A Strange Arrangement

I stepped out of the elevator at work the next morning and hurried towards Sara's office. To my surprise, Niki was already in there talking to her.

“Hey!” I said almost out of breath from my power walking.

“What's up? You okay, there?” Sara asked as she and Niki gave me weak, worried smiles.

“I don't even care if anyone besides Sara finds out at this point. I'm too excited to hold it in.”

“It's for me. Tomorrow night. The dinner. It's for me.” I spit out quickly.

“It is? How do you know? He told you?” Sara asked, a grin spreading on her face.

I nodded my head. “Well one of his friends did, but then he confirmed it.” I was smiling so much my face was beginning to hurt.

“What's going on?” Niki asked confused.

“Uh, she likes this guy in her building and she found out about this dinner he was planning, but she didn't know who it was for. It looks like it was for her though.” Sara said telling her the basic elements of the story, but not the key details.

“Aw, that's great.” she said joining in the smile party.

“What are you guys doing right now?” I asked anxiously.

“Nothing, hence why we're sitting here talking about how Arianne from the news section looks like she's three months pregnant and Kevin from sports is probably the father.” answered Sara.

“Oh, well congratulations for them, then.”

“She's married to someone else.”

“Awkward. Okay, anyway, I really need your help. I have nothing to wear for tomorrow so I need to go shopping...which means I need you guys.” I said in a hopeful tone, praying that they wouldn't turn me down. Without another word they grabbed their purses and stood up.

“Let's do this.” Sara said ushering me out of her office.

-x-

“This seems a little excessive,” I said as the three of us walked into Neiman Marcus. “I mean, I think we could've just gone to Dress Barn or something.”

“Dress Barn...or something?” Sara said sneering at me. “Honey, do you want to die alone?”

“What? No.”

“You're going to one of the most exclusive restaurants in Philadelphia with the guy who might as well be the man of your dreams on Valentine's Day. You need a dress that's going to make a statement and an impression. Some clearance rack trash bag isn't going to cut it.” she said staring me intently in the eye to make sure I got the point. Niki was already weaving her way through the long stretch of dresses on the wall and on mannequins.

“I think we should stick to the traditional Valentine's palette of either red or black.” Niki said as she began grabbing dresses that fit her description. I stood there as Sara and Niki made executive decisions for me over what was “decent” and what was “the most horrendous dress since the creation of clothing”.

“This should be a good start. Go try these on.” Niki instructed me.

Five minutes later I stood in front of the dressing room mirror in a low cut, shiny, black strapless mini picking apart my appearance.

“If my hips were any wider I probably wouldn't be able to fit through the door. It'd also be nice if my boobs filled out this dress at all. Oh and hey there, non-existent ass. You're looking especially invisible today. Ugh. I hate this.”

“Hey! Come out of there. We want to see.” Sara said knocking on the door. I cautiously opened the door and stepped out feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

“Okay, well...it's a start.” Niki said as they both looked at me unimpressed.

“It's a start if you were nominated for best porn actress.” snorted Sara sarcastically. I sighed and walked back into the dressing room to try on the second dress, a red ruffled nightmare that they were both convinced I'd look “completely adorable” in. I didn't.

“I'm not even going to come out in this one.” I informed them.

“Yes, you are because if you don't I'll have no problem crawling under this door.” Sara told me.

I opened the door and glared at them.

“Oh, fuck. We were wrong. Okay, close the door.” Sara said.

I had just started but I was already getting discouraged with this process. I took the black empire waist with a red floral pattern Betsey Johnson dress that my friends had picked out, off it's hanger and stared at it.

“Flowers. Fucking hell. Okay. I'll try it.” I turned away from the mirror, stepped into it, and zipped up the back. “I'm going to turn around on 3. Here it goes: 1...2...3!” I turned around and opened my eyes carefully for fear of what I'd see. Once I opened them fully I analyzed my reflection, pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I opened the door, keeping a neutral face, so Niki and Sara would give me their honest opinions.

“Oh my god.” Sara said under her breath which gave me no clue as to what her thoughts were exactly.

“Well? What do you think? Do I look awful?” I asked them.

“Yeah, awful amazing.” Niki said.

“I think grammatically speaking she means “awfully amazing”, but yes, I agree. You look amazing. I think that's the one.” Sara reaffirmed.

“Good, I actually liked it too.” I looked down at the tag under my arm. “$350?!” I spat in the lowest whisper I could manage. “I can't fucking spend that much on a dress I'm only going to wear once!”

“Then don't wear it once.” Sara told me matter-of-factly. I stared at her unamused. “When's your birthday?” she sighed, crossing her arms.

“In November.” I answered unsure of what that had to do with my current dilemma.

“Okay, well I'll buy this for you now and you can just consider it a very early birthday present.” she said.

“Sara, that's way too-” I tried to argue.

“Shh! Go change. We need to go get shoes now.” said Sara not wanting to hear my protests.

“I'm going to pay you back, I swear.” I promised her.

“You want to pay me back? Go make something happen tomorrow night.”

I smiled at her. “Oh, I intend to.”