Pictures of You

Chapter 39

39

Drew

“It doesn’t have to be a whole suit,” Evie says. “Just get pants and a nice shirt.” We must be the only two students at Dom’s and Ag’s worried about our formal budget.

“What’s your dress like?” I ask. I don’t know why—I don’t know anything about dresses or what I’ll do with this information when she gives it to me. The formal committee has gone for a “great couples from literature” theme and fancy dress is optional. Or compulsory in Evie’s case.

“I can’t decide. There’s one that’s pinks and oranges, kind of floaty, but sexy, with tiers, sort of a floaty go-go girl situation, you know? Could be a sixties vibe, if we could think of a flower power couple …”

I am none the wiser.

Formals—fancy dress or otherwise—aren’t my thing. I’m more comfortable in a darkroom or under a dark sky. Definitely behind the camera and not in front of it. And not dressed up. With small talk. I’ve been this close to telling Evie just to go to the formal with Oliver so many times, but something always stops me. I think it’s stubbornness. Right or wrong, there’s something about being invited by Oliver Roche’s girlfriend to her own formal that gives me some kind of kick. So that’s how I find myself in a suit store with Evie on a Friday after school in February, determined to put myself into a social situation I’m going to loathe.

She pushes me into a changing room with a handful of shirts and snaps the curtain closed. “The other dress is this whole Pride and Prejudice vibe—Empire waist, soft blue, super-feminine.”

I can see her as Lizzy Bennet, with her hair up, curls framing her face.

“I haven’t worn it since …”

“Since what?”

“Never mind.”

She’s gone uncharacteristically quiet, and I open the curtain, even though the white shirt she handed me is still flapping loose. “Okay, go-go girl. What are you hiding?”

It’s so not like her to be coy about something.

“You have to promise not to tease me about this,” she begins.

I try to resist smiling. She has me captive now.

“How bad could it be?”

She steps forward, her fingers brushing my skin while she threads buttons through the holes on my shirt, and she looks up into my face, as if she’s about to share a state secret. “All right, Drew. Here it is. Ready?” She takes a deep breath. “I’m a card-carrying member of the Regency Literature Reenactment Society,” she whispers. “We get dressed up and hold balls and dance La Boulangere.”

I stare at her. This was not the confession I anticipated. It’s also not a surprise, since I discovered this when I googled her the first day we met. “Fascinating …”

She twists my wrists so she can fix my cuffs. “Yes, it is.” She glances at me, as if to check how I’m taking the news that she’s even more of a nerd than I’d allowed for.

“Are you searching for a suitable husband?” I ask.

She thumps me. “If I was, you’d be struck off the list!”

“I wasn’t aware I was in the running. Also, I’m seventeen?”

“Anyway, I haven’t been lately. I’ve just been … busy.”

Ah, yes. Busy with the future husband material that is Oliver. Can’t see him showing up at a Regency ball. Not even for Evie. I guess we have that in common.

“What other weird hobbies don’t I know about?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes. “All right, then, if we’re putting it all on the table,” she says. “I propagate plants.”

“Huh?”

“Plants. I take cuttings and grow them in water until they strike roots, and then I plant the seedlings. I’ve got two lots on the go—one at Bree’s place and another set in Newcastle that Dad looks after while I’m here!”

“You are positively middle-aged.”

“You are positively irritating. I should just go to the formal with my boyfriend!”

Here we go. “Do you want to?”

Please say no.

She looks straight at me, like she’s considering it. I silently will her to choose me.

“If you wear your costume,” I say, before I can stop myself, “I’ll dress up too.”

What. The. Fuck. I don’t even want to go in the optional modern dress. Now I’m offering to fulfill all her Mr. Darcy fantasies?

Her eyes brighten. “You would do that? Dress in period costume?”

I guess I’ll have to now.

She is delighted , and throws herself at me in a vigorous hug, before grabbing me by the wrist and dragging me through the store. “We need to get you a poet shirt.”

I regret this already.

“And a waistcoat. And a neck cravat. You can just wear normal straight-leg pants.”

“Thank God for that. I thought you’d put me in breeches …”

She looks at me thoughtfully. “Would you wear breeches?”

“Evie!” I grab her arms and spin her to face me. “I really like you, but there’s a limit.”

She laughs. “Yes, okay. Normal pants. But the poet shirt is a must.”

“For when I emerge from a pond?”

“Are you a closet Regency romance fan, Drew?”

Hardly! “ Pride and Prejudice is Mum’s comfort watch,” I explain.

Her smile widens. And suddenly I don’t care what I wear to this formal. Or who’s there. Or what they think. I just want to make her this happy, all the time.