“Oh, I’m so looking forward to this.” She was practically prancing down the street as she peered into the windows of shops we passed by, to find something that looked good on me. I really didn’t want to get anything new, but if it would make her happy and help get her mind off the break-up, then I wasn’t sure I, as a best friend, was allowed to argue. Even though it often felt as though we’d gone in different directions these last few years, I still felt this sense of duty towards her.
“Ooh, what about that one?” She pointed at a blue dress in the window of a shop I knew just by looking would be way out of my price range. The dress looked pretty good on the mannequin, but I wasn’t sure how it would go on me – the deep blue was a pretty color, and I liked the sweetheart neckline that looked smart and not too over-the-top. Like something I could wear to work.
“I guess we could give it a go,” I replied gamely, and we headed in to try it on.
The shop was part of a big shopping center. There was a bookshop sitting next to it that I glanced longingly over at. God, if I could just duck in there for five minutes… I never regretted blowing a big portion of my paycheck on books, even if my sister always mocked me for it. Not that I had much of a paycheck these days, the company I’d done sales for two years just shut down last month. That’s part of the reason I didn’t want to drop all this money on a dress, or on tickets for this show tonight. I didn’t have it to spare. But I would do what I had to, to help Eleanor.
“Come on, try it on!” she urged as soon as she’d found a version of the dress in my size.
I took it from her and slipped into it in the changing rooms, trying not to look at myself too closely in the mirror. It wasn’t that I hated my body or anything. No, I just didn’t find much use for it these days. I hadn’t dated anyone in a long time, and, not being one for one-night-stands, that pretty much meant that I hadn’t had sex for a very long time. Also, I had put on some weight. I knew that my hips were wider and my thighs softer than they had been before. It bothered me enough to want to try and pretend it wasn’t happening.
I looked up once the dress was zipped around me, and I twisted back and forth in front of the mirror while I tried to figure out whether I liked it or not. It certainly wasn’t bad. The blue popped against my dark hair, and it cinched in a few bits of me that needed it, but it wasn’t precisely good either. It just sort of was.
“You dressed in there?” Eleanor called, and before I could reply she had whipped the curtain back. She looked me up and down and nodded slowly, as though this was exactly what she’d had in mind.
“Yeah, that’s perfect,” she grinned up at me. “Don’t you think?”
“Uh, it’s okay,” I nodded. “Not…not really much, to be honest.”
“Once you’re all done up for going out you’ll feel different,” she promised with some authority. “You should definitely buy it.”
“You think?” I asked doubtfully.
“For sure,” she replied firmly.
I glanced down at the tag hanging off the hip and winced once more. The tickets for this place were going to be expensive too, I knew that, and then there would be the taxi there and back and the overpriced drinks at the venue…
“Stop worrying,” Eleanor clicked her fingers in my face, pulling me back to the real world. “It’s all going to be fine, alright?”
“Alright,” I conceded.
Shooing her out of the dressing room I took another look at myself in the mirror. Yeah, I guess the dress looked okay. I had seen myself look better, but that was before I put on all that weight. Also, I just wasn’t used to seeing myself dressed up. It had been more than a month since I’d had to go into the office with anything resembling a nice outfit on. Most of these days, I sat around in my apartment in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, reading and cooking and jumping every time the phone rang in case it was someone wanting to offer me a job interview. It never was.
The job market was as rewarding, it seemed, as the dating one.
I bought the dress and watched as the saleslady careful folded it in tissue before slipping it into a bag. Fortunately, the one pair of heels that I owned were black and would go with it.
Eleanor was practically skipping along beside me, she was so excited about the rest of this evening. It was starting to get dark, the light leaking from the sky, just like the hope that I had any chance of getting out of this event which was about as far removed from ‘me’ as it could possibly be.
“I wonder what he’ll be like in bed,” she wondered, like it was just a matter of time before she found out.
I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out to her that this hook-up wasn’t a given quite yet. If she wanted to have her little fantasy no good would come for me to shit all over that. I just smiled and nodded along. Might as well get used to it. I was going to have to listen to that for the rest of the night.
Madison
An hour later I was back home. I dropped the bag with my new dress on the sofa and trudged over to the shower, figuring that I might as well start getting ready. But, just as I switched it on, there was a knock on the door. Wrapped in my towel I hurried over to the door. It could only be my sister.
“Sasha,” I greeted with a smile.
She stepped over the threshold to my place without saying a word. She nodded at me, the straps of her handbag held in her teeth as she rooted through her pockets for something. When she was done, she plucked the leather handle from her mouth and gave me a massive grin.
“Hey,” she gave me a quick hug, and then zoomed in on the bag I had dumped on the sofa. “Ooh, what’s that?”
“I got a dress for going out tonight,” I explained, and she opened her mouth, her eyes lighting up, but I held my hand up to stop her before she got too excited. “Eleanor’s dragging me out to this male strip thing,” I rolled my eyes. “She says it’s to help her get over the break-up, but she’s just trying to hook up with the lead dancer.”
“Oh,” Sasha wrinkled her nose up. “Doesn’t sound much like your kind of thing.”
“It’s not.” I shook my head at her. “But she’s going through a break-up and I want to help her out, you know?”
“And where was she when you split up with…what was his name?” Sasha called over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. She was the only person who could get away with just turning up at my house and treating it like she owned the place.
I followed her into the kitchen. “Yeah, okay, whatever,” I said following her into the kitchen and waving my hand at her. I didn’t want to think too hard on the fact that she was right. Eleanor hadn’t been there for me when I’d split up with my ex, Frank, eighteen months ago. She just didn’t deal well with the big dramatic stuff, she’d told me, and she’d been convinced that what I needed was time and space to heal myself. I was sure what I needed was support from my best friend, but I was too gutted to do much more than loll around the flat feeling sorry for myself.
She started to fill the kettle. “Do you want a cup?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s get a look at this dress, then.” She put the kettle on and herded me back to my small living room. “See if I can bring it in for you.”
“Okay, let me get into it.” I quickly threw on the dress once more, and spread my hands out and did a twirl. “What do you think?”
I saw the furrow in her brow before she could cover it up. “Hmmm….” She pressed her lips together.
“It’s not good, is it?” I muttered, my suspicions confirmed as I plucked at the blue fabric of the dress. It was hard to see if something really suited you in those narrow mirrors shops had in the changing rooms. Now I was sure the dress made me look like a beached whale.
She shook her head and got to her feet, and began to rummage in her handbag.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, walking over to the full length mirror I had in the hallway. God, I looked huge.
“I’m seeing if I have my sewing ki
t with me,” she replied absently, and then I heard her go, “Aha!”
“Do you think you can rescue it?” I asked, shifting back and forth in front of the mirror.
“They don’t call me golden fingers for nothing at work.”
I glanced at the clock. “I don’t have that much time, though. El is coming to pick me up at six thirty.”
“You go for your shower.” She waved her hand airily. “Leave this thing with me. I’ll have it looking fantastic in no time.”
“You don’t have to-”
“But I want to,” she cut me off firmly, the way only she could. She waved her hand again. “Come on, you, out of here.”
I did as I was told. I headed straight through to the shower to get myself looking passable for the evening. There were serious upsides to having a sister who worked as a dressmaker, not least the almost magical power she had of turning the worst, most hideous clothes into something really special.
I got out of the shower, blow-dried my hair into soft waves down my back, then I applied mascara and lipstick the best way I knew how. I emerged from the bedroom in my bra and panties and saw Sasha putting the finishing touches on the dress.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, with widened eyes. The dress was practically unrecognizable.
She glanced up at me with an excited grin, the same one she always had on her face when she knew that she had pulled something big off.
“I knew when I was looking at it that there was something special in here somewhere,” she blurted out, talking quickly. “The color suits you so much and the cut was good, it just needed a little coaxing. Anyway, try it on. Be careful with the stitching, it’s a little delicate.”
“Yeah, just what I need, the whole thing coming apart in front of a crowd full of people,” I teased, but took the dress gingerly from her and looked down at it. A big grin passed over my face as I looked up at her.
“Thanks for this,” I murmured. “It really means a lot to me.”
“I’m not letting my little sister go out on the town looking like crap.” She got to her feet. “I’m a dressmaker, how would that reflect on me?”
“Fair point,” I conceded.
“Now, hurry up and get it on. I’m dying to make that cup of tea I never had.”
Madison
I slipped the dress carefully over my head and Sasha zipped me into it.
It fit like a dream. I could tell that before I even looked at myself. I thought it had fit well enough before, but this was the difference between a dress that could get over my body and a dress that actually enhanced what I had on show.
“How do I look?” I asked.
She smiled. “Go see for yourself.”
I walked over to the mirror and my jaw dropped.
She had cut a low neckline into the dress, low enough that I seemed to have magicked up a huge dollop of cleavage from nowhere. She had nipped the dress in around the waist because it made it seem as if I actually had a waist. She had taken up the hemline too. It now came down to just above my knees, and the way it clung to my thighs was borderline scandalous. Well, one thing was for sure, she had effectively made it impossible for me to use this as a work dress. There was no way I was going to be wearing this to any job interviews anytime soon. Unless it was for a very specific type of job.
I twisted back and forth in front of the mirror, taking myself in, and then finally stepped into my only good pair of heels that I owned, black and with a bow that tied around the ankles. Okay, I actually looked pretty good. A smile spread over my face as I looked myself up and down, and I tried to remember why I didn’t get dressed up to go out like this more often.
My sister beamed at me. “You look fantastic.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. I don’t know why you don’t dress like this more often instead of slouching around in those shapeless things you wear.” She came over and started fluffing about with the hem. “I knew I could do something with this thing. You really do look amazing, Madison.”
I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks for this. I really needed this tonight.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” she replied, and I knew immediately she was referring to Eleanor. She had never much liked her, but I tried not to let it get in the way of my relationships with either of them. I told myself Sasha was just protective, but sometimes I wondered if there really was something in Eleanor she needed to protect me from.
Sasha went off to make her tea and I spent a little more time preening myself, making sure my lipstick was perfect and throwing back a bottle of water to make sure that however much I had to drink tonight it wouldn’t leave me with too brutal a hangover the next day. A couple of minutes before half six, there was a knock on the door.
“Oh, that’ll be Eleanor.” I jumped to my feet, and wobbled on my heels and had to catch the arm of the sofa. God, I was just not good at these dangerous things. I could have broken my neck back there.
I buzzed her in, and opened the door to find myself face to face with Eleanor in her full-glamour mode. She looked damn good, in a short, sparkly silver sheath dress that was practically blinding me even in the dim lighting of the hall outside my apartment. Add to the fact that her heels were high and her hair was teased out and huge, it made her virtually impossible to miss, even from miles away. Which would be a good thing, if she intended to catch the eye of the Subway guy.
The only thing that wasn’t shining about her was the frown marring her forehead as she cast her gaze over me. I felt my mouth go a little dry as she looked me up and down.
“What’s the matter?”
“Your dress,” she blurted out.
“Don’t you like it?” I struck a pose playfully, but she didn’t seem overly amused.
She brushed past me and into the apartment. “Is that the same dress?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. There was that furrow in her brow again, letting me know that somehow I’d done something wrong.
“Yeah,” I nodded, and pointed to the kitchen where Sasha was still rumbling about. “Sasha did a little work on it for me. I think it looks nice. Don’t you like it?”
“It just looks a little…” she trailed off, giving me a long look up and down once more.
Sasha emerged from the kitchen, and her lips tightened when she saw that Eleanor was already there.
“It just looks a little tarty, that’s all,” she finally finished up, and I felt my cheeks flood with heat at her words.
“I can go change into something else,” I suggested, my chin dropping in embarrassment.
“I think you should. Go on then. Quickly.”
“No fucking way,” Sasha said firmly, shooting some serious daggers in the direction of Eleanor. “You look fantastic, and I worked too hard on that for you not to go out in it now.”
“Fine,” Eleanor sighed, tossing her hair over one shoulder as though this was the biggest inconvenience she could imagine. “You don’t have time to change anyway, the taxi’s already waiting outside.”
I gave Sasha another quick hug. “See you soon, okay?”
“I’ll lock up before I leave.,” she replied, throwing another venomous glance at Eleanor. “Have a good night.”
Her words were barbed even if they seemed innocent, and I knew that they were aimed at Eleanor and not me. I got where she was coming from. Sometimes, I felt as though I wanted someone who called herself my friend to treat me with a little more respect, but I knew that she had been through a lot these last few weeks so I couldn’t expect too much from her.
We headed out to the taxi.
Madison
Eleanor wasn’t saying much, eyes fixed on some point out the window, not bothering to even glance over at me. I tugged the hem of my dress down and frowned. Was it because I had gotten all dressed up? Did she think I looked better than her or something? I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been so enthusiastic about that dress because she’d known that it was quite dowdy and would make her appear even more splendid, but now that
I’d actually turned the heat up a little she didn’t like it one bit. Which kind of surprised me, how could I steal her thunder. She was by far more attractive than me.
We arrived and picked up the tickets that Eleanor had booked on-line. I looked at the price on my ticket and gulped. That could feed me for nearly two weeks. She must have bought the best tickets in the house. We headed towards the entrance doors. The foyer was packed-out with people, the vast majority of them women, and the place was crackling with a tension that I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt before in my life.
“Holy shit, this place is packed,” I yelled to Eleanor over the sound of the crowd.
She glanced over at me and finally a smile appeared on her face, and I felt a wave of relief hit me, as she seemed to actually be having a good time after all.
“Yeah, well, he’s not going to see anyone but me,” she replied, pointing up to the enormous billboard that showed off a giant, blown-up picture of Chad Weston. His eyes were lowered to the ground, but his body spoke for itself, and I felt a little flutter in my chest as I took him in. I had never been one for guys who were hot in that really showy, obvious way but he was…hell, he was something else entirely, and I had to admit it was doing it for me.
We were jostled around on our way to the front of the queue, but finally, we made our way into the theatre and took our seats. Even in the dark, the place was bathed with a warm pink lighting that made my heart beat a little faster. It looked like we were heading for the front row. So he could see Eleanor, no doubt, or at least that had to be what was going through her mind.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Eleanor again, suddenly nervous for what was about to come.
She glanced over at me, brow furrowed with annoyance. “Of course, I am. Come on, sit down, you’re in everyone’s way.”
I took my seat and my heart fluttered when I realized that he would likely be able to see me, too, and I was suddenly glad that Sasha had worked her magic on this dress. I wanted to look good tonight, wanted to look really good, wanted to look better than anyone had seen me before.
The Promise Page 63
