“Yes, that’s very true, Kaylee.” She looked in the rearview mirror. “Is that what you were thinking, too, Haylee?”
“Exactly, Mother. We were talking about it just before we left the house,” she lied.
“My girls, my girls,” Mother said, nodding. “That settles it. I want to buy you something very pretty to wear to dinner. I want you to look happy and beautiful so he sees what he has lost. We’ll do that first, and then I’ll look for something new for myself. I’ve been invited to a party,” she revealed, surprising us. “A dinner party at Melissa Clark’s home.”
“When?” Haylee asked.
“Next Friday,” she replied. “I’ve already made an appointment with my stylist. Actually, I wasn’t sure I would go until just this moment, thanks to what you girls were thinking this morning. Of course, I shouldn’t just curl up and die. Out of the mouths of babes . . . you’re the light at the end of my darkest tunnel.”
I looked at Haylee. Her face was lit with excitement, and I knew why. She was already laying the plans for having Jimmy and Matt over when Mother went to her dinner party. She was clearly telling me that we would plan and plot together. After we parked in the lot for the department store and got out of the car, she walked beside me, and when Mother moved far enough ahead, she leaned over to whisper.
“No matter how we feel about him, when we come home from dinner tonight, we will tell her how angry and disgusted Daddy made us.”
My clever and conniving sister, I thought. She was always better at deception than I was and always would be. I should have realized it before it was too late, but unfortunately, I was infected with more loving trust than she was.
Mother led us to the more upscale dresses, marching down the aisles determined to spend more money than usual. She paused at the Ralph Lauren displays. We had never shopped here. Before the saleslady could reach us, Mother had already plucked out a black, beaded Leila dress. The tag stated a cost close to three thousand dollars, and she would buy two! I couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful dress, sleeveless and with beaded panels along the center front.
The saleslady had just started to greet us when Mother said, “I need two of this in the same size.”
“Of course,” the saleslady said, as if that was what every mother of every young woman demanded daily. She began to sift through the rack and came up with an identical second dress.
“Try them on,” Mother ordered, nodding at the changing rooms. We took the dresses silently and went into the same room. It had a wall mirror.
“Do you believe this?” Haylee asked, and quickly began stripping down.
“No,” I said. Mother had the eye for choosing styles and sizes that would fit us perfectly. This dress slipped on like a glove. I zipped up Haylee’s, and she zipped up mine. Then we stood in front of the mirror and looked at ourselves.
“I should be going out with older boys, with men,” Haylee declared. “Neither of us looks our age.”
“I think most men would figure it out pretty quickly.”
“You, maybe. Not me,” she said defiantly, and walked out.
The saleslady standing beside Mother looked astounded. It must have seemed like one of us had gone into the changing room, looked in the mirror, and then somehow taken her image out of the glass and brought it along. Before we had left the house, we had made sure our hair was brushed the same and we were wearing the same lipstick.
“They’ll need new earrings,” Mother muttered, mostly to herself.
“Such a perfect fit. For both of them,” the saleslady said.
Mother turned and looked at her as if she had just arrived on the planet. “Of course for both of them,” she said. “How could it be for one without the other? Never mind,” she added, before the poor woman could open her mouth. “Keep the dresses on until we finish at the jewelry counter,” she told us. “And you’ll need new shoes, too. Do you want to escort us?” she asked the saleslady.
“Of course, madam. Right this way,” she said.
The jewelry department had only one pair of the pearl earrings Mother chose immediately for us, so she went with two other pairs at twice the price. After that, and after she had bought the two pairs of shoes she wanted us to have, I calculated that she had spent about seventy-five hundred dollars. We then changed back to the clothes we’d been wearing and carried our boxes as we accompanied Mother on her search for a new dress to wear to the Clarks’ dinner party. That also required new shoes for her, and then a necklace that had caught her eye when she was looking for our earrings finished her own shopping.
“I bet this is what most women do when they get a divorce,” Haylee whispered as we followed Mother out. “Attack their ex-husband’s money. Lucky for us. I’m wearing this dress again with the shoes and earrings first chance I get. Seems like a waste for tonight. We’ll only be with Daddy.”
“Where are we going for dinner?” I wondered, and stepped up to ask Mother.
“He wanted to take you back to the London House, but I told him you’d be uncomfortable there without me, so I said he should take you to Cheeky’s. It’s nearly twice as expensive. If it was up to him, he would have taken you to some fast-food joint,” she added. “He’ll be coming for you at six. I want you to be right on time. I don’t want to have to make small talk with him.”
“Oh, we’ll be ready early,” Haylee assured her. “We’d like to get it over with as quickly as we can.”
Mother paused to look at her, and I held my breath. If she thought we were just humoring her, it would be worse for us than if we were happy and eager to go out with Daddy.
“I mean, it sounds boring,” Haylee quickly added. “Right, Kaylee?”
“We have to do what we have to do,” I said.