Okay? I was disoriented and it just flew out of my head. Have you ever made a mistake like that?"
Allison nods, but doesn't seem in a particularly forgiving mood.
A few minutes later, Dante walks in, extends his hand to her, introducing himself. She nods, looking him up and down.
"I want to personally apologize for what happened this morning,” Dante says, leaning forward and being as charming as only he can be. "It shouldn't have happened. There's no excuse."
She smiles a little bit at the corner her lips. She likes to be bowed, catered to, and wowed like this.
A few minutes later, she's smiling. I can tell that Dante has made an impression.
We walk around for a little bit, just the three of us. We get some ice cream and it melts so fast that it runs down my hands.
I laugh as I lick it up and Dante comes over and wipes a little smudge off the tip of my nose.
"Okay, fine," Allison gets in, "you two are too cute. I'm done with it."
"We're going to go to the beach today, right?" I ask her, wanting to have her feel more included.
"Yeah, of course. If you want.” She shrugs. Allison looks at Dante.
"You girls do your thing. I actually have some work to catch up on, but maybe we can meet up later tonight."
"Sure.” I nod, giving him a kiss.
When Dante offers to give us a ride home, we decline. I watch him walk away and Allison laughs and calls me a smitten kitten.
We wander around for a while and I enjoy having this time with her. I tell her what happened last night and about meeting Marguerite and Lincoln. She laughs imagining me standing there wrapped in a towel in front of them. I apologize again and she seems to accept that.
"I know that I was being unfair and kind of a dick."
"Yeah, you were.” She smiles and then nudges me as if to tell me that it's okay.
We go to a few boutiques and she buys a jumper and a strapless dress. I buy two T-shirts and a pair of shorts.
"You know, you're going to have to get a better wardrobe if you want to find a job."
"Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to it."
"Come on, it's going to be so fun. Let me dress you up."
She has been begging me to do this for a while. She's always been the one that was into clothes and fashion and around her, I feel like an ugly duckling a lot of the time but in this case, I wouldn't mind the help.
"I'm not sure they're going to have anything in my size here," I say as we walk into a particularly upscale boutique.
Places like this have always made me feel uncomfortable. I hate the way the sizes only go up to a certain number and then stop as if women above that size don't exist.
What they're really saying is that women above a certain size aren’t welcome in this store. She urges me to try something on by pressing a dress to my shoulders but I feel like it's going to be two sizes too small.
"Look, I'll just find something online," I say.
"Online? How boring."
"No, it's not boring. It's nice. At least I can try it on at home and return it."
Allison rolls her eyes. I wonder if she’s being insensitive or just not putting up with my crap.
Leading her out of the boutique, Iask if she wants to go to the beach.
"Yeah, that would be nice.” She nods.
Back at the cottage, while I start to gather our beach stuff, Allison brings up The Redemption.
"You know the party's tonight, right?"
I nod.
Frankly, I have completely forgotten about that.
"You're going to go with me, right?" she asks, her eyes lighting up.
18
Jacqueline
We have just made up and I don’t want to cause any problems but I can’t go to The Redemption.
"What are you talking about?"
"Come on," I say, "I can't go with you. Dante and I just had this amazing date and ..."
"So what? Bring him."
"No, I don't want to."
"Why?" she asks, getting more insistent and petulant.
"Look, I wasn't sure if I was going to go, even before I met up with him. I was kind of going there during this dark period of my life, I'm not sure that's for me anymore."
"Oh, okay, so you found a guy and now you think you're just too good for that?"
"No, I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that I'm not really interested in