I hunch over, my stomach tight as I try to rein it in.
My mother glares at me.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp, fanning myself. “My emotions are running wild. I’ve waited so long for this.” I plant my hand to my heart, recovering. “Lavinia, can you bring me some gloves and a pearl necklace? I need the whole picture. I’m so excited.”
The corners of her eyes crinkle with a tight smile, but she nods, quickly leaving the room to fetch the accessories.
It’s not technically her fault. My mother approved the design.
The two of us alone, my mother steps up on the riser in front of me and twists the bodice, jerking it until it’s straight.
“I thought for sure I’d look like a cupcake,” I tell her, trying to catch her eyes. “Now, I almost wish I could say that I looked like a cupcake. You know that white stuff that spills out of a heroin addict’s mouth when they’re overdosing? That’s what I look like.”
She meets my eyes, her blue slightly paler than mine as she continues to yank at the dress. “You chose your homecoming gown,” she points out. “And you’ll choose your prom dress. The debutante ball is mine.”
I knew I should’ve gotten this over with two years ago when she wanted me to.
My body jerks as she situates the dress on me, and I stare over her shoulder and into the mirror. The back of her blonde head can easily be me in twenty years.
“You won’t be able to tell me from the rest,” I say, coming as close as I can to begging her.
Every other debutante will be wearing white, and while the fabric is rather pretty on mine—lacy with pearl accents—the design is embarrassing. All the debutante dresses reek of Stepford.
“That’s kind of the point,” my mom says. “Tradition. Solidarity. Community. Unity. You’re coming out as a member of society, and a society functions on standards.” She smooths her hands down the fabric, pressing out any wrinkles. “You need to learn that rocking the boat puts everyone on board in danger.”
But that’s what boats are built for.
I sigh, not sure why I decided to let her have this one. I get my way, because my mother picks her battles, and any battle with me that lasts more than three minutes is too much effort.
I could fight her on it. Maybe I still will.
“Do you need a Xanax or something?” she asks.
I laugh under my breath and look away. Gigi Collins, everyone. Chairwoman, socialite, and school board president.
She puffs my sleeves, and then presses a hand to my stomach. “Hmm.”
“What?”
She purses her lips and walks around me, inspecting. “I was going to have her take it down to a four, but a six is already a squeeze, isn’t it?”
Heat spreads down my skin, and I clench my jaw.
Her phone rings from her bag on the chair, and she heads for it, waving me off. “We’ll leave it, I guess.”
Picking up her bag, she digs out her phone and answers it, walking past me and leaving the room.
I rub my eyes, listening to her chatter out in the waiting area about whether or not we should have a crêpe station for my school’s Easter brunch in two months.
Looking up, I stare at my huge skirt in the mirror, bored with this entire look that’ll live forever and come back to haunt the shit out of me in years to come.
I lift up the skirt, cringing at the white stockings and fugly satin heels, and then I spin, taking in the back of my gown and the obnoxious corset lacing that should really be buttons instead.
God, I should’ve taken that Xanax. Why the hell do I want to make her happy when she’s out to hurt my feelings like this?
Twisting the other direction, I see someone leaning against the archway and stop, meeting Olivia Jaeger’s eyes.
My heart hammers in my chest.
She holds canvas bags stuffed with tulle and ribbon, her aviators sitting on top of her head as she clearly struggles to hold back her amusement.
I tip my chin up. “Come here,” I tell her, facing the mirror again.
I hear her lose the bags, and after a moment, she comes around my front, facing me.
“Pin the hem,” I instruct. “It’s still dragging, so bring it up another quarter of an inch.”
Hands on her hips, she hesitates like it’s a choice, and then drops to a squat, pulling a pin off the cushion secured to her wrist.
But before she grabs the dress, I pull it away from her. “Wash…your hands first.”
I shake my head as she shoots me a look.
I mean, really. If she’s learned anything, crossing the tracks into St. Carmen every day to attend one of the most prestigious schools in the state the past three-and-a-half years, it should be some common sense. They certainly teach that at Marymount.
Rising, she walks over to the round table and pulls a wipe out of the package, cleaning her fingers. The Jaegers were born with grease under their nails, so better to be safe than sorry.
Approaching me again, she drops down, blowing the lock of hair that came loose from her ponytail out of her face, and folds the hem, pinning it up.
I tip my head back and smooth my hair into a fist high on the top of my head, twirling it into a bun and holding it there. I check myself in the mirror.
Her fingers tug gently at the fabric as she moves to the next spot, and my heart beats harder, every pore in my body cooling with a sudden sweat.
I let my eyes fall, watching her at my feet.
Her jean shorts. The dusky olive skin of her toned legs glowing in the light of the chandelier. I trail my gaze over her messy jet black ponytail and the red tint of her lips as she bites the bottom one, concentrating on her task. Her black-and-white-checkered flannel lies open, and I pause at the low V of her gray T-shirt underneath as it dips between the smooth, pore-less skin of her…
I tip my chin up, looking in the mirror again. Is she even wearing a bra, for crying out loud?
She lifts up my skirt to just past my ankles and steals a peek. “You should lose the stockings,” she tells me, going back to pinning. “And the shoes, too, for that matter.”
I turn a little, jutting out my shoulder and trying to decide if the dress looks better with my hair up or down.
“Imagine what the world would have to come to for me to take fashion advice from a white trash, rugsucking, swamp rat like you,” I reply.
The black leather, calf-high boots are kind of cute and all, but I’m pretty sure everything she’s wearing is whatever she could scrounge up from someone’s hand-me-downs.
I feel her eyes on me, and I look down, seeing a little gleam in her eye. Kind of amused, but mostly a warning that she’s making a mental note of all the shit I say to her for a rainy day.
I’m shakin’, Liv. Really, I am.
“If I take off the stockings,” I explain. “I won’t be properly dressed. The women in my world are ladies, Olivia.”
“You’ll feel it on your legs, though.” She looks back down to her task. “It’ll change how you carry yourself.”
“What will? The sticky, noxious sweat of a Florida in May on my naked thighs?”
The debutante ball is in May. The humidity will be a nightmare, despite the air-conditioned banquet hall hosting it. Like she knows anything.
What was Lavinia thinking anyway? The first thing any business owner sells is themselves. What impression does it give for Olivia Jaeger to be working here?