“Me? Ah, I’m not sure…” I say as I follow her around the store while she picks up different items every now and then.
“Ooo, I love this,” she says, picking up a quilted, red bag with gold accents. It’s small with a strap to wear across your body, and it’s definitely bold.
“It’s really nice,” I tell her.
“Okay, how about this…” she says, still holding the red bag. “If you could pick anything in here, what would it be?”
Her question throws me a little. I’ve never had a handbag before, but I suppose looking can’t hurt. I spin around, looking at the different displays. The big handbags seem too bulky to carry around, and the clutches don’t seem practical if you have to hold them continuously.
With another glance around, I make my way to one of the other tables, where some smaller bags are displayed. One, in particular, catches my eye, and I pick it up. It’s brown in colour, more of medium brown rather than tan or dark brown. It’s a little bigger than the red bag Lauren had picked out and more structured, but it’s still small compared to the other handbags. There’s a strap to wear it across your body and a gold rectangle placed on the front with a circle keyring type of thing that you twist to unlock the bag. It’s simple and elegant—not too big.
“That’s gorgeous,” Lauren says. “I guess you aren’t a big handbag girl either? I can’t think of anything worse than carrying one of those huge things around. So, do you like it?” she asks.
“It’s nice,” I smile at her. “If I had to pick something, I think I would choose this one.”
“Perfect,” she says, taking it from my hands with a bright smile.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I ask as she heads for the counter. She doesn’t answer me. Instead, she places the bag in front of the store assistant.
“We’ll take this one,” she says cheerily.What?
“Lauren…”
“Don’t worry, Grace, it’s fine,” she says, brushing me off.
“That will be five eighty-nine,” the lady says, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head. Five as infive hundred?
“Oh, and this!” Lauren says, handing over the red bag she had tucked under her arm.
“So, that’s nine hundred and fifty-eight dollars altogether. Is there anything else I can help you find?”
“No, thank you. Just those two,” Lauren says.
“Lauren, you can’t buy me that!” I whisper-yell to her as the lady wraps them neatly in tissue paper.
“Babe, it’s not me buying it for you.” Lauren winks, pulling a bank card out of her purse, and what Sebastian said earlier plays back in my head.Tell Lauren not to go crazy.He gave Lauren his bank card? I don’t know Lauren very well, but somehow, that doesn’t seem like a very wise decision.
It feels strange carrying asix-hundred-dollarbag around inside another bag, but Lauren doesn’t seem fazed as we leave the store.
“Where do you want to go next?” she asks, but I’m still too stunned to speak, so she smiles and links her arm with mine again before leading us to the next store.
“Come on, Grace. You have to show me,” Lauren whines from the other side of the changing room curtain, and I look over my shoulder before facing back to the mirror.
My breasts spill out of the triangle bralette, and the embroidered lace portion of it does minimal to cover my nipples, not that the sheer tulle that makes up the rest of the bra does anything either.
It’s a deep berry colour, and more sheer tulle flows from under my breasts, reaching just below my hips with a slit running through the middle about three-quarters of the way up. There’s a panel on each side of the slit with the same tulle but covered with small, embroidered flowers and outlined by lace trim. Soft shadows show through the material where my scars are, and I pull the two pieces of fabric together.
I can’t go out there in this.
The back isn’t any better, with only a thin strap for the bralette. The soft tulle scoops down from there, leaving a half-circle cut-out where it then splits right down the middle again. The material only covers half of my ass, and any movement reveals a whole lot more.
“I can guarantee you look amazing. You’ve shown me everything else today. You can’t leave this one out,” Lauren says, and I sigh. She’s right. I have shown her everything I’ve tried on today, mostly because I know nothing about fashion, and Lauren seems to know a lot. But also, because I found out that it was actually fun. We laughed at things that looked silly and oohed and aahed at the things that looked great.
With one more glance in the mirror, I take a deep breath and slowly pull back the curtain before stepping out of the changing room. I keep my arms around my middle, holding the material closed, hoping Lauren can’t see any of my scars from where she sits on the small couch.
“Shit, that’s hot,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Come on, show me the back.”
When I spin, she lets out a low whistle. “Sebastian is going to lose it.” She laughs. “Are you sure you don’t want the thong, though?”