cuts off my circulation at the knees, I could bust a blood clot!”
I looked to Drea for backup, but she was on the opposite side of the store pulling looks for a customer in the dressing room. Gia placed a hand on each shoulder and brought her face so close to mine, our noses touched.
“If you don’t put that dress on right now,” she said in the calmest possible voice, “I will choke you myself.”
Like mother, like daughter.
I took the infamous dress into the changing room. Without thinking too hard about it, I stepped into the tube feet first, figuring I could always shout for help if I got stuck.
But I didn’t get stuck.
“Come on out, Cassie!” Gia shook the curtain. “I don’t have all day.”
With one tug, the slippery fabric slid right past my knees, over my hips, and up to my bust. Again. But this time felt different than before. Now the tube dress fit like a second skin and I was not sure how I felt about it.
Gia was far less ambivalent when I finally emerged.
“Why have we been hiding you all summer?”
She slapped her cheeks. Then she slapped mine.
“Whaaa—?”
“A body like yours in a dress like that should not be wasted in the back office is what I’m saying!”
Drea and her mom exchanged superficial compliments all the time, constantly reminding each other how hot they were and how their hotness was great for sales. But Gia had never so blatantly objectified my body before. I was definitely not used to my ass being a business asset.
“Now you’re just being silly.”
“I am not being silly,” Gia insisted, shoving me in front of a mirror.
Gia was right. This was not an outfit for a behind-the-scenes bookkeeper paid to track inventory, income, and expenses. I looked like a heavy metal video bimbo whose only responsibility was getting doused by the singer’s phallic fire hose. It was the same exact dress I didn’t have the soul for earlier in the summer. And now that I was back to my pre-mono weight, I shouldn’t have had the body for it either.
And yet.
Now.
It fit?
Perfectly?
Gia held out a pair of strappy flat sandals in gold leather.
“You’re ready for the dress, but you aren’t ready for stilettos,” she said. “Not yet.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for any of it,” I said.
Gia ignored this and buckled me into the shoes as Drea made her approach. She made a very deliberate show of fluffing her bangs in the mirror instead of saying good morning to me.
“Ma, you know I’d never question your brain for business or eye for style,” she began. “But are you aware that our back office accountant is leaving for college in less than a week? I doubt she wants to waste her energy by putting in some actual hard work on the Bellarosa sales floor.”
Drea was only reinforcing my own argument. And yet, it didn’t feel like she was backing me up. It felt like she was putting me down. I managed to withstand a few seconds of Drea’s unrelenting glare before grasping why she was so irritated with me.
“The library!” I slapped my forehead.
In my postcoital haze, I’d forgotten all about our plans to work on her doomed FIT application last night.
“What’s she talking about?” Gia asked.
“Absolutely nothing of any importance,” Drea replied. “Right, Cassandra?”
Her snappish reaction took me by surprise. And maybe her too. Because she quickly changed her tone and the subject.
“Relax,” Drea said. “I’m just joking.”
“Right.” I laughed uneasily. “Of course.”
Here’s the thing: I knew Drea wasn’t joking. But she wasn’t 100 percent serious either. Her tone was pitched at the crossroads, and I honestly couldn’t tell which was closer to the truth. One thing I knew for sure: Now definitely wasn’t the right time to tell Drea about what happened in the hatchback.
“I’m already in the dress,” I said. “I might as well help you on the floor!” And then without thinking I added, “I mean, how hard can it be?”
Drea opened her mouth, then quickly and very uncharacteristically shut it.
If she had spoken up, I might have defied Gia and stayed in the back of the store where I belonged. I might have returned to my blanket igloo and hibernated for the last week of summer. Instead, I sat and let Gia fix my naked face and unstyled hair. There was no way she would let me out on the sales floor without a seasonal makeover.
“No offense,” Gia said, spackling my face with what I think