“You got it.”
I throw myself at him, like I wanted to do when he first came home but I was afraid to. Afraid he’d somehow read my inappropriate thoughts about him and push me away. He catches me—as he always does. His big arms pull me up against his frame. I bury my face in his neck and inhale his special scent straight from the source. I have this overwhelming urge to stick out my tongue and see what he tastes like. Wonderful, I imagine.
I wriggle out of his grasp before I can do something stupid.
* * *
The next day I show up at Marjory’s right after school. The place isn’t very full, and Mary is sitting at one of the back tables, her feet up on a chair, reading a magazine.
She lowers it slightly as I approach. “What do you want?”
“Hi, Mary.” I hesitate, because Mary’s like Felix. She knows where to strike to hurt you. I’m careful not to get too close. “Is Leka here?”
She raises the magazine again so I can’t see her face and so she doesn’t have to look at me. “No.”
That’s it. No, he’s out or he’ll be back soon. Just a no, like I’m some stranger off the street. Still, if I’m going to work here, I need to be able to hold my own with her, so I take a deep breath and say, “I’m here for a job.”
The magazine falls out of her hands. She laughs, a full-on belly laugh, and I stand there like an idiot watching her. Finally, she dabs a napkin at the corners of her eyes. “God, kid. I needed that. How hilarious.”
“I’m not kidding. Leka said I could work here an hour every day.”
“You ever look in the mirror, honey?” she asks. “Because it’s a fright. No one’s going to eat if you’re out here taking orders and delivering food. They’ll take one look at your mug and lose their appetite.” She places a hand on the top of her big tits. “You’ve got to have good looks to work in the front of the restaurant.” She picks up her magazine and starts reading it again. The silence is punctuated by a few giggles.
“I’ll work in the back then. I can wash dishes, cut stuff.”
“No. We don’t need help.”
“But Leka said—”
She slams her hand down. Her pretty face screws up tight, making her look like Felix the rat. “Leka doesn’t run Marjory’s. I run Marjory’s, and what I say goes. You don’t belong here. Now get out.”
A bell tinkles and we both twist to see the door from the kitchen swing open. Through it walks Leka and Beefer.
“Hi, Beefer.” I wave a limp hand in his direction.
He comes over and gives me a big hug. “How’re you doing, Lizzie?”
I grimace into his chest both because I have to endure this hug and because he calls me by that hideous nickname. “Good.”
“I hear you’re going to work for us after school.”
I glance toward Mary, who glares at Beefer.
“I thought I was in charge of the staffing decisions here,” she snipes.
“You are,” he says, giving me another squeeze before releasing me.
“Then no, she’s not working here.”
Leka steps up between Beefer and me and places a hand at the base of my neck. “Why not, Mary?”
His voice is low, calm, and even, but there’s a terrifying quality to it. And Mary senses it, too. The unstated warning in his quiet words is that whatever answer she gives better be one that he likes.
“Sh-she has no experience.”
I have to hand it to the woman. She’s persistent.
Still keeping his hand on my neck, Leka bends down until he’s close enough to feel Mary’s breath on his cheek. “Then you’ll teach her.”
He straightens and gently directs me toward the bar where Beefer’s pouring himself a drink. We’ve all turned our backs on Mary, which, I think, is a very big mistake.
19
Bitsy
One year later
Bells chime as I push open the tall glass door. A blue-suited man wearing a stern expression gives me a sharp nod and Leka a wary glance.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I mutter to Leka under my breath. The small store isn’t like any I’ve ever been in. I’m used to racks full of clothing. Maybe a few mannequins dotting the floor. This cream and gold wedding cake of a store has about ten dresses on display.
He flips over his phone. “Divine Dresses,” he recites. “Mrs. Michaelson said you should get your dress here.”
He gives me a gentle shove to move farther into the store.
“What’s wrong with Macy’s?” That’s where I would’ve bought last year’s dress if I’d been forced to go. Lucky for me, I turned my ankle working at Marjory’s and convinced Mrs. M that I was too hurt to dance. Believing that I was super disappointed, Leka took me to see Deadpool and then spent half the time covering my eyes—as if I hadn’t ever seen a guy’s ass before. Okay, so it was the first time I’d seen a naked ass, but it wasn’t as if the sight of Ryan Reynolds’ naked butt cheeks inspired an intense desire to pull down the pants of every guy that walked by me.
After the movie, I did spend more time surreptitiously staring at Leka’s butt and wondering what it might look like without his usual jeans or sleep pants covering him, but I don’t lie awake at night thinking about it. At least not often. Like, not every night or anything.
“Mrs. Michaelson said to bring you here.”
Mrs. Michaelson is the female oracle in our lives. If she says that I should do something, Leka immediately obeys, which is why we are at a store I don’t care about to buy a dress I don’t need for a dance I don’t want to attend.
“I think Deadpool 2 is coming out.”
Leka grunts, which could either mean maybe or no way. But I don’t get the opportunity for a clarification because a saleslady clad in cream pants and a cream blouse with a big bow at her neck appears in front of us. “Hello. What can I help you find today?”
I open my mouth to say “nothing,” but Leka speaks first.
“She needs a dress for a high school dance.”
I wait for her to fawn all over Leka, like every woman between the age of six and eighty-six does, but to my enormous surprise, she barely glances at him. Instead, she addresses me. “Do you have a style or color in mind?”
“Black. Funereal.”
Leka rolls his eyes at me. “She’s fifteen, so make sure it’s age appropriate.”
The lady gives a slight nod of acknowledgment but doesn’t take her focus from me. “I’m sure I can find something both you and your daughter will like.”
“Oh, he’s not—” I start to say and then let it go. I need to get over this compulsion to straighten everyone out about my connection with Leka. Besides, I think it hurts Leka’s feelings, but he’s not ready to hear that I’m in love with him and want to do all the naughty things the senior girls talk about doing with their boyfriends during gym. He’d die. I seriously think he’d have a heart attack. Then I’d have to give him mouth-to-mouth. Hmmm. This might have possibilities.
Before I can chase this fantasy down, the saleslady takes me by the elbow and draws me deeper into the store. “Sir, you’re welcome to sit here. I’m going to take—” She pauses, indicating with an arched eyebrow that I should fill in my name.
“Elizabeth,” I say.
“—I’m going to take Elizabeth to a dressing room.” Leka drops into a chair as the lady leads me away. “If you’re open to some suggestions, your skin coloring would look gorgeous with a jewel tone. Perhaps something in green or royal blue?”
“I like blue,” I admit.
She casts a look over her shoulder. “I’m not surprised.”
Hmm. She must’ve given Leka a longer look than I suspected. Yeah, he’s got the bluest of blue eyes and yeah, it’s my favorite color.
“I’m Catherine.” She sweeps aside a heavy curtain and gestures for me to step inside. “Let me go find a few dresses for you.”
“I don’t want anything—”
“I think I know just the style you need. You
have a marvelous figure.” She gives me another smile. “Take off your clothes. All of them.”
“All? Like, as in, my underwear?”
“Yes, all.” She lets the curtain fall.
I peek out to see if she flirts with Leka, but she doesn’t. She walks straight toward another door and disappears, leaving Leka sprawled out on the cream upholstered chair. He stretches out his legs, his jeans and dark boots an exotic contrast to the airiness of the room. While Catherine was focused on me, she’s the aberration. Most of the time, he draws looks from every female within shouting distance. A group of three women sitting in chairs in front of a different dressing room keep sneaking peeks at him.
Leka is oblivious. I haven’t been able to figure out if he knows he’s being constantly checked out and ignores it or really doesn’t understand the waves of interest that are set off the minute he steps into a room. And I don’t know exactly what it is about him that’s so attractive to everyone else. Objectively, he’s hot, but there are hot guys everywhere. There’s something different about him that speaks to women, and I don’t know what it is.
Maybe they sense his protective nature in the way he opens the door or is always keeping a watchful eye out. There’s a sense of wildness about him, too, as if he’s the predatory jungle animal let loose in a petting zoo. You know he’s dangerous, but you can’t help wanting to reach out and pet him. Or maybe it’s the way he holds himself. As he sits in the chair, you’d think he owned the place. He has that much confidence. Or perhaps it’s something else, something that my fifteen years of living haven’t allowed me to precisely define.
All I know is that if I set Leka down in the middle of a football field full of guys, every eye would gravitate toward him. I keep waiting for him to fall for someone, like Mrs. M said he would, but so far, he’s been stubbornly, wonderfully single. That doesn’t mean he’s in love with me. Nope. I’m still the little girl that he picked up in the alley.
With a sigh, I tug the velvet curtain closed. I take off my jeans and hang them by the belt loop on a hook. My I-love-tacos T-shirt comes off next. I stare at myself in the mirror. I have a marvelous figure? Is Catherine blowing smoke up my ass, or does she really believe it? I give myself a good once-over. I’m more hippy than I’d like. Jeans are hard to find. They are either too tight around the ass and too loose around the waist or vice versa.
My boobs are so-so. I’m not flat-chested, but I could easily get away with no bra except for the whole nip thing. A few weeks ago, Leka pointed out in a tight, unhappy voice that my headlights were showing. I didn’t immediately understand what he was saying until he awkwardly pointed a finger at my chest while staring at the ceiling. Looking down, I saw my nipples poking out against one of his borrowed T-shirts.
It made me feel strange that he noticed that. At first, I was embarrassed, but later that night when he was gone and I was alone, I thought about what it might feel like if it were his hand cupping the curve of my breast instead of mine. I felt my inner muscles tighten and an unfamiliar ache grow between my legs.
It made me think of when the girls at school talk about sex. How they touch themselves. There are lots of fans of the showerhead. Shelby Mayhew has a vibrator her older sister bought her. She brought it to school and let some of the other girls play with it over their clothes. There was a lot of lip-biting and butt shifting in the bathroom that day. I wondered what it felt like. I wondered what it would be like if it weren’t a plastic or silicone penis but a real one, attached to a real person. Attached to someone like Leka.
I drop my hand to my panties. A couple of weeks ago, during gym class, I overheard Allison whisper to her best friend, Rachel, that Allison’s boyfriend had gone down on her. That he’d licked her clit and that she thought she was going to die from the pleasure. Rachel couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. But I think of that now. I imagine that it’s Leka in front of me, sitting in the cream lacquered chair in the corner. That he’s the one drawing my white panties over my butt, down my thighs and dropping them to the floor. That it’s his fingers that reach behind my back and unhook my bra, releasing my suddenly sensitive breasts from the confines of the lace and wire.
He’d draw me close, his breath heating my stomach, making me clench all over. I wonder what that’d feel like? Would I want to die from the pleasure? My fingers curl against my skin.
A choked sound interrupts my fantasy. Panicked, I jerk around.
“Are you okay, sir? Do you need some water?” a soft voice sounds just outside the curtain.
Blushing, I kick my underwear in the back corner. What the hell was I doing? Leka doesn’t care about my body. I’m a girl to him. He’d be the one dying of embarrassment if he knew the contents of my head.
“No, I’m fine,” says Leka in a husky voice.
There’s more soft murmuring, and then Catherine’s voice is outside my curtain. “I have some dresses for you. Are you ready?”
“I guess.”
Without warning, Catherine sweeps in. I duck back, covering myself.
“Don’t worry, dear. I’ve seen it all before.” She hangs up a few dresses and then sticks out her hand. In it is a contraption made of lace and satin. “This is a special corset that will help all these dresses fit just a bit better. We want to make the most of your assets.”
“She’s fifteen,” Leka interjects loudly beyond the curtain.
Catherine winks at me. “Of course, she is.”
She gestures for me to take the corset. I step into it, and Catherine pulls the lace ties tight, tying them in a bow at the base of my spine. Once that’s on, she helps me into the first dress. It’s a deep red and has tiny sleeves that sit just below the shoulder. There are tiny sparkling crystals that run along the upper border of the neckline.
“This is a modified sweetheart bodice,” she says, zipping me up.
I stare in wide-eyed amazement as two swells appear above the crystals. “Wow, I have cleavage,” I say in awe. I run my hand over my mounded breasts.
“Yes, good undergarments are the key. What do you think?”
I give a twirl. The diaphanous fabric of the skirt swirls around me. “I feel like a princess,” I admit. At least from the neck down. I scrunch up my nose. My face is never going to stop traffic. My heavy brows still look like caterpillars across my forehead, and my hair would rival Medusa. Too bad there’s not a corset for my head.
“Why would you need that?” Catherine asks.
“Need what?” I say in surprise. I’d lost the train of our conversation.
“Why would you need a corset for your head?”
“Oh, I said that out loud, huh?”
She cocks her head and looks at me in the mirror. “Honey, you’re gorgeous. I hope you realize that. You have eyelashes most women would kill for. Your cheekbones are amazing, and I’m guessing that your lips are all natural.”
Self-consciously, I press my fat lips together. “Um, you’re nice to say that, but—”
She doesn’t let me finish. She places a hand in the middle of my back and pushes me forward. “Take a good look at yourself. What do you see?”
Homely thing, isn’t she?
Pizza face!
No one’s going to eat if you’re out here taking orders and delivering food.
“I see me.”
“No, you don’t.” Catherine shakes her head. “You see some version of yourself, but it’s not the real one. I see this all the time with girls. You don’t know what to make of the gifts you’ve got.” Her hand reaches up to pat my head. “I bet you’ve never been to a real salon, have you?”
“Um, no.”
She pulls a pen out of her pocket and writes down a phone number. “You call this number and ask for Louis. Tell him Catherine from Divine Dresses sent you. He’s hard to get in to, but for me, he’ll make time. Ask him to do a keratin treatment, a brow wax, and a curl for those eyelashes. Now, let’s get you into the blue dress. I think you’re really going to like that one.
The moment that the wispy blue material settles around my legs, I fall in love. The dress creates an illusion of prettiness that I never felt before. I pinch a bit of fabric in each hand and twirl to the right and left. The light catches on the tiny crystals sewn into the skirt. Tiny puff sleeves and a neckline that shows off my collarbones
“I love this,” the saleslady declares. She fusses with one of the tiny puff sleeves. “It’s classy and wholesome but still adult. Do you want to show this to your…” She stops and looks for guidance.
“Leka,” I supply.
“Do you want to show Leka your dress?” she finishes smoothly.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever felt beautiful, even with my beetle brows, wild hair, and uneven complexion. In this dress, I feel like a princess.
“Yes,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. I’m afraid that if I breathe wrong, the image will blow away like a sand sketch on the boulevard.
“Go.” She pushes me toward the curtain. “Show your friend.”
Without even hesitating, I sweep the curtain aside. Leka’s sprawled in the upholstered chair with one ankle resting on his knee.
“What do you think?” I ask, spinning in a wide circle. The silk slithers against my skin, like the caress of a hand. I don’t plan on taking this dress off ever. I’ll scrub the toilets at Marjory’s with a toothbrush for the next decade if I have to. I wait for Leka’s smiling response. For once, his declarations that I’m beautiful may actually be true. “Well?” I prompt. I hold out the sides and sway from side to side. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”
Leka says nothing. He raises a hand to cover his mouth. Is that to disguise a frown? I search his eyes, looking for approval or disdain, but find nothing. His eyes are blank. The silence grows prolonged. Even Catherine, who couldn’t seem to stop talking before, can’t find anything to say.
My smile wilts. “Do you…do you not like it?” I croak out.
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