entitled attitude for more than eighteen years. If anyone knows how to imitate my sister accurately, it’s me. No practice needed.”
“All right, fine. Have it your way.” He trotted off to the closet that was bigger than my bedroom. Well, not the bedroom I resided in while living in Tiff’s house, but the one at the apartment I shared with Dave.
I missed my apartment, but not as much as my best friend.
Ty returned with a pair of nude pumps dangling off two fingers and a hanger in the other hand. On the hanger was a black dress, though it looked more like a shirt. He held them out and said, “Wear these and walk across the room.”
“I’d love to, but there’s just one problem. There’s no way I’m going to fit in her dress. I’m a couple sizes bigger than she is.” It was something I was proud of. Seriously, it wouldn’t have hurt Tiffany to eat a few hamburgers from time to time.
“That’s okay…she has shapewear in the drawer.”
“Shape what?”
“Shapewear.” The smile on his lips showed just how much he enjoyed this. Maybe he was more like my sister than I originally thought. Then again, you couldn’t breathe the same air as her as much as he did and not become her. “It’ll suck you in enough to fit into the dress.”
“I don’t want to be sucked in. Just saying it out loud creeps me out.”
He rolled his bright eyes and sighed. “Tasha, dear…everyone wears them.”
“Clearly not, because I don’t.”
“Do you want people to figure out that you’re not Tiffany? Because they will if you show up in public with a bigger waist and smaller tits.”
I stared at him for a moment. Then I blinked—slow to start, then rapidly as I mentally worked through his words. Once I decided that I hadn’t misunderstood him, I laughed in his face. I laughed so hard that I fell backward on the bed and held my sides.
“This isn’t funny, Tasha.”
“Yes, it is. It’s very funny.” I sat up and took several deep breaths to calm myself enough to speak. “First of all, I’m here because Tiff is holed up in some back-alley doctor’s office recovering from plastic surgery performed by Dahmer. When she does come back, there will be a lot more than our weight difference for people to notice.”
He quietly mulled that over before nodding. Although, he added a slight eye-roll at the end. “Fine, have it your way. But you will still dress like her. Meaning…you will wear the clothes she’d pick out, only in your own size. And trust me, regardless if it’s a size four or eight, you’ll want the shapewear.”
Just the thought of squeezing my body into something like that made me feel like a sausage. It wasn’t a pleasant visual.
Ty’s phone rang, so he dropped the heels on the mattress next to me and handed the dress to one of the women from the army he’d brought in to help him. Apparently, they didn’t speak English, although I suspected it was an excuse they used to avoid dealing with my sister.
“There, practice walking in those,” he said while staring at his cell and moving toward the door. Based on the way he walked with his butt cheeks clenched, I assumed it was Tiff calling. That became even more apparent when he waited until he was in the hall to answer.
Ignoring the heels next to me, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and called Dave. He’d been my roommate since college, so it was weird not to have him here. He said he would come stay with me when he could, but he wouldn’t be able to take that much time off work to stay the entire two or three months. Not to mention, seven hours was a long way to drive one way, so being here every weekend didn’t make sense. Then there was the camera crew to consider—Dave said he’d pretend to be my servant, but Ty said no.
“Hey, boo.” His chipper voice flooded the line and filled me with a sense of home. It was something I desperately needed. “Hang on a sec, ’kay?”
As I listened to him talk to the kids at the youth center where he worked, I reminisced about my own job and the reasons I’d even accepted this deal to begin with. Thanks to the non-disclosure agreement I had to sign, I couldn’t tell anyone the truth about where I’d be or why I’d be gone. Dave had to