I don’t text Harry much after that, just to tell him I’m going to bed. I had a pretty long day and it took a few unexpected turns so I figure I need some sleep.
I pull the covers back and climb into bed. I turn off my phone and shut off the lamp on my side of the room and roll over to face the wall.
Laurel is in her bed watching TV and I hope she keeps the noise down. Luckily for me, she does and I’m able to fall asleep fairly quickly.
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The next day, I wake up around noon. I must have been more tired than I thought. Laurel isn’t in her bed so she must be in the living room.
I throw the covers off of my body and climb out of bed. From the dresser I grab some clean clothes and head to the bathroom. I brush my hair out so there are no knots and turn on the shower. It heats up pretty quickly and I undress myself.
I use some fruity shampoo out of my little travel bottle and a minty smelling body wash. I forgot to bring shaving cream so I shave my legs with soap.
I rinse the conditioner out of my hair and turn the water off. There’s steam on the mirror so I don’t see myself which is probably a good thing, I look like an ogre when I first wake up.
I wrap my hair up in a towel and dry myself off with another. When I’m dry, I pull on some sweatpants and a T-shirt to lounge around for the day. I don’t think Mrs. Stratton had any special plans today so there’s no reason to dress up.
I blow dry my hair and pull it back into a ponytail. I decide against putting makeup on since I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.
I leave the bathroom and turn on my cell phone. I have 2 new messages, both from Harry.
Good morning :)
And
I’m going to take you to a fancy restaurant for dinner tonight, I hope you have another pretty dress handy ;) Be ready at 6.
I get butterflies at the second text and I feel myself become nervous. I’ve never been to a fancy restaurant, only pizza places and the dinner in town near my house. I don’t know how fancy I’m supposed to dress or if I’m supposed to speak a certain way or act a certain way or drink with my pinky up.
I pull Laurel’s drawers open and search through her clothes to find a dress. As I’m searching, the door opens and Laurel walks into the room.
“What are you looking for?” She never really gets mad at me and I think when I go through her clothes it makes her happy. She has nicer clothes than I do and when I want to wear something of hers I think she feels excited.
“A dress to wear to dinner tonight,” I answer, shuffling through her dresses.
“Why? We were just going to eat down in the dining room.”
“I have a date,” I remind her.
“Oh yeah. I forgot. Are you going somewhere nice?”
“I guess, he said he was taking me to a fancy restaurant and I should wear a dress,” I answer.
“None of those dresses are going to help you,” she tells me.
“Yeah, I can’t seem to find anything I like in here, no offense.”
“None taken, we have totally different styles,” she says. She slips some shoes on and brushes her hair.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“The question is, where are we going.”
“What?”
“We’re going shopping,” she says, slinging her purse onto her shoulder.
“Oh. No, no way. I hate shopping for dresses, nothing ever looks right. I don’t have any money anyway.” I despise dress shopping.
“That’s okay, it’s my treat,” she smiles.
“I really don’t want to go shopping,” I argue.
“Hey mom, can you come shopping with Piper and me?” Laurel yells into the living room. I guess I lost this discussion.
“Sure,” her mom answers.
I shake my head and pull on some tennis shoes. Laurel may have gotten me to go shopping with her but I’m not changing my clothes or even wearing shoes without holes in them.
I grab my cell phone and follow Laurel into the living room to find her mom already ready to go.
“Where should we go?” she asks.
“I don’t know, we can just ask the taxi driver to take us somewhere,” Laurel says. She’s always so smart, note the sarcasm.
We leave the room and close the door behind us. It only takes a minute to get down to the lobby and we call a taxi to the curb in front of the hotel.
“Where to?” The man in the driver’s seat asks.
“Do you know of any nice clothing stores?” Mrs. Stratton asks the man.
“Sure, there’s one not too far from here,” he answers, putting the cab into drive and pulling away from the curb.
It doesn’t take very long to get to the store, maybe 10 minutes tops. The building is 2 stories and there are some nice clothes in the windows on the first floor.
“No charge,” the man says when Laurel’s mom holds out some money.
“You’re so kind, thank you,” she says with a smile. I can tell his gesture made her day.
We get out of the taxi and walk into the store. It’s really nice with a white tile floor and red walls. There are racks and shelves all over and a big check out center in the middle. A lot of women and teenage girls are walking around looking at clothes and going to the fitting rooms to try some on. I’m guessing this is an all-girl clothing store since I don’t see any guys.
“Let’s go look over here,” Laurel says, grabbing my arm and pulling me over to a rack of nice dresses. Mrs. Stratton follows and sits on a little bench to watch us look and give her opinions.
“How about this one?” Laurel holds up a dark blue dress with thin straps and a square neckline.
I shrug. “It’s alright.” I’m not really sure how to judge dresses.
“You can try it on,” she says and hangs it over her arm to continue looking.
I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to be looking for so I just let Laurel look for me. She’s got a lot more experience with looking at dresses than I do and I’m not about to try.
She finds a few more dresses and leads me back to the dressing rooms. She tells the lady behind the counter how many items I have and hands them to me.
“Do you want me to come back with you?” She asks.
I shake my head. I don’t want anyone else’s opinion on the dresses until I know what I think of them.
I find an empty room and hang the number card on the peg by the door. There are 4 dresses and I decide to start with a reddish one. It has sleeves like a T-shirt and I it comes down to the tops of my knees. I move around in it and look at myself in the mirror and decide I really don’t like it.
I pull the dress off and put it back on its hanger. I examine the other dresses and grab the black one she picked out. It’s a lot like hers but it’s strapless. Before I even try it on I have a feeling I know how I’ll feel about it and once I get it in place I know I was right. The material is weird on my skin and I hate how it makes my body look. I take it off and put it back on the hanger without a second look.
There’s a purple dress on the hook and I kind of like it but I’m not sure. I slide the material on over my head and let it fall to my knees. It’s a spaghetti strap dress, very flowy around my waist. I look in the mirror and examine the dress. It looks nice but I don’t think it’s something Harry would like. Although, what do I know? I didn’t think he would like me and I turned out to be wrong.
I take it off and hang it back up. If this last one doesn’t look good I’ll buy the purple one.
The last dress left is the blue one Laurel originally picked out. Now that I’m seeing it up close I have to admit I kind of like it.
I take it off the hanger and slide it on. I zip up the zipper in the back as far as I can without help and look in the mirror. My breath hitches in my throat as I take in my appearance. It looks a lot better than I thought it would, and a lot more sophisticated. The square neckline looks amazing on me and the bottom of the dress is right at the middle of my thighs; a perfect length.
“Laurel,” I call. I want to have her opinion.
There’s a knock at the door and I pull it open. She looks me up and down and her eyebrows shoot up.
“This is definitely your dress,” she says. “Change back into your clothes so we can find you some shoes to wear with it.”
Laurel doesn’t really do elaborate compliments and I’m happy when I hear that she likes it. My confidence is boosted a thousand times when I look at myself again in the mirror.
I close the door to the room and change back into my sweats and tennis shoes. Suddenly I don’t feel as pretty as I did moments before. Maybe Laurel is onto something with her habit of dressing nice all the time.
I grab all of the dresses and leave the three that I didn’t like with the lady behind the counter. Mrs. Stratton and Laurel are sitting on a little bench right outside the dressing rooms and when they see me they stand up. I follow them over to the shoes which are on the other side of the store and look at the clothes on the way there. I’d love to live here so I could visit this store, there are a lot of cute clothes here.
After about a minute we find the shoes and Laurel tells me to sit down while she looks. I’m glad she does because I’m not very good at making outfits, let alone one for my first date ever.
I sit and watch as she and Mrs. Stratton look at the shoes and discuss and smile and shake their heads at various pairs of heels. Finally laurel walks over to me with a plain black pair of pumps and tells me to try them on. For heels they fit really well and they would go nicely with the dress.
I stand up and nearly fall over. This is going to take some getting used to. I grab Laurel for support and steady myself. Once I’ve got my balance back, I walk back and forth in the aisle a few times and smile at Laurel.
“I like them,” I say.
“Then let’s go!”
I follow her to the check out and set my things on the counter. The cashier is about my age and looks snooty and a little amused that normal people like us are shopping in such a nice store like this. I get a bad vibe from her and instantly don’t like her.
Laurel pays for the items and the girl behind the counter hands her the bag. She gives me a disgusted look as we walk outside to find a cab.
On the way back to the hotel, I get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hope it’s just nerves for the date but I have a feeling it’s something else. Something worse.