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THIRTEEN
THE humiliation began immediately. Adele looked my body up and down with a critical eye, which included an exceedingly uncomfortable few moments puzzling over my hips and buttocks. Finally, she gave me a plastic, slightly pained smile.
“Let’s get you measured, shall we?”
“Fine,” I said, “just give me a minute.”
Skirting two tailoring dummies, I headed back down the hall to the boutique’s main floor. My gaze immediately searched the front windows for any sign of Pacing Man. But he was no longer on the sidewalk.
I approached Roman, who’d returned to reading Gourmet on the white leather couch.
“Would you do me a favor?” I asked.
“Sure, sweetie.”
I explained how Brea
Roman scratched his head. “Whatever for?”
“I want to question him.”
Roman’s eyes widened a bit, as if I’d piqued his interest. “Okay, Shirley Holmes,” he said. “Consider me your Watson.”
Ten minutes later, I was back in the fitting room. As I stood there in nothing but my bra and panties, a dozen outfits were brought in for Brea
“She’s got issues,” Brea
“Yes, many,” Adele said. “She’s a petite, her legs are good, her waist is fine, but those hips.” She shook her head, practically tisking aloud. “A real problem area. And she’s far too big on top.”
I am?
“We could put her in a wrap dress, even an empire waist,” Brea
Adele nodded. Then she regarded me again. “Who did your work, by the way?”
“My work?”
She tipped her head toward my chest. “Your augmentation?”
Oh, for pity’s sake. “These are real.”
Adele frowned. “Aren’t they a burden?”
“They weren’t when I was nursing my daughter.”
“You’ve never considered a reduction?”
“No!”
“Well, you should if you want to wear quality designers.”
Okay, maybe it was my early exposure to Renaissance art and all those plump, buxom Mado
My gig here might be attempted murder, but I found it a crime how some women shamed others when it came to something as beautiful and natural as a healthy female form. Just what the hell were we teaching our daughters, anyway?
“Not everyone’s a slave to high fashion,” I pointed out to Adele.
“Clearly,” she replied, her eyebrow arching at the Old Navy jeans she’d gleefully impaled on Fen’s fitting room hook.
“I do have designer outfits in my wardrobe,” I said, “and they fit my body just fine the way it is.”
“Is that so? And where did you purchase these clothes?”
“The discount outlets.”
The woman actually winced. “Let’s move along, shall we?”
“Yes, let’s.”
When all was said and done, Brea
“Not bad,” she said, observing me.
High praise indeed from someone who’d referred to me as a Chihuahua thirty minutes ago.
As I stepped into a pair of modest pumps and took possession of a small bag of quilted-style leather (we were getting perilously close to $900 now), someone knocked on the fitting room door.
“Ms. Summour?” a woman called in a loud, impatient voice
“Come in.”
The door flew open, and a pair of thigh-high black leather boots strode into the room. The woman wearing them was in her late twenties, about five-seven, and very slender with pale skin and blue-black hair cut so bluntly it drew a sharp line from the back of her head to the edge of her angular jaw. Her features were more handsome than delicate: a straight nose, darkly glossed lips, and dramatically made-up eyes that darted around the room only long enough to find the reason she’d come through the door in the first place.
Ignoring Adele and me, she strode right up to Brea
With her loud, strident voice and agitated gestures, she reminded me of the kind of girls I sometimes saw in Manhattan. Intelligent, well-educated, with backgrounds of privilege and plenty, they tended to think very well of themselves and believe that things would be just great in their lives if only the damn world, and everyone in it, could revolve a little faster around them.
“… and Terri told me that you called. So, of course, I picked them up from Petra and grabbed a cab to bring them over to you myself, as you can see.”
Club Girl had been carrying a leather portfolio under her arm. Now she forcefully unzipped it and held it out for Brea
Brea
“Privacy please,” she a
I filed out with Adele. Before the door was shut, I glimpsed Brea
“I expected to review these pages an hour ago at lunch, Monica,” Brea
“It was Petra. The woman’s way behind in her work. She wasn’t finished with them…”
I wanted to remain by the fitting room and eavesdrop some more, but Adele was right there, watching. Figuring the boutique manager would object to my pressing an ear against the closed door, I threw in the towel and returned to the boutique’s showroom.
Roman was there, still on his couch. His dark eyes danced approvingly when he saw the new outfit.
“Well, well… didn’t you go all Judy Garland on me.”
Ack. “I remind you of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz?”
“No, sweetie, Esther Blodgett in A Star Is Born.”
“Oh.” Not bad. “Thanks.”
“You need a much bolder lipstick, though.”
“I’m not wearing any lipstick, Roman.”
“My point exactly.”
I sat down next to the food writer. “Listen, did you, by any chance, notice a young woman in cranberry bog boots tramping through here?”
“One can’t help but notice that girl. It’s her main goal in life.”
“Who is she?”
“Monica Purcell aka Brea
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what they call her at the office. She’s a lot like Brea