I pluck at the tan undergarment. “Spanx?”
She marches over to me and yanks the straps down, roughly stripping the garment off until I’m buck naked. “Why in the name of all that’s holy would you put that on? What are you, forty? Fuck no. You are not wearing Spanx to my wedding.”
I reach for the twisted mess of stretchy fabric. “I need it. Give it back.”
“Since when you do wear Spanx?” She dances out of reach, eluding me with her stupid long arms and legs.
"Since my best friend is getting married to the man of her dreams, and that dress gives me back fat, makes my ass look even bigger than it is, and doesn't contain my out-of-control tits in the fucking slightest."
Emily finds a pair of scissors in her purse because she's that girl who will pull literally anything out of her purse at any given time. Right before my horrified eyes, she cuts the Spanx to pieces.
"Emily Eileen Cummings! That shit cost me a hundred and fifty goddamn dollars!"
"I'll pay you back," she says, throwing the ruined garment on the floor at my feet. "You'll thank me someday. Friends don't let friends wear Spanx when they don't fucking need it!” She marches back across the hotel room to my duffel bag, rummages in it, and pulls out a black thong and matching strapless bra. "Now get dressed. Tom is waiting."
“Goddammit, Emily. Why do you hate me? After all I’ve done for you.” I angrily yank up the thong and angrily shove my tits into the bra. “But it’s on you when you look back at the photos and see me looking like a trussed-up emerald trollop.”
“Well, you are a trollop,” she says, handing me the offending garment. “But you’re my trollop, and I love you, and you’re gonna be beautiful. You have an amazing body.”
I lift one arm and turn sideways: yep, chub rolls hang over the side of the dress at my underarms. I turn around and glance over one shoulder. Huge green ass, like She-Hulk got shrunk to the size of a Munchkin from Wizard of Oz? Check. Back fat bulging in weird places? Check.
I turn to face front. Tits about to pop free if I so much as breathe wrong? Check and check.
I sigh, turn to face Emily, holding out my arms and then letting them slap against my hips. "Well? Here I am. Trussed up emerald trollop."
Emily tugs my bodice up and the hem down, and then cups my cheeks and kisses me full on the lips. "You're hot." She pops me on the butt. "Now help me with my dress. I want to eat cake, and I can't do that till I've gotten married."
I follow her into the bathroom, where her dress hangs from the hook on the back of the door. I pull it down, ease it off the hanger, and then carefully bunch the gown so I can gingerly work the opening over her voluminous updo. Once the hard part is done, she tugs it down over her hips with a wiggle, and I button the forty million tiny little buttons up her spine.
Her dress is vintage, an authentic flapper dress from the 20s, ivory with a beaded fringe hem at a rakish angle around her slim thighs and pearls studded in intricate patterns around the bodice and open back. I fit the stretchy ivory lace headband around her temples, adjusting the huge white dahlia pinned to the lace so it sits above her left ear, and then pull her bangs free to drape around her heart-shaped face.
"You’re perfect roaring twenties hotness," I tell her. "Tom will be speechless."
She smiles at me gratefully and then examines her reflection. "You really worked magic on this dress, Terra." She meets my eyes in the mirror. "I can't thank you enough."
"Well, I could have made you a custom gown, but you wanted vintage, so..."
She rolls her eyes at me. "Half my wardrobe is your work, babe. Tom and I wanted a roaring twenties wedding, and you can't fake real vintage, not even you, Boston's most talented dressmaker."
She found the dress at a resale shop and brought it to me four days ago, begging me to work my magic on it. It wasn't in good shape—it had ripped seams, missing beadwork, and was a size and a half too big for her. And it was boring. So, I got to work. I replaced all the beads, took it in to fit her ridiculously slender frame, and then hand-sewed all the pearls on, which took hours and hours of eye-straining, hand-cramping labor. But for Emily, I didn't think twice.
It's just that a custom gown from scratch probably would have been easier. I have the patterns for it, for one thing. But what Emily wants, Emily gets—I’ve never been able to say no to her, no matter how wacky, wild, ludicrous, or illegal the request.
See, for all that Emily is a good girl from the right side of the tracks, she has a wild streak as deep and wide as my own. Or, nearly. She just doesn't have the street smarts to pull her ideas off...which is where I come in.
I'm a bad girl from the wrong side of the tracks. I'm a Southie chick, born and bred. Daughter of a Boston Irish frame carpenter and an equally Irish hotel maid, I was partying with my dad's friends by the time I was seven. Mom died when I was five, see. Dad lost his fucking mind, and quit trying to take care of me. He couldn't. All he could do was drink himself to sleep and go to work. I got myself ready for school. Fixed my own food, walked to school, walked home, made dinner, did laundry, and cleaned the house.
Fought off bullies.
Fought off Dad's drunk friends. Sometimes, I couldn't fight them off and the inevitable happened. After the third time, I learned to stay away from the house when Dad had friends over.
Except, that led me to hanging with a rough Southie crowd twice my age: teenagers who liked to party hard, do illegal shit, and didn't care that I was a little kid with no business hanging around them.
I learned to fight early, and learned to identify the guys who would cause me trouble even earlier. By the time I became a teenager myself, I was a hardened street rat. I could throw down with the toughest of the boys with fists and feet and bats and chains. I could do keg stands, drain handles of vodka, smoke pot and cigarettes, and fuck like a porn star.
The only thing I ever did for myself, the thing I tried—and failed—to keep secret from my hood rat friends, was my love for clothes. Since I couldn't afford the things I liked, I learned to make them. I'd steal the fabric and materials, figure out the patterns, and make my own clothes; my mom had a sewing machine which I claimed as mine.
By the time I was sixteen, I was selling pieces to my friends or trading them for food, booze, drugs, or a place to crash for the night.
