“I can’t—”
“Terri, when you get to my age and everything is going south, you need strong foundation garments. But you, my dear, are so young and firm you could run hurdles and not bounce. You are to wear nothing whatever under this gown. No panties to show a line, no bra to show seams. Naked. Like a wood nymph.”
“No,” Terri said, “absolutely not.” She reached for the tie but Elaine put her hand over it.
“When you’re forty-five I want you to tell me about the parties you missed and the dresses you didn’t wear because...because... What was your reason again? You’re afraid of what people will say?”
Terri was looking at herself in the mirror. The dress was really pretty. It slid down her body as though it had been poured over her. The only flaws were the seams in her undies. If she wore nothing under the dress, those lines wouldn’t be there.
Elaine had been dressing people for twenty years, and she knew that look. She handed Terri a big round mirror and turned her around.
The dress really did expose her entire back. What with all the lifting of motors and chains, etc., there was a lot of muscle there. Muscle that gave shape to her back.
Sometimes, Terri thought, she did get fed up with trying to live down what her mother had done. Worse was that it didn’t seem to be working.
She moved the hand mirror to the side and looked at the front of the dress. “Full commando, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
She and Elaine smiled at each other in the mirror.
* * *
As Nate drove to the dance, Stacy’s words were ringing in his ears. She’d been told that he and Terri had “lived” together and he’d tried to explain. But it hadn’t gone well, especially not when he added the truth about not liking the office she’d created for him.
“I was trying to help your career—the one you said you wanted. I wasn’t trying to make you give up your free spirit to work in an office. It’s what I did to make a home for the man you told me you were. I never saw you in any clothes that weren’t made by some Italian designer. Forgive me, but I thought that was who you were. But no. It seems you’re denim and boat shoes and you want a woman who drools over you.”
“Terri doesn’t—”
“If you defend her to me, your fiancée, the woman you asked to marry you, so help me, I’ll make you sorry. Damn you! But you’ve cast me in the role of some uptight, priggish female who’s trying to force you to...to play bridge and someday be the mayor of a little Southern town. I don’t know if you’re the man I fell in love with or you’re some guy who spends his days in a motorboat. And you know what, I don’t think you know either. Nathaniel, you don’t need to decide which woman you want, you need to decide who you actually are.”
With that, she left the room and Nate nearly fell into a chair. It seemed that everyone he knew was angry at him.
* * *
Nate wasn’t there. That was Terri’s first thought as she searched the crowded dance floor. She had a red cashmere shawl that Elaine had lent her over her dress. An end was flung over her shoulder and pinned. But it was warm inside and unless she wanted to start sweating, she was going to have to remove it—and reveal her bare back.
Her second thought was that she was an idiot. Why was she standing against a wall and looking for some other woman’s man? Or was he? She’d seen Stacy at her booth during the two days of the fair. She’d been talking enthusiastically to the many people who stopped to look at her designs.
One time Stacy had given a quick wave and a smile at Terri. She knew Stacy had been told about her and Nate “living” together. She’d expected Stacy to be livid. You know, like in every book and movie and girl fight since the beginning of time. Women didn’t fight to the death over recipes. They went to battle over some man.
But Stacy’s smile had been genuine. Or was it? Terri wondered. Should she watch alleyways for possible assassins?
She looked up to see the Turner Twins standing in front of her. They had on identical tuxedos, perfectly fitted and classically plain. It cost thousands to look that simple—and it made them look even more gorgeous than they usually did. “Got your names sewn into your cuffs?”
“We’ll take them off and you can look.”
Terri couldn’t stop her laugh. “Don’t you two have dates?”
“The world is our date,” Brett said.
“If we need a chaperone, will you volunteer?” Brent asked.
At first she didn’t know what they meant, but they were looking her up and down with little smirks. The floor-length dress with its long sleeves, and the big wool throw covered her.
“Who dressed you? Your grandmother?”
“Actually, it was Elaine.” Terri unwrapped the throw and handed it to Brett. When they saw the dress clinging to her body, their eyes widened.