Snarky Teenager gave a quick look back into the store. “Great party,” she said as she turned the silver lock.
Elly enviously watched the two of them make their way toward the parking lot, one lurching like a zombie, the other jogging in place. They had it all—youth, excitement, promise—and all she had waiting for her outside the parking garage was a day of paperwork and an empty heart to cling to as she drifted off to sleep that night.
Dennis darted to the left and threw up over the side of the garage, onto a parked red car. He looked at Elly with heavy eyes. “I’m sorry,” he moaned.
“That’s okay,” she said as she patted his shoulder. “It could be worse.” You could have lost the man you loved.
Chapter Eighteen
This much Elly knew: shopping alone was even worse than shopping with friends, which was already awful. She needed an outfit, probably a dress, something fabulous, chic, bohemian, and retro—all those things, probably—and there wasn’t anything in her closet that would work. In fact, she wasn’t sure she had any items that would fit those categories to begin with, and thus Elly was at a department store, hopelessly wandering the halogen-lit aisles, gazing longingly from one pencil-thin mannequin to the next.
A buoyant salesgirl approached her. Her nametag read “Megan!” Of course.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Elly allowed a thin smile to stretch over her face. “I need an outfit.”
“Okay, what’s the occasion?” Convincing a major celebrity that she has terrible taste. Do you have a section for that?
“A party. A really nice party.”
“Is it a birthday party?”
Elly shook her head. “More like … an evening out, I guess.”
“I have just the thing.” Elly dutifully followed the salesgirl’s swinging black ponytail into the women’s plus-size section, where clothes came to die. Megan stopped in front of a line of matching head-to-toe pantsuits in different neon shades—teal, yellow, and red. A bright-pink hibiscus blew out from the breast area. Elly could never understand why the makers of plus-size clothing didn’t just make cute clothing in bigger sizes. It’s not like when you hit a size sixteen, you suddenly developed an unfortunate affection for splashy floral prints and ill-fitting capris, which Elly had plenty of. Was an adorable dress that made her look like a size eight too much to ask?
She gestured to the hideousness hanging on the wall. “This wasn’t, um, exactly what I had in mind. I need something a little more … fresh.”
Megan’s eyes narrowed under her heavy bangs. “I totally get it. Follow me.”
Elly trailed after her again, until they stood in front of a plain black dress with a gold chain belt. “What do you think about this?” she asked.
Better than the first, thought Elly, but this wasn’t going to cut it, either. She glanced at her watch. She only had three hours before the limo came. The limo. “Megan,” she turned to the salesgirl, “I’m going out tonight with Lola Plumb.”
After the screaming and the gushing subsided, Megan turned out to be very helpful, indeed.
Turned out that even carpet was tricky in four-inch stilettos. Elly almost lost her footing twice on her way out the door. Step by careful step, she eased herself along the hallway, down the stairs and into Posies, where Anthony was busy arranging date palm pods and casablanca lilies into a narrow cylinder. “Add some billy balls,” said Elly with a smile. “They’ll punch up the color a little.”
Anthony stepped back. “I … was about to do that, anyway.” He sighed. “Not really. Why are you so good?”