excitement. At times I thought what I looked like was more important to her than it was to me.
First, we went to her beauty salon.
"I see where you got the idea for the tint," her beautician, Dawn, said when she set eyes on me. And just nodded and then went into a discussion of my hair. Dawn wanted to do something different from what And wanted to do, but she gave in when she saw how determined Ann was. When Dawn had
completed the cut and style, it looked like I had a carbon copy of Ami's hairdo. She stood beside me checking out what looked to me like every single strand to be sure we matched.
"I can't take you to lunch at Mario's dressed like that and wearing those ugly shoes," she said and drove quickly to Ooh-La-La, a boutique in the mall.
What surprised me was that the salesgirl had the dress all set out for me. Ami had apparently called ahead and picked out a charmeuse and chiffon kneelength spaghetti-strap dress. It had tan charmeuse ties at the Empire bustline and was ruffled at the hem. When I put it on, it felt like tissue paper against my body.
The shoes that matched were natural wood wedge slides with buckles. Ami said I had to have a handbag to go along with it and bought me a distressed handbag with whipstitching. I felt like such a nerd; I knew practically nothing about style and the latest fashions.
"It all looks as good on her as it does on you," the salesgirl, Deirdre, said, and I realized Ami had the exact same dress and shoes, as well as the handbag. Why was she duplicating her own wardrobe for me? I wondered.
"I'm starved!" Ami suddenly exclaimed. Of course, considering how little she had eaten for breakfast, that didn't surprise me. "We need fuel before we can continue. Buying the right things is work. Few people realize how hard it is, especially Wade. Which reminds me. Deirdre, put it all on my bill," she cried with a wave of her hand while she hooked my arm and rushed me out the door.
"I left my clothes and shoes in the changing room!" I screamed.
"Good, and good riddance to it all. Who wants to take that ugly stuff back to our house anyway?" She laughed, and we drove off to have lunch at her favorite upscale restaurant.
I couldn't believe the prices on the menu. Every-thing was so expensive. Ami ordered a fancy chicken salad, but for someone who said she was starving, she ate very little. I didn't eat much either. I was very nervous. My sexy dress made me so selfconscious, I was sure everyone's eyes were on me, especially the men, who were all dressed in sport jackets with ties or suits. Many knew Ami and stopped by to say hello, and when they did, I could feel their eyes moving over my breasts. She introduced me as her young companion. Just as with Mrs.
Stone at the hotel, she made me sound like some sort of exchange student.
I hadn't had all that much experience being with an older, pretty woman who was married, but I couldn't help noticing how Ami flirted with every man, no matter what he looked like. Some took her hand and kissed her cheek, but no matter what, she teased with her eyes, held on to their hands practically until they walked away, and said many things that were suggestive, turning even the most innocent words into something sexual. When one man, Chris O'Connor, said he hadn't seen her for a while, Ami replied, "You're just not looking hard enough, Chris. It's important that it's hard enough."
He turned crimson, right to the tip of his nose, stuttered and stammered, and hurried away to join his group. Ami followed his retreat with a laugh and winked at me.
"See how men are so easy to manipulate? They could be made of putty, for all I know."
Why did she take so much pleasure in teasing them? What if her behavior got back to Wade? I thought. Wouldn't he be very upset? Why didn't that concern her? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask when suddenly Basil walked in with a woman who looked half his age holding onto his arm.
"Well, isn't this a co-inky-dink," Ami muttered, and gave Basil a big smile.
He nodded at her, but walked on to a table in the far corner of the room.
"You think he's embarrassed?" Ann whispered, leaning toward me. "He's not embarrassed. That's not why he's not coming over to us. He just doesn't want the girl to know he has a daughter-in-law older than she is."
She glared at him, her eyes narrowing darkly.
"Why does it upset you so much? I thought you told me you knew he was like that," I said, and she looked at me sharply for a moment before smiling.
"Oh, it doesn't upset me. Not really. Well, maybe a little. He is family, and what he does can bring embarrassment to us all," she explained.
But what about what she did? I thought. No. There was something else. It was like a message coming from somewhere, a message growing louder, louder. I looked about the room. Was that Noble by the kitchen doorway?
He turned, and I saw it was just another waiter.
"Oh, let's get out of here," Ami declared. "We have a lot more important shopping to do, and I want to get home early enough to have a massage. We're going out tonight, remember. Wade's splurging on an elegant dinner, whether he likes it or not."
She signaled for the check.
The food she was leaving on her plate would feed two young orphans lunch, I thought. I couldn't help thinking about it. After spending so much of my life counting pennies, saving old ribbons and paper bags, mending socks, and washing clothing until it all faded, it was hard to witness someone spending dollars un-wisely or too loosely. I suppose it would always be that way for me.
At every boutique and department store we visited afterward, the salesgirls immediately knew what Ami wanted for me. They brought us directly to the garments, the shoes, the blouses and skirts, and in every case, what we were buying was either very close to something Ami had or exactly the same. Before we left the last department store, she took me to the jewelry counter, where she picked out what she called an inexpensive dress watch.
"You gave me one already," I reminded her.