the stairs, pulling me when my feet refused to budge. “Come on, let’s get you dressed.”

  When I climbed up the first two steps, I turned to look behind me. The triad were now all looking in my direction, watching me leave an awkward caterpillar. Would I return as a beautiful butterfly? Or would I return as the caterpillar version of James Gumb?

  I swallowed my fear and apprehension and continued up the stairs. Janice was already in my room, the garment bag hanging up in the closet, the other bag’s contents dumped out on my bed. I closed the door behind me, needing the few moments that doing so required to commit to what I was about to do.

  Taking a deep breath, I walked over to Janice. Her face was lit with excitement. I could see that she was looking forward to this about as much as Dad wasn’t. “Are you ready to see it?” she asked me.

  I could do nothing else but nod, my voice simply not cooperating with me at the moment. I took another deep breath as I watched her pull the zipper of the garment bag down, and push the bag around and away from the material that lay within.

  At first, it looked like a waterfall of shimmering moss had spilled from the bag. I took a few steps closer, curious at the strange color. Janice pulled the dress completely out of the bag and held it out so that I could see it better.

  It was strapless, the front bust area covered in rough cut crystals that ran through every shade between a rich golden amber to deep chocolate browns, ranging from the size of a pea to that of a quarter. The crystals extended only a few inches down the bust, and where they ended, two streams of moss colored chiffon flowed down. The dress itself was constructed of satin in the same gray-green color. The shimmer of the satin and the delicate and flowing chiffon trailed to the floor; it wasn’t a short dress. My first wish granted.

  “Well, there’s really nothing else to do but put it on,” I sighed. It was definitely much prettier than I had expected. I took off my shirt and shorts, when a seemingly important question came into my head. “What kind of bra do I wear with this?”

  “You wear a strapless bra or a bustier with a strapless dress,” Janice answered me before recognition dawned on her. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh. I don’t have one of those.” Of course I didn’t have one. I’d never needed one.

  Janice put the tip of her thumb between her lips, chewing on it as she thought about what could be done. “It would be completely inappropriate for him to have done it. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t…but let’s see if Robert has something that might work in this pile of packages.”

  She sat on the bed and contemplated each package that she’d emptied from the larger bag. “Ah-hah. I’ll have to have a discussion with him about this—highly improper—so expensive, too…”

  She grabbed a pale, opalescent pink box with black lettering and handed it to me. I looked at the elegant script that listed the name. I lifted the lid and gasped. I covered my mouth, and looked at Janice. Provocateur indeed! Amongst the tissue was something I had never thought I’d ever wear: a shiny, satin corset.

  “H-how am I supposed to get this on?” I looked at Janice, terrified that I’d strangle myself with it.

  She smiled. “I’m more concerned with how it was that Robert came about purchasing that for you, but that can be answered later. Let’s get this on you. Come here.”

  She took the foreign-to-Grace device out of its box and proceeded to undo about eight hooks, then wrapped the corset around me, refastening the hooks in the front. She turned me around and pushed the garment up over my bra, then began to tighten the strings. When she had worked halfway down the back, she unhooked my bra. “You can take that off now, Grace.”

  I pulled the bra out from beneath the corset and then let the straps fall down my arms, all while Janice proceeded to strangle me from the chest down. “Oomph” I groaned as she pulled the strings as tight as they could go without forcing me to bend over, and then tying them into what I hoped was an easily undone bow. I would want nothing getting between me and oxygen when I came home and could take this medieval torture device off.

  Janice turned me around again, assessing the job she’d done, and raised her eyebrows in…surprise? Shock? “Wow. I’m going to have to ask Robert where he found this so that I can get one of these for myself.”

  Looking at the clock on my dresser, she quickly grabbed the dress and unzipped it. “Okay, you’re going to have to sit down on the bed. I’ll slip this over your feet, and then you’ll stand and I’ll pull it up.”

  I did exactly as she had instructed, allowing her to slide the smooth fabric over my legs. I stood and felt the fabric rush over my waist and the corset. I felt her pull the zipper up my back, tucking the corset strings in so as not to catch them, and then she stepped back to give me room to allow the material to fall around me. It was a perfect fit. Of course it was. He’d made sure of that.

  Janice looked at the pile of boxes and bags on the bed and started rummaging through them. In one box she found a set of hair clips with jeweled dragonflies on them. In another, she found a pair of strappy bronze sandals that were exactly my size. She emptied out the contents of a small bag and discovered two small velvet boxes. One contained an amber pendant in the shape of a heart, while the other had amber drop earrings.

  “I’ve got to say this much about your Robert. He’s got incredible taste. He’s spent an awful lot on you for one evening, Grace. I have to wonder what exactly it is he expects from you after all of this,” she said, holding up the jewelry boxes to emphasize her point about cost.

  “He doesn’t expect anything of me,” I told her, knowing that it was the truth far more than it was anything else. “And even if he does, he’s not exactly going to be getting anything out of this other than perhaps extreme embarrassment and regret.”

  The clicking sound of Janice’s tongue told me that I probably didn’t know what I was talking about. I just didn’t know which part. Sighing, she grabbed my brush from the dresser and began detangling my hair. In less time than in took to dress me, she had my hair pinned up in a French twist, loose strands tumbling out near my ears and down the back of my neck.

  She took the necklace out of its box and fastened it to me, the pendant resting nicely against my chest. She took the earrings out and a surprised “oh” came out of her mouth. “They’re clip-ons.”

  I looked at the jewelry in her hands and she was right. I didn’t understand how Robert could have gotten everything else right but that. “I guess he didn’t know that I have pierced ears,” I mumbled.

  Janice looked closely at me, her eyes scrutinizing something that I couldn’t see without a mirror. “Um—your ears aren’t pierced, Grace.”

  “What?” I quickly went around her and shoved my face into the mirror that sat above my dresser, zeroing in on the lobes that I had had pierced when I was only five, the little golden star earrings having never left them since. Only there were no golden stars. There were no holes. “How in the-” I kept turning my head to the left and the right, thinking that when I flipped back, there’d be a glint of gold there. Each time, I was disappointed.

  He’d gotten it right after all. How had he known something about me that I didn’t? And where were my earrings? I ground my teeth as this newfound information and lack thereof dug itself a nice hole in my mind, intent on settling in there until I found out the circumstances that led to this.

  I sighed and grabbed the earrings from Janice, apparently amused and slightly alarmed that I had been oblivious to my lack of earring holes. I clipped the amber pieces to my ears, and reached for the sandals. Well…sandal, really. I wasn’t going to be wearing the right one, after all. I put it on my foot and tried walking arou
nd. The slight heel on it cause me to limp as I took several steps around the room, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, and I sent a little prayer of thanks his way for finding a pair of women’s shoes that weren’t created for the utter destruction of my feet.

  Janice took a look at me and nodded her head a few times, obviously thinking about what else was needed to complete the gift-wrapping she was doing to me. She went over to the dresser and picked up something that was definitely not mine and a little pot that also wasn’t mine, and started unscrewing the lid off of it.

  “I’m going to line your eyes, apply a bit of mascara, and then you’ll wear the gloss. That’ll be it. You don’t need anything else,” she said as she came toward me with the brush, wielding it like the tool that it was, only it looked more like a weapon to me. “Close your eyes, Grace.”

  I did as she instructed, and waited, feeling the soft, but firm strokes of what I could only guess was the brush going across the bottom of my eyelid. “Open your eyes.” I did that as well, and she again came at me with another bristled weapon.

  She applied the mascara to my lashes very slowly and carefully, apparently sensing my fear and distrust. “Honestly, I’ve never met someone so afraid of mascara before,” I heard her mutter, while she returned the brush back to its innocuous tube that looked like a stranger on my dresser. Finally, she grabbed the tube of gloss and handed it to me.

  “Okay, you’re going to have to put this on yourself. It’ll be the only thing you’ll reapply, so you’ll have to know how to do it without making it look too tacky.”

  I know the look I gave her would have been the exact same one I’d have shared had she just told me that I was going to have to perform a triple bypass on a hippopotamus, while tap dancing to the meowing cat Christmas CD that Dad owned. How did one make gloss not look tacky?

  I learned that it was quite simple, really. The trick was to apply it to your top lip only, and then rub it into your bottom one. Janice went through this with me using baby steps, and while I might never get so dolled up again, I might actually get used to the gloss thing after she showed me how easy it was.

  “Well, Grace. I can’t say anything else but this. If your mother was half as beautiful as you look right now, I’m fairly certain your Dad was a very lucky man when he married her,” Janice exclaimed, not a sound if insincerity in her voice as she stepped aside so that I could finally focus and take a look at myself.

  “Thank you, Janice,” I said, and glanced in the mirror. I was speechless. The girl who stared back at me in the mirror surely wasn’t me! Was my hair really that rich of a brown? My eyes—did they look green or was that my imagination? The freckles that danced across my face looked as though they belonged there as the rose of a blush crept across my cheeks, drowning out any sign of imperfection. I couldn’t believe it.

  “That’s not me,” I whispered.

  Janice chuckled. She reached for one more box and handed it to me. “This, I believe, is your wrap.”

  My what? I took the box from her and opened it up. Inside was a bundle of what looked like the same chiffon that flowed from the front of my dress. I took it out of its box and marveled as it tumbled to the floor, its ends weighted down with the same crystals from the front of the dress. I noticed that it wasn’t a narrow strip of material, but rather wide, and multi-layered, causing it to be less sheer, but still giving off that subtle softness.

  “Well, put it on,” Janice told me, and helped as I did.

  She ushered me towards the door, opening it before letting me out first, then rushing around me in the hallway so that she could be the first to come down the stairs, her intent very clear. She wanted to see the guys’ reactions when I appeared.

  Slowly, taking a deep breath with every other step, I made my way down the stairs and into the living room. Janice’s arrival had disrupted whatever it was that the guys had been doing for the past hour, and all three were standing, their faces anxious as I took that last step down.

  The first sound I heard was the intake of air, and then the groan, followed by the sigh.

  Dad was the first one to approach me. Obviously this had all been pre-arranged because neither Graham nor Robert made any move to come forward. “Grace—wow. You look so beautiful.” His eyes were damp, and I knew that if he let loose one single tear, I’d have endured that heinous mascara torture for nothing because I’d wash it all away with the flood of mine.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I tried to sound rough, stiff, firm. My shaky voice wasn’t going to let me win this round.

  “I mean it, kiddo. You look incredible. That’s some dress,” he said, looking me up and down, and then hugging me fiercely—like a father would right before sending his only child off to war. It was bringing me closer to losing that battle with the tears.

  “Okay Dad, you’re going to have to let me go now,” I whispered into his ear. He nodded, but didn’t release his grip. Instead, it grew tighter. “Dad…?”

  “Alright, alright. I’m letting go. Give an old man a break when he’s watching his little girl grow up right before his eyes, will ya?”

  He looked at Robert and sighed after he’d put enough distance between the two of us. “You got my baby into a dress, and you’ve got me digging up the waterworks here. I don’t know whether to hug you or hit you.”

  Robert smiled. “I’d prefer the hug, but understand if you’d rather hit me.”

  Graham stepped forward then, his mouth a cavern of awe, his eyes wide.

  “You said I’d look better in a whole dress. Are you going to take back your words?” I asked him, my hands on my hips, my feet braced for any biting comment he might make.

  He shook his head, his jaw wagging as he did so. “You look incredible.”

  And that was it. He wasn’t going to say anything else. I saw him glance at Robert and I knew why. He wasn’t going to ruin this moment with any snide comments or off-handed remarks—no matter how much he wanted to make them—because he cared about my feelings.

  Finally, it was Robert’s turn. His eyes were filled with happiness as he held his hand out to me. I gladly took it. He raised my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles very softly, faintly. It was something that you only saw in period pieces on television or in the theater. And now, in my living room…but no one ever felt the fierce raging beat that my heart was pounding in my chest, or the breathless joy that flowed through me with each, soft caress.

  “You are everything they’ve said and more,” he said softly. Radiant, spectacular, phenomenal, glorious—you’ve surpassed any expectation I might have had, and even more so I don’t think I’ve ever, in all my years on this earth, been more stunned than I am right now.

  As unladylike and unattractive as it was to do, I couldn’t stop my mouth from falling open at his admission. Weren’t you peeking? Looking in my or Janice’s mind, looking for our reactions? What I looked like beforehand? Cheat?

  The look in his eyes told me that he had not. His surprise had been genuine. I was amazed. “How gentlemanly of you.” I murmured, a secret smile faintly touching my lips.

  Robert offered me his arm then, and looked at Dad. “I think our car is here. I will have Grace back by eleven, if that is alright with you, Mr. Shelley.”

  Dad’s face was blank. For a first date, he’d probably had some sort of set curfew speech planned in his head, but he hadn’t counted on Robert being one step ahead of him and setting one himself at the exact same hour that I would have had to been home had I actually had a social life. He grunted and then responded, “I think that is fine, although if Grace finds herself having a good time, I guess it would be alright if you were to bring her home by midnight.”

  I looked at Dad, and then at Robert. It was so quick, I would have missed it if I had blinked; he winked at me. “Thank you, Mr. Shelley. I appreciate and value your trust in my bringing your daughter back home safely.”

  This time, it was Dad’s turn to wink at me, although when compared to Robert’s, it looked more like half h
is face was falling asleep. “How could I not trust you with her safety, Robert? You saved her life. I think I can bend the rules just a little bit for that.”

  Graham, who had been quietly watching the exchange between the two threw his hands up and headed towards the kitchen. “I need something to eat.”

  Janice, who had also been standing quietly off to the side, suddenly made a squeaking sound. “I need to get my camera!”

  “Oh no! Let’s go, quick, before she takes a picture,” I cried, tugging on Robert’s arm, but he wasn’t budging. I was too late. Janice had stashed her camera somewhere close by, probably in preparation for my escape.

  “Not so fast, Grace! I just want two photos; One of you alone and then one with Robert.”

  “Aw Janice, you know photos of me never turn out right,” I whined. I sounded like a bratty teenager, and I bit my lip to stop the nasal sound from coming out.

  Janice shook her head, not swayed one bit. Whining never worked. “Come on. Let’s get one of just you.”

  Robert took a few steps away from me, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the living room. Janice called my name and told me to smile. I tried.

  “Hmm. This flash isn’t working right. It came out too bright,” Janice said, looking at the little screen on her camera that displayed the photo she had just taken.

  “No, that’s just me,” I muttered, knowing full well that it was.

  “Well, let’s try one with you and Robert, then.”

  As if he had never left, Robert was at my side, his arm around my waist, his hand resting on my hip. He looked down at me, and I looked up at him. I didn’t notice the flash, but I did hear the coo from Janice as she proclaimed her latest attempt at amateur photography a success.

  “It’s beautiful. It’s like there’s a halo of light around the two of you. Come look!”

  I couldn’t stop myself. There had never, ever been a photograph of me that hadn’t come out ruined in some way. I was in absolute disbelief. But Janice was right. Her little screen held the photo that she had shot of Robert and I looking into each other’s eyes. The connection between the two of us was obvious. One could even say that we looked in love. But what you couldn’t ignore was the fact that we both seemed to glow. It gave the picture a very ethereal quality, and the irony was almost too much for me.