How I Found the Perfect Dress

by Maryrose Wood

  Considering the above, and taking into account the extreme rarity (i.e., nonexistence) of leprechaun sightings, even highly reputable experts in the realm of Fey studies consider it probable that leprechauns are mythological, rather than magical, beings.

  “We should not be surprised that the Fey have their own storehouse of myths and legends,” wrote Dr. Thomasina Wetherby, Professor of Faerieology at the Oxbury School of Improbable Research. “After all, even the Faery Folk need stories to tell their wee ones at bedtime.” (See unpublished dissertation, 1897, pp. 167-8.)

  Or, in my own CliffsNotes version: Leprechauns are either impossible to find or don’t exist at all. Not very encouraging.

  “Hey,” said Colin, flinging open the door to the lab building and almost knocking me off the steps. “Thanks for comin’, Mor. Seems I’ve done nothing but lay trouble on yer doorstep since I set foot in Connecticut.”

  I handed him the binder and had to restrain myself from commenting on how cute he’d looked in his pajamas the night before. “How are you feeling today?” I asked.

  “Woke up exhausted, with the most disgusting veggie taste in me mouth. I’m startin’ to understand why they use sleep deprivation to torture prisoners.” Then he reached into his pocket. “I found another note this morning. No free coffee this time.”

  He took out the same piece of paper I’d watched him write on last night, at the faery pajama party. It now read:$$$ TEN PERCENT OFF $$$

  Cozy pajamas, all types!

  Flannel, fleece, and fire-retardant (As per safety regulations)

  p.s.—footsie styles available!

  Courtesy of Sleep-Eeze Sleepwear “Your friend in dreamland”

  “The handwriting could be a coincidence, I suppose. But this isn’t any kind of marketing campaign, is it?” Colin was looking at me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. Not anger. Suspicion, maybe.

  “Doesn’t seem to be,” I said cautiously.

  “What is it, then?”

  Should I tell him the truth? He’d never believe it, and it would just mess with his head even more while he was trying to concentrate on school. Not to mention he’d think I was insane.

  I handed the note back. “Why do you ask me that?”

  “I don’t know.” His bright blue eyes, bloodshot and dimmed by fatigue, searched my hazel ones and came up empty. He turned away from me, antsy with frustration. “Sorry, Mor. I’m just sick of it, is all.”

  “Things will be better soon,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Yer a mysterious girl,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s part of yer charm for sure.” His weariness showed in his face, but I have to say the rest of him seemed to be in top form. Colin’s nightly dance workout was paying off big time in the buns department.

  Stop it, I scolded myself. How can you “unhalo” him of the glimmer of your desire if you keep checking out his butt?

  “Hey,” I said, trying to lighten things up, “can I see this robot you’re building? And what do my dad’s gnomes have to do with it?”

  Colin chewed his lip. “I don’t think ye ought to come up, actually. Alice will tolerate no distractions. I have to admit, if we win, it’ll largely be her doing.”

  “She’s the brains, you’re the brawn?” I joked, fighting back my jealousy.

  “No, I’ve got the looks and the talent,” he said, forcing a smile. “But she’s tough as nails, won’t quit and she’d rather eat worms than lose. That’s what gets the job done, in the end.”

  He left me with a wink but no kiss, not even on the cheek, and disappeared back inside the building.

  searching the UConn Campus for leprechauns Was going to take a while. I tried to be methodical. If leprechauns stayed close to their pots of gold, then where would I find pots of gold? I visited every ATM machine on campus, plus the student credit union and the financial aid office. Nothing.

  Tapping sounds? I chased woodpeckers all over the quad, and even barged in on some poor guy trying to build book-cases in his dorm room.

  I did so many rainbow checks I gave myself a stiff neck from looking up, but it was a beautiful sunny day, with a cloudless blue sky overhead. No sign of rain, no sign of rainbows. There was one false alarm when I saw a flyer posted for a meeting of the Rainbow Student Coalition. I raced over to the Student Center in time to crash the meeting, but it was a bust. Despite the big multicultural buildup on the flyer, the meeting was only for humans.

  After a couple of hours of this I’d pretty much convinced myself that there were no leprechauns on campus. Plus I was hot, tired, hungry and incredibly frustrated. Some half-goddess I am, I thought bitterly, collapsing flat on my back on the newly green grass of the quad. Colin is wasting away with exhaustion, and I just want to go home and watch TV.

  Then I remembered what Colin had said about Alice: She’s tough as nails, won’t quit and she’d rather eat worms than lose. . . .

  “Fine!” I shouted it to the rainbowless sky. “If Alice can be that focused on a stupid school project, then I can stay focused on saving Colin.”

  That’s when my phone rang. It was Sarah.

  “Where are you? We’re here to pick you up!”

  “Didn’t you get my e-mail?” I said, flustered. “Sorry, I’m not home; I’m at UConn.”

  “Excellent! So am I!” She giggled. “We’re in the parking lot by the library. Wave, maybe I can see you!”

  “But I said I couldn’t go shopping today.”

  “Yes, and I am so ignoring that! You have to get your dress today, dumdum. What if it needs to be altered or something?”

  “Sarah, no,” I pleaded. “I’m in no mood.”

  “Shut up,” she said cheerfully. “It’ll be in all the papers. ‘Teenage girl kidnapped and forced to shop for own prom dress.’”

  I was too miserable to argue, and my head was starting to ache from the sun. “Trust me,” I said, shielding my eyes, “I can’t get into why right now, but me shopping for a prom dress is kind of a waste of—”

  “What? I can’t hear you.” There was static, and then a beep on the line.

  “Fek. Wait, I’m getting another call.”

  Annoyed, I clicked to the incoming call, half-hoping it was Colin saying, Never mind about Alice; come up and see my robot and then we’ll snog for a bit, but also just wanting to go home and wallow in defeat.

  It wasn’t Colin. It was one of those hyperenthused, prerecorded voices, like the kind that yell at you to “Call now! For your free Disneyworld vacation!”

  “Here’s a gentle reminder from Wee Folk Custom Tailors and Alterations!” the voice said. “Don’t forget to pick up your dress! The management cannot be responsible for items left over thirty days.”

  I sat up, took a breath and clicked back to Sarah.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “Wrong number. Listen, I changed my mind. I will totally go dress shopping with you.”

  eleven

  Shopping With Чour bf, as anЧone Who’s ever gone shopping with her BF knows, is not just about buying stuff. Shopping is about catching up on gossip, and making fun of the ugly clothes, and telling each other how great you look as you try on things you’d never buy in a million years.

  Shopping with Sarah in our true BFF days had always been a blast, and I was secretly glad that my leprechaun-seeking mission was taking a detour to the mall. I would have enjoyed the whole outing even more, except for the fact that the main topic of Sarah’s gossip was me.

  “Two words, Morgan: Mike. Fitch.” Sarah was working her way methodically through the racks of dresses in the eveningwear department of Strohman’s Designer Discounts, where her sister had dropped us off. “Prom. Date.”

  “That’s four words,” I said, touching the silky fabric of a slinky black dress with a plunging halter neckline and a slit skirt. “What about this?”

  “No,” she said decisively. “Too Slutty McSlutface.”

  “Too ‘welcome to my lap dance,’” I agreed. Somewhat reluctantly I p
ut it back.

  “Mike likes you,” Sarah announced. “Dylan says Mike thinks you are intriguing and original and mad pretty. Oh my God, look at this one! It’s like, ‘I was a toddler beauty pageant queen.’”

  “Who grew up to be an Elvis impersonator,” I said absently. “Mike seems like a nice guy. I hardly know him.”

  “You sort of went on a date with him.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a date.”

  “It kind of was, though.”

  “I wouldn’t have gone if you’d said it was a date.”

  “Morgan! I am not the ruler of the universe! I invited you, I invited him. You, him, girl, boy, birds, bees. I can’t prevent nature from taking its course.” She paused and fell into deep contemplation of another dress.

  “But I left, remember? I walked out on him. No!” I shrieked, when I saw what she was looking at. “Navy blue? With white piping? At prom? No, no, no, no.”

  “But it’s my favorite color.”

  “Two words for you, Sarah,” I said. “Shore leave.”

  Sarah hid the offending dress at the back of the rack where I couldn’t mock it any further. “Anyway, why would Mike Fitch even want to talk to me after I ditched everybody at Toxins?” I asked, holding up a strapless magenta number with a ruffled skirt.

  “I hope that comes with castanets,” Sarah commented. I put the dress back. “Because,” she went on, “you are the only girl in North, South, West or East Norwich who doesn’t faint in his presence.” Sarah turned away from the dresses and put her hands on her hips. “This is all about Colin, Colin, Colin, I know! But Colin won’t be here for prom. He’s going back to Ireland soon, right?”

  “Next week.”

  “And you’re too stuck on him to even consider going to prom with Mike?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though this mythical Colin person is too old for you anyway?”

  “He’s not mythical,” I insisted. “And he’s only twenty. It’s more like I’m too young for him. I’ll be seventeen in less than two weeks,” I added lamely, sounding closer to Tammy’s age.

  “By your birthday, Colin will be, like, a zillion miles away,” she declared. “And Mike Fitch is here. And he really, really wants to take you, Morgan Runaway Rawlinson, to your one and only junior prom, on your one and only seventeenth birthday, the end.”

  “I don’t even know if I can go,” I wailed, wishing so much I could tell Sarah the truth. “The whole prom thing is pretty complicated for me right now.”

  Sarah sighed. “A shmo like Raphael and you fall.”

  “That was last year,” I said quickly.

  “A guy who lives in another country, and you’re hooked,” she went on.

  “You haven’t even met Colin,” I protested.

  “I know I haven’t, and what is up with that?” she said, as if I were only proving her point. “But a great guy like Mike, who’s here and available and interested, and you’re a mass of excuses. Morgan, has it ever occurred to you that you are seriously messed up about boys?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It has.”

  “I’m just saying.” Sarah turned her attention back to the clothes. From the look of concentration on her face I knew she was done arguing and was now focused on finding herself the perfect dress. She was going to prom, even if her idiot friend Morgan decided to stay home and sob into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s all night.

  We shopped in silence for a few minutes, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I pulled a particularly hideous dress off the rack. “Fine.” I tried to sound dead serious. “I will consider going to the junior prom with Mike, but on one condition.”

  “What?”

  “If I can wear this. What do you think?”

  She looked the dress up and down, and thought for a full minute. “It’s like, Felicity’s holiday gown from the American Girl collection got into a slap fight with the BeDazzler from hell,” she said, “and the BeDazzler won.”

  “I was thinking the exact same thing,” I deadpanned.

  Sarah cracked up so hard that tears ran down her face. If I hadn’t been so worried about Colin, I would’ve joined her.

  horsing around With sarah in the dress store felt so much like old times, I had to remind myself to stay on the lookout for anything having to do with leprechauns or magical tailoring shops. I hadn’t noticed anything unusual yet, but since picking up my dress was what the Wee Folk Custom Tailors & Alterations message had instructed me to do, I figured I might as well try some on.

  With the help of a shell-shocked Strohman’s saleswoman who was clearly already suffering from prom season burnout, Sarah and I gathered up armloads of dresses and camped out in two adjoining booths in the dressing room. Then we took turns changing and stepping out to hear each other’s uncensored opinions.

  Sarah, who is tall with a lean, athletic build, looked good in almost everything.

  I, on the other hand, am medium height with a more curvy shape, and I had a harder time finding something that suited me exactly, but when I did—

  “Oh my God!” Sarah practically yelled, when I came out to show her. “Perfect. Perfect. That’s it. You’re going to prom, no arguments. You need to be seen in that.”

  On tiptoe to simulate the effect of high heels, I walked over to the angled cove of mirrors that had the magical ability to let you check out your own butt. The dress was a pale beige color, just a shade darker than my skin, with a bronze sheen that made it shimmer as I moved. The fabric was substantial but fluid, and hugged every curve closely enough to look amazing, but not so closely as to turn my silhouette into a nightmare of weird bulges and visible panty lines.

  I looked in the mirrors, and I had to admit: The three of me looking back had never, ever looked so good.

  Behind those three were a zillion more Morgans, all turning and looking and preening in unison. They were reflections of reflections of reflections, and I knew every single one of them was thinking how perfect it would be to show up at the junior prom wearing this dress . . . and Colin would be in a tux, and together we would slow dance. . . .

  “Nice dress,” said the saleswoman. “But not as nice as the one we’re holding for you.”

  I wheeled around. It wasn’t the same saleswoman. This one was young and pretty with long black hair and Asian features, just like Alice, in fact, and she was wearing thick-rimmed glasses and an emerald-green apron embroidered with the words, “Wee Folk Custom Tailors & Alterations.” Pinned on the apron was a large button that read: “‘Wee’ make it so it fits!”

  “The dress we’ve put aside for you is worthy of a princess,” she went on. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Of course.” I looked around, wondering where Sarah was.

  “Come this way, please.”

  The woman stepped directly into the center of the maze of mirrors, and disappeared. As she did, the reflections scattered and reformed, the way they do when you toss a penny in a fountain.

  I stared at my own bewildered face in the mirror, multiplied an infinite number of times. I was barefoot, and the security tag on the gorgeous beige dress was starting to chafe under my armpit.

  I hope this doesn’t count as shoplifting, I thought, as I followed the woman into the mirror.

  “there Чou are,” she said, as i emerged on the other side. We stood in the hallway of what seemed like an elegant, old-fashioned office building, with ornate moldings and doors of gleaming dark wood lining the hall. The deep green carpet was soft as velvet beneath my bare feet.

  Some of the doors had engraved brass plaques on them—FREIDA’S FANTASTIC FIDDLE BOWS, the nearest one read. THE BEST IN ALL OF FAERY! I wanted to read the others, but the woman was waiting for me in the doorway directly across the hall. She shut the door behind me as I stepped inside.

  The Wee Folk shop was tiny and filled with shelves of buttons and threads and bolts of fabric. There was a small, old-fashioned sewing machine and chair next to a desk. “Now,” the woman said, as she led me to a ti
ny curtained booth behind the desk, “if you would step into the dressing room and disrobe—”

  “Disrobe?” I squeezed inside, letting the curtain fall closed behind me.

  “This dress has been custom-made just for you, Miss Morganne! I’m certainly not going to let you leave without a fitting.” Her long arm poked through the curtain and hovered there, waiting.

  Reluctantly I slipped out of the knockout beige number and draped it over the woman’s arm, which she promptly withdrew.

  “Marvelous,” I heard her say. “Let me get rid of this old rag and bring you a real dress. Be right back!”

  She was probably only gone for a minute, but a minute is a long time to stand barefoot in your bra and panties in a dressing room in faeryland, wondering what the fek is going to happen next. Just as I was starting to get chilly, I heard her footsteps returning.

  “Here you go, Miss!” The arm poked through the curtains once more, this time proudly offering the one-of-a-kind prom dress Wee Folk Custom Tailors & Alterations had whipped up on my behalf.

  “Well?” she asked. “Whaddya think?”

  “It’s . . . indescribable.” If only it were. Imagine the kind of cheap, last-minute Cinderella costume you’d get a kid for Halloween at the drugstore. Puffy pink sleeves, layers of pink taffeta, bubblegum pink polyester bodice. It had, excuse me, bows around the waist, made of pink lace-edged ribbon and a whole lotta ugly.

  “Really, my dear,” the saleswoman said proudly, “you are sure to be the absolute belle of the ball in a dress like this. Unless you’d prefer something more princessy?”

  “No!” I was trying not to gag. “This is plenty princessy, thanks.”

  “Let me know if you need help putting it on!”

  Putting it on? Ugh. But since this woman had taken away the other dress and my real clothes were lying on the floor of a dressing room that was located in a different dimension of reality, it was a choice between Pretty Disgusting in Pink or standing there in my underwear. I slipped the nightmare dress over my head and stepped out from behind the curtain, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor in case there was a mirror nearby.