Chapter Seventeen #4
Gratitude shone in her eyes. “Thanks. I felt so bad for having to back out. It’s kind of a joke at this point, right? Trying to keep a Queen this season. And you’ve done so much to help us all out. I didn’t want to dump this on you.”
“Dump away.” I came around the counter to offer her a hug, closing my eyes as she held me close.
Despite everything, I liked this. I liked this feeling of family, of doing things for each other.
Of being someone that people could lean on.
I hadn’t been brought up with a whole lot of that, when it had just been Mom and me.
But then Emily had come to town and changed all that.
And ever since then, it was like my heart had opened up wider and wider, allowing more and more people in.
“So what are you going to do?” Lulu asked. She opened her water and took a sip.
“I don’t know,” I said. Nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned honesty.
“Maybe you can get Emily to do it again,” Lulu suggested.
I made a noise of agreement, but I needed to think. I had about thirty-six hours until Faire started on Saturday morning, and we needed a Queen.
When I got home that night, I opened the front closet, where the Queen’s costume was back from the cleaners, safely under its plastic bag.
I carried it into my room, hanging it on a hook on the back of the door.
I hadn’t mentioned the latest Queen crisis to Emily; we’d been so busy that there hadn’t been time.
I should have said something. I should have dragged her over tonight to refit the dress on her.
But there wasn’t time. She needed me at the bookstore tomorrow; it promised to be another day of kids procrastinating on their summer reading lists.
When would I have time to alter the dress?
Mom had to work tomorrow, she couldn’t do it, either.
Just for fun, I thought about asking for Mitch’s help, then I pictured him with a needle and thread; that was the comic relief I needed right now.
Then a solution hit my brain. The most ridiculous one. The simplest one. The most obvious one.
Eyes still fixed on the Queen dress, I pulled my T-shirt over my head.
My shorts followed it to the floor, and I reached for the plastic-covered costume.
I couldn’t get into it fully on my own, but I pulled on the undergown and swam my way into the blue and gold brocade.
The lacings were loose so nothing sat right, and it was a few minutes of pulling and adjusting before it was even sort of on.
These outfits were definitely a two-person job.
I turned and looked at myself in the full-length mirror in the corner of my bedroom.
The mirror that had seen so many outfits growing up.
Countless first-day-of-school fits. My senior prom dress.
The dress I wore at my high school graduation.
I’d lived most of my childhood in the reflection of this mirror, but looking at myself now, I felt different. I felt new. I felt right.
Lulu and I were about the same height, so when I’d re-hemmed the dress for her, I’d re-hemmed it for me too. Even half-laced, I could see where the panels would come together, and it looked…
Well, it looked right. Not too big, the way it had been on Emily.
Not too small, the way it had been on Stacey.
Now it looked as though all the iterations of this costume that we’d gone through this summer had led to this.
Had led to me. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Queen Dress had reached its final destination.
I tried to look at myself with a more critical eye, but it was hard to find a flaw.
The royal blue in the skirt brought out my eyes, made them look an even deeper blue.
I twisted my hair up and snagged it with a claw clip, approximating the Queen’s hairstyle.
I wasn’t a redhead, but it would still work.
Especially if we left little tendrils down to curl around my temples…
Yeah. This could work.
I snapped a quick selfie and, still in the costume, perched on the edge of my bed and sent a text to Emily. Okay, hear me out…
I typed my idea, hitting Send before I could change my mind, and tossed the phone to my bed before I could do something absurd like unsend the message. While I waited for her to answer I rose to my feet again, looking at the girl in the mirror…
No. The woman in the mirror.
There was so much I had to be afraid of right now.
My first attempt at being an adult had failed, sending me home to live in my childhood bedroom.
I’d been lingering here for weeks now, not sure what to do next, not sure how to be an adult.
My future was nothing but a big question mark. But this? I was sure about this.
My phone buzzed behind me on my bed, but I waited a minute before I checked it. I hoped that Emily agreed with me, because I’d made my decision. I knew what I was going to do.
All season I’d been leading the Queen around the Faire. Maybe it was time to just…
Lead.