With that, Amber practically pushed her into the room and closed the door. Katie leaned against the door and took a deep breath. She really needed a moment to collect her thoughts and compose herself. Hmm, that seemed to be her theme of the day!
In this instance, ironically, the cause of her needing a few minutes was the same reason that she did not HAVE that luxury at the moment…Jason.
Pragmatic as always, she shook off those thoughts and set about the task at hand. She put down her purse and picked up the hanger from the ornately-crafted hook on the back of the door. It was a lovely and feminine blue silk sun dress with a sweetheart neckline and crisscrossing straps down the back, a white cashmere button-up sweater and adorable white wedges with crisscrossing straps that echoed the pattern in the dress.
Quickly pushing down her jeans and removing her tank top, she slipped the dress over her head, luxuriating in the way that the soft silk whispered over her skin. She got a sudden mental image of Jason's hands lightly trailing over her skin in all the same places that the fabric was touching her and had to put a hand against the wall to keep from tipping over as her knees buckled.
NO TIME FOR THAT NOW, LAWSON!
She stood up straight, shook off the short moment of erotic dizziness, and turned to look at herself in the three-way mirror. She was pleasantly surprised by what she saw.
The dress fit her perfectly. It hung well, and the draping hit her curves in all the right places. She found herself starting to wish that Jason could see her in it and had to nip that in the bud. Best to move on quickly to the accessories.
She slipped her feet into the sandals and grabbed the sweater that was hanging on the back of the door. Katie quickly folded her clothes into a neat pile and placed her Converse tennis shoes on top. She grabbed her purse and headed out of the dressing room to the front of the store where she saw Amber behind a black onyx counter top.
“Thank you so much,” Katie said sincerely, “This is such a pretty dress and the shoes fit perfectly. Did you just guess my shoe size?”
Amber looked up, “Whoa, that was record time! You’re like Wonder Woman! Well, damn, the dress looks amazing on you! And, no, I didn’t guess. Jason told me you wore a size 5 ½ shoe.”
“That’s so weird,” Katie mused, “how would Jason know what size shoe I wear?”
Katie suddenly noticed that Amber was locking up the register and gathering up her purse, and she put a hand out to stop her, saying, “Oh, wait! Before you lock up, how much do I owe you? I didn’t see any tags.”
As Katie spoke, she was fumbling through her purse to try and retrieve her wallet, at the same time as she was attempting to balance her folded jeans, tank and sneakers. Oh, and not get her dress wrinkled, of course. She felt like a klutz. She was sure if Amber were trying this whole act, she would just wave her hand and her wallet would magically appear in the palm. But grace and elegance had never been Katie's strong suit.
“Oh I took them off, honey. And the payment has already been taken care of,” Amber smiled as she came around the counter. She was carrying her purse as well as a beautiful silver and white tote bag. She reached over and deftly grasped the jeans, tank, and shoes from Katie’s hand and placed them in the bag, then handed the bag back to Katie.
Katie was confused and wanted to seek clarification, but at the same time her brain did take a split second to stop and let the little voice in the back of her head point out to her, “See? Told you she'd look graceful if she tried to handle those...”
She shook her head to clear it of that thought, and then asked, “Taken care of? Wait, what do you mean...did Jas…? No. I can’t let him do that. How much do I owe you?”
Katie put on her 'insistent lawyer' voice and held out her wallet. She did not often deal with Jason or his Harper's Crossing minions, though, so she was out of practice when it came with talking to people to whom her 'insistent lawyer' voice meant exactly nothing.
“It's out of my hands at this point,” Amber said in a cheerful tone, putting up her hands in surrender, “You'll have to take that up with Jason.”
“Great. I need that about as much as I need a huge, sweltering, cold sore,” Katie mumbled, the good mood that had begun when she looked at herself in the dressing room mirror beginning to crumble. But then she realized that was silly. She couldn't let Jason ruin her high spirits. Especially, she begrudgingly admitted, not when he probably thought he was doing something nice for her, not overstepping. This was one of his grand Jason gestures. She had to take it as such.
Making a concerted effort to brighten and look at the good side of a situation in which she felt increasingly out of control, Katie said, “Oh well, I guess this is as close as I will get to my own real life Pretty Woman moment.”
She paused a moment, and then the meaning implicit in the reference hit her. Without thinking, she blurted out, “Not that I’m a prostitute!”
Amber burst out laughing so hard that it caused her to bend over at the waist. Katie realized what she said might be considered to some a little amusing, but this reaction seemed a tad out of proportion.
Katie shrunk inside. Gah! Clearly she had made some hilarious faux pas. Yeah. That grace and elegance thing had not gotten any better in the last five minutes, it seemed.
Amber looked up at Katie wiping her eyes, and – clearly taking in her stricken look – said through her laughter, “Sorry! Oh, sorry, hon. I'm not laughing at you. It’s just...that's exactly what Jas SAID that you would say! He told me - and I quote - ‘She will be upset at first but then it will probably remind her of Pretty Woman, minus the whole hooker thing.’ It’s like he’s in your head!”
“No it’s not!” Katie automatically retorted, and then realized that the extreme quickness with which she shot that answer back may have actually disproved the point that she was trying
to make. Backpedaling, she explained, “I mean...he doesn’t know me that well. We grew up together, but, you know...we haven’t seen each other in years.”
Katie was confused. She couldn’t help the twinge of (
something that if she didn’t know any better she would have called)
jealousy that swept over her when she heard Amber refer to Jason as Jas. But...that was ridiculous. Everyone called him Jas, or J. It didn’t mean anything. But the familiarity in her tone just rubbed Katie the wrong way.
And even if it did ‘mean something’...why should she care? Seriously! She had NO BUSINESS feeling anything about any relationship Jason had in his life.
Realizing how her outburst must have sounded she tried her best to recover. “I just mean...people change a lot in 10 years. I knew Jason a lifetime ago.”
“Okay, you just keep telling yourself that,” Amber said, and flashed her a very knowing smile as they walked together toward the arched double doors at the front of the store. Why was that the second time that she had heard that today? First Jason had said it, and now Amber. Damn, she thought, what was with these people?
As Amber held open the door for her to walk through, Katie said “Well, thank you again for all your help. I love the dress! You're a lifesaver, honestly. It was really nice meeting you.”
“Thanks, and it was nice meeting you too,” Amber said as she turned to lock the door, “but if you just wait one second while I lock up, I’ll head over with you.”
Katie stopped and waited. “Oh are you going to the luncheon?”
“Yeah, of course! Oh...I mean...I thought you knew. I am one of Sophie’s bridesmaids.”
Katie laughed, “You can add that to the long list of things I've spent my morning trying to play catch-up on. No, I didn’t know. But please don't take it personally. I just got into town this morning and haven’t really been brought up to speed yet. Were you at the fitting? I don’t remember seeing you there. But, then again, I was in the back most of the time getting my dress pinned.”
“No, I couldn’t make it. My assistant store manager called in sick this morning. It sounded like it might be more than a 24 hour bug, and with me up at Whisper Lake for the wedding the next few days, I figured there was a good possibility the shop would be shut down for the rest of the weekend after this morning. I decided I'd better keep it open today, at least for part of the day. And it's a good thing I did, otherwise you might have been going to this luncheon in jeans and a tank top,” Amber smiled as they started off across the parking lot together.
“Yeah, that would
not
have been good,” Katie laughed. She liked Amber and (other than the momentary insane twinge of jealousy) she was really enjoying her company.
It dawned on Katie that, in California, she really didn’t have any ‘friends.’ She had colleagues, but they were all so competitive that it didn't really count. Plus, they really didn’t talk about anything which was not related to the firm, the law...and sometimes, briefly, certain reality shows they were interested in at the moment. Hey, everyone needs some sort of mindless escape! If you could find it in 40 minutes of Survivor, then God Bless. That was Katie's philosophy. But they never talked about anything personal.
Katie realized with a jolt that there were a couple of her associates – people that before this moment she would have described as being 'close' – that she did not even know the most basic of details about...such as where they had grown up...or their marital status!
Damn.
She realized she had really missed having friends...not just “friends”...but actual friends.
“So, how do you know Sophie?” asked Katie. She figured that, in a break from the pattern she had established with the people at work, she would
start
this relationship by finding out the details of Amber's life.
“Well, let’s see,” Amber took a deep breath before she began, the first indication Katie had that this might be an actual Story-With-A-Capital-S, “I moved to town about six years ago. Right when Sophie was in high school, actually, and we had...um...a...mutual friend, I guess you could say.”
Amber looked down at the ground, avoiding eye contact with Katie, and Katie felt the return of the twinge, even though she had nothing to base it on but pure instinct. Amber shook her head a little and continued, “She was going through a pretty rough time. She needed a good listener and that just happens to be one of my specialties. Before I opened Bella, I was going to school to be a psychologist. Even then, though, fashion was always my passion. When I see people walk out of my store feeling like a million bucks in my designs, it feels like my own personal form of therapy.
“I hired Sophie part-time when I first opened the boutique four years ago. We always got along really well, but we got even closer when I lost my brother a few years ago,” Amber finished the story, sadness coloring her voice when she reached the last part.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” Katie touched her arm sympathetically. She had forgotten how easily people shared their life stories in small towns. She guessed she had been living in the ‘big city’ so long that she was really out of touch with small town life.
“Thanks,” Amber said with a melancholy smile, “He was a really great guy. There was a car bombing in Iraq, and he was caught in it...my mom still has a really rough time dealing with it, but I try to get through it by choosing to focus on the good stuff. He was only 11 months younger than me, you know...sometimes we seemed more like twins than just siblings.”
Amber was quiet for a couple of steps and Katie sensed that it was best to just let her process her thoughts in that moment without saying anything. After a few beats, Amber continued, “Sophie really helped me get through that time. She taught me some really great coping methods that she had learned in grief counseling. I love her so much, she's such a sweet girl. I'm so happy she and Bobby finally got together, aren’t you?”
Amber finished her story and turned to Katie as she asked the last question, just as they walked into Salvatore’s.
“Oh, gosh, yes!” Katie replied, maybe a little too enthusiastically, she realized as she heard herself. It had just occurred to her as she processed Amber's question that...GEE...she didn't even know what the 'finally' entailed...in fact, she had absolutely no idea what Sophie and Bobby’s path to romance had been.
She knew that they had known each other since grade school, and that Bobby was a couple years older than Sophie. She also knew that they had gotten together about six months ago, and then gotten engaged three months ago.
She knew now that this wasn’t – as had immediately jumped to her mind in the CVS parking lot and Jason had been so quick to point out – a shotgun wedding.
She knew all of that. What she didn't know was their love story.
Dang!
She felt a stab of regret that bordered on grief. She was SO out of the loop!
Reminding herself that she was the one who had wanted it that way didn't really make her feel any better.
Katie took a deep breath as they walked further into the restaurant. She let the wave of sadness she was feeling go ahead and wash over her unchecked, because she knew it would be worse if she tried to push it down. Better to just feel it, acknowledge it, and move on.
She and Amber strode through the fancy restaurant and entered the banquet room in the back of Salvatore’s. She put on a smile and resolved to let that smile reach down inside her and influence her heart, spreading its joy so that it became a reflection of her true feelings and not just the instrument that she used to hide them.