Darkness Within Light

Holly, Veronique, and I wandered through the man atrium of the lower level of the Fashion Show mall, taking turns pushing Annabelle’s stroller. I was as lost as could be. I am not in the tax bracket for those whom the majority of these stores cater to. I felt very awkward in what I was wearing.

Holly saw me fidgeting and flashed a wicked smirk. “See what I mean, Des?”

“Yeah…”

Veronique looked at her. “What?”

I sighed. “She made fun of me for dressing so casually. I didn’t realize we were coming here!”

Holly snorted. “Where did you think we were going? Ross?”

I shuddered. Gross.

She came and took the stroller from me. “It’s okay.”

Veronique pointed to the Neiman Marcus store looming up beside us. “Let’s get after it, ladies.”

We wandered through the cosmetics and fragrances slowly. I lingered long enough to get a spray of Jivago’s 24K Gold… wow it smells great.

Holly nudged me. “You gonna buy some of that?”

I shook my head. Not here. I’ve found it for less than 20 dollars online, no way I’m spending over a hundred dollars on it.

We moved through dresses and I tried on one dress for fun. It was almost seventeen hundred bucks, but it was a pretty blue with a frill over one shoulder and black lace designs on it. I quickly regretted it.

Frills across the chest were not made to be worn by women who wear C-cups and larger. At that point it’s just a bit ridiculous. This store just really wasn’t my style though.

Holly loved it though. She got 7-inch heeled, black lace up shoes and a long sleeved black minidress with dark floral prints across the shoulders, stomach, and hips. She looked like a model.

I picked up a shirt that I thought I might like. I didn’t like it. I just thought I could eventually like it. It was over twelve hundred dollars.

No, thank you. I decided to take on baby duty.

I played with Annabelle as the girls tried on different clothes. I heard Veronique’s muffled voice through the dressing room doors.

“So Holly, what’s up with you and Aaron?”

I heard Holly cackle a laugh, “Nothing really. I like him and all; I am just not really wanting… a serious relationship.”

“Yeah, she just lets him take her out and pay for everything, she stays over at his place… nothing going on at all,” I smarted off. Veronique laughed and Holly cracked open her door enough to flip me the bird.

“Speaking of ‘nothing going on,’ Desiree…” I heard Holly say playfully, “What about you and Zak?”

Veronique peeked out of her door, eyeballing me. “Oooh, yeah, what’s going on with that?!”

I felt a wave of heat wash over me. Damned dressing room gossip. This is why I don’t like shopping.

“Nuthin’,” I mumbled.

Holly laughed and shrieked. “You’re such a horrible liar! Come on, out with it!”

I swallowed and let out a long sigh. I hadn’t been forced to examine my emotions about this man until now… Mainly because I didn’t want to.

“I don’t know, honestly. He’s very attractive. He can be charming and romantic. He talks like he wants to protect me from my own problems.”

“I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “I just don’t know what to make of what he does for a living.”

“What, you mean how he’s always in the spotlight?” Veronique came out of her dressing room in her normal clothes. She hung the clothes she’d tried out on a rack by the door and mumbled, “what a bust,” before coming to sit next to me. “Well, you know he’s into you, right?”

I shrugged. “I’m afraid he thinks we have a common bond because of the… stuff… that we both have to deal with.”

“Well, yeah. Of course.” She placed a hand on my shoulder to lean over me and smooth Annabelle’s hair.

“But the way we both deal with it is in two different universes. I just don’t think that is something that can be reconciled long-term.”

Veronique cocked her head as she studied me. “Like, because of your beliefs?”

“More like I know better than to tease it, and he doesn’t. That will cause major problems – especially if we are emotionally tied to each other – because it will be able to do even more damage.” …Among other things.

She chewed on that for a moment, looked at Holly’s dressing room, then whispered to me, “Like how Aaron’s divorce went down?”

“I would assume so. He hasn’t told me the whole story, but yeah I guess.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Holly said, coming out of the dressing room. Busted. “He and his ex were having the same nightmares and something was terrorizing her whenever he was out on the road, but that wasn’t the only reason they got a divorce.”

“You know the whole story, don’t you?”

She smirked. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I’m big enough to keep secrets sometimes, Desiree.”

Veronique smiled at her. I just laughed. “Time to you get you drunk.”

“Bite me.”

We left there and hiked to Nordstrom. We piled our arms full of clothes and Veronique and I stuffed ourselves into dressing rooms. Holly said she had already maxed out her budget, so she won babysitting duty. I found a bright red ruched dress shirt that fit me perfectly... and it was under fifty dollars.

Okay, I can do that.

I also found a brownish black patched leather mini skirt that I was a fan of, but wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. I’ve never worn a lot of earthy tones because of my olive skin; courtesy of my mother’s Spanish genetics.

I stepped out of the dressing room and gave a twirl for Holly, who was sitting on a bench working over a coloring book with Annabelle. “Whatcha think?”

Holly winked at me. “I think the Hulk doesn’t stand a chance.”

I rolled my eyes. That wasn’t exactly what I meant.

“Now you just need some killer shoes to go with it.”

I looked down at the brown in the skirt. “I can’t wear black heels with this.”

“And?”

“I wanted to buy a pair of black pumps today.”

Now it was Holly’s turn to roll her eyes. “All of the high heels you own are black, woman… and most of your clothing, for that matter.”

I shrugged. “So what? It goes with everything.”

“Not that skirt.”

“She just does it to match Zak!” Veronique laughed and poked her head out of her dressing room. “DAMN, Des!”

I turned and looked at her. “I’ve just always liked black. Get over the Zak stuff, already! Did you find anything worth buying?”

She stepped out from around the dressing room door and twirled. She looked like a dark angel. Her blonde hair was wavy today, and she was wearing a black silk mini dress with thin straps, and sewn across the top seam and over one shoulder was a black sheer fabric that dropped past the silk layer of the dress, with diagonal edges and white silk trim at the bottom… Almost like a
pancho.

It looked amazing on her.

Holly laughed. “Sorry, Desiree, she wins.”

We changed back into our normal clothes and began to head towards the register, when I nearly fainted from checking the tags on my clothes.

“This skirt is almost $300!!!” I slumped. “I’ll meet you guys at the register.” I turned to return it to a rack.

Veronique yanked it out of my hand. “You’re wearing this skirt.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What are you doing, Veronique?”

She grinned and winked. “My treat.”

I frowned. Why, what was so important about me having the hot skirt? Holly nudged me before I could follow that thought to conclusion.

“Don’t you have like $400 saved up to blow on clothes?”

“Well yeah. ‘Clothes!’ Emphasis on plural. That doesn’t mean I blow all that dough on a skirt!”

Veronique smiled. “Actually, it’s only $150,” she pointed to a sale sign. “But… I’ll buy it so you can go buy a pair of shoes to make the outfit, okay?”

I was not okay with it.

I’m never okay with being given things, really. I mean, we all love free stuff… But I was raised that you get what you’ve earned. Having just been “given” a piece of clothing that costs just under my car’s monthly allowance made me instinctively shy away.

It made me feel like I was being opportunistic and shady.

However, Holly was already pulling me back out into the mall. I relented, but patted a hand on Veronique’s back as Holly transferred one of her shopping bags to me. “I’ll make good on it, V…”

“No worries,” she said. “Oh and by the way…” She stopped and turned to face me. “You really shouldn’t write off Zak just yet. He’s not as shallow as he comes across publicly.”

I gave her a wistful smile. I wished that was the only problem.

“Meet you at Aldo,” Holly said to her and we pushed back out into the crush of people in the mall atrium. We went up an escalator and found our ultimate shoe store. Thank God for Aldo.

If there was one thing Holly and I have in common… we both have a weakness for slutty shoes.

I found a 5-inch peep-toed heel that was leopard printed satin, and they were on clearance.

Mine!

“Okay, I’m getting these,” I said to Holly as she strutted in front of a mirror. She was sporting pair of multi-patterned pumps with royal blue, yellow, orange, and black suede patches, then bands of black and white sequined patterns.

“And what else?” She looked over her shoulder at me, then turned her attention back to the mirror and prissed some more.

“Why do I need something else?”

She stepped out of the shoes and reached into our Nordstrom bag, pulling out my red shirt. “You need to match this.”

“Red and leopard print can go together.”

“Not with a brown skirt! You need red shoes.”

Oh, God. So much for the subtle breed of sexy. Not that leopard print is subtle, but still… red heels? Not just red, but "RED!!!" heels?

I mumbled some obscenities under my breath and began scanning the walls again. I finally found a 7-inch vinyl platform heel that matched that damned top perfectly. I held them out for Holly, and she nodded in approval.

Okay, fine.

I shucked off my flats again and stepped into the ridiculous shoes, and I pranced in front of a mirror for a moment to make sure I could walk without killing myself.

They were like stilts.

As I sat down to take them back off, Veronique and Annabelle joined us. She and Holly twittered on about nonsense that I couldn’t make out for a moment while I held Annabelle, who was starting to get a little sleepy.

Veronique came and sat down across from me with a couple of shoeboxes in her arms. “So what do you girls have planned for tonight?” She slipped on a pair of taupe satin heels and twisted her heel back and forth to inspect them in the bench’s mirror.

I shrugged.

Holly sat down next to me and scooped Annabelle out of my arms and into her lap. “I think we should go out on the town in our new threads.”

I looked at her. Threads? Where are you from, woman?

Veronique smiled. “Nick wants to take me out tonight but it’s too late to call a sitter, plus I don’t think he’ll be able to de-grease his hands for at least a week.”

I laughed. “I’ve got some soap that’ll take the skin off of a crocodile, I’ll bring it over next time for him.”

She laughed, “It’s that good, huh?”

I held up my hands. Clean nails. “I changed my oil last night.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “True story. Then again she does change her oil almost once a month.”

I punched her in the shoulder. She raised a high heeled shoe as if to stab me with the heel, but we wilted as a woman who looked like the store’s manager shot white hot daggers in our direction.

Veronique settled on a pair of 4-inch heels that had a silver metal heel, red flowers around the back of the foot, with the rest of the shoe covered in black suede and white satin patches.

“So I’m thinking we might just grill out tonight. If so, you two are welcome to join us.”

I helped her pick up her various things as we headed towards the checkout. “V, if you and Nick ever need a babysitter, usually at least one of us is a homebody on any given night, we’d be glad to watch her. Besides, I owe you for that fucking skirt.”

“Speak for yourself, party pooper.”

Veronique gave me a sideways hug. “That’s very sweet of you, I’ll let Nick know.”

We checked out and continued to wander the upper levels of the mall. I ran into GameStop to snag the newest Call of Duty, and Holly dragged me out before I could find anything else I “needed.” Jerk.

Veronique let out a worn-out-mother’s sigh. “Let’s go grab something to eat and try to build up a second wind.” She glanced down at Annabelle, who was obviously tired of being in the stroller.

“Good idea. I’m starving.”

I grinned. “Let me take her for a bit, do you mind?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Call if you need rescuing.”

I had managed to stay under budget (thanks to Veronique) and so while the women headed in search of food, I took Annabelle to Build-A-Bear. She picked up a tie-dyed bunny rabbit stuffed animal and I helped her through the whole process, from filling the toy to picking out clothing for it. Even though the thing was as big as her, she insisted on holding it on our way out of the store.

We met up with her mother and Holly upstairs at Chipotle.

“Hey ladies, check out what Annabelle’s got!” I handed Veronique the registration card for the bear. “There’s a website where you can go overboard in the whole personalization thing on the rabbit. We haven’t given it a name yet.”

She smiled and took it from me, then scooped up Annabelle and the rabbit in her arms. “Thanks, Desi.”

Holly checked her phone, then coughed at me. “So… we should probably get going soon.”

“What happened to your second wind?”

Veronique and Holly both jerked their heads towards the other side of the atrium. Apparently school was just getting out, because there were tons of teenagers pouring into the mall. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around fifteen and sixteen year olds but… they’re dumb.

Arrogant, hormonal, and annoying to share shopping space with.

“Point taken.” I snitched a piece of chicken from Holly’s burrito bowl.

“Hey!”

I grinned. “You said we have to go. I’m hungry, so you’re sharing.”

We trekked the long walk out of the mall and back out to Holly’s car, parked all the way out in a sparsely populated edge of the lot.

“Holly, I love you, but couldn’t you have used valet parking?”

“Nobody drives this car but me.” She popped me on the back of my head, “You should know better than that.”

Veronique laughed. “I don’t get it,” she waved over towards the 3’s primered hull, now creeping into view. “It’s not like it’s the prettiest thing around.”

Holly shot her a look. I shrugged and giggled. “Yeah, but it will be.”