Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 (7 page)

She’d dressed normally this morning. Simple, mature upswept hair, sophisticated clothes, subdued makeup. The picture-perfect image of a business professional, but that wasn’t the picture before her now. She looked excited and anxious, ready to have sex. Did everyone look at her and know what she planned to do at Gasparilla? Would Ethan see her and instantly know too? “What will Ethan think?” she whispered to her reflection.

“Ethan?” Shannon asked, having followed her into the dressing room.

“My boss.”

“You mentioned him before,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” Clarise mumbled, still uncertain whether she wanted everyone, particularly Ethan, knowing her thoughts.

“Something going on there?” Jadelle asked, hanging her selected clothes on the red and orange hooks lining the walls and shooting a knowing look toward Shannon. “Where does he register on the hunk-o-meter?”

“Off the chart,” Clarise answered before thinking.

“Well, I bet when he sees you, he’ll think about it,” Shannon said.

“Think about it?” Clarise asked numbly. Could she really attempt to seduce her friend? Because that’s what she was planning, wasn’t it? Could she convince him to look at her
that
way?

“Sex,” Jadelle supplied, and the lump in Clarise’s throat moved up a bit. Have mercy, she didn’t want to hurl. “If he sees you looking confidently sexy, he’ll think about it all right.”

Wait a minute. Clarise’s heart pumped up the volume.
Had
Ethan thought about it? He had given her one of those crooked sexy grins after he saw her in the red dress at the Christmas party. But had his sexy grin been because he thought she looked appealing? Or absurd? Then again, Jake Riley had given her the same look that night and, subsequently, hadn’t stopped hinting that they should “get together sometime.” He hadn’t officially asked her out, but he had definitely made a few references to them “having some fun” at Gasparilla. However, there were two problems with getting together with Jake: 1) She knew his track record for reeling women in, bedding them well, then breaking their hearts, and 2) Clarise didn’t want Jake; she wanted Ethan.

“Well?” Shannon asked.

“Well what?”

“Are you having sex with your boss?” Jadelle asked.

“No,” Clarise quickly supplied.

“Wanting to?” Shannon continued.

Wanting to? Was she kidding? More like dying to. Dreaming to.

Jadelle giggled. “Okay, you don’t have to answer. We know that look.”

Clarise’s cheeks burned as the blood sizzled up her neck. “I really need to get started trying these on,” she said, eager to change the subject. Plus, she didn’t have a surplus of time; she only had an hour left to get to class.

“We’re gonna give you some privacy,” Shannon said. “But you will let us see you in the outfits, right?”

She nodded, not wanting to talk anymore. So far, they not only knew her measurements but also that she fantasized about her boss. What else would she share? Her weight? Over her dead body.

The door clicked loudly as they left. Like the door on a jail cell. She swallowed. There wasn’t anything she could do about what Ethan had thought. What had he thought? Pushing the question out of her head, at least for now, she removed the lime green sweater dress from the hanger. The color was unique, the fabric soft and clingy. Would it be too much to ask for the thing to fit?

Within two minutes, her work clothes, a cotton blouse, sophisticated skirt, scarf belt, panty hose and flats, were in a crumpled pile on the dressing room floor. She held the new dress to her cheek and enjoyed the feel of the cloth on her skin, then she decided to bite the bullet and try the sucker on.

“No time like the present,” she said, sliding it over her head. It smoothed over her curves, pressed against her flesh. Clarise bit her lower lip, held her breath and inched her eyes open to view the mirror. How bad could it be? “Oh. My.”

She heard Shannon outside the door. “Jadelle, she’s got something on!”

“Wait for me!” Jadelle called, her bare feet slapping the floor as she rushed down the hall.

“You coming out?” Shannon asked, her voice echoing through the tiny crack in the door. “Or you want us to come in?”

“You can come in,” Clarise said, twisting the lock.

Both bounded inside. “I knew it!” Shannon squealed.

“Man, I need a boob job,” Jadelle added.

“I can’t believe that’s me,” Clarise admitted, gawking at the image in the mirror. Ethan had told her, and Clarise agreed that she conveyed class at work. But in this dress, she could honestly say she conveyed sass.

“Like my preacher always says: ‘Believe it, beloved.’” Shannon giggled. “You better be ready to fight them off, and I’m not kidding. You look incredible.”

Clarise stared, unable to speak. The green
did
pick up natural highlights in her hair, like Shannon predicted, and she hadn’t even realized there were highlights to be picked up. Then she took in her figure, and the way the dress hugged it like a custom-fitted glove, holding her breasts high and firm and showcasing a waist that didn’t look nearly as big as she’d believed. And her hips—they didn’t seem overly excessive at all. As a matter of fact, they looked . . . good. Curvy. Feminine.

“You’re ready for a red carpet premiere,” Jadelle said. “First-rate, all the way.”

“Do you think I’ll do okay?” Clarise decided not to clarify by asking their opinion on whether she could entice Ethan Eubanks, her friend and her boss, for wild sex and a possible marriage proposal.

“Better than okay. One look at you in that dress, and those men will go wild.”

Men going wild. Her pulse skittered. “Guess I should try on the other pieces too.”

“Yeah, but trust me, they’re gonna be perfect,” Shannon said. “Absolutely perfect.”

Clarise grinned. The p-word again, and suddenly, it sounded pretty darn good. She continued through the clothes, selected specifically with her full figure in mind. The results were phenomenal, beyond her wildest dreams. With each formfitting shirt, stretchy dress, or curve-enhancing pair of jeans, her confidence grew. Thanks to Shannon and Jadelle, she looked the part, like a single woman ready to take on the wild and wicked ways of Tampa at Gasparilla, eager to seduce the man of her dreams—and have a heck of a lot of fun doing it. The pixies were giving Clarise the same type of first-rate advice that she gave her Eubanks customers, except Clarise helped women look and feel elegant, Shannon and Jadelle helped her look and feel—hot.

Leaving the dressing room, Clarise walked down the flame-embellished hall a new woman, one who wasn’t afraid of getting burned. She was beautiful, not a cute little waif or pixie, but beautiful just the same. Bold and busty and beautiful, ready to set her fire free, let it flame, let it engulf, let it go. Smiling, she approached the cash register and beamed at the two women on the other side.

“We’ve had so much fun with you,” Shannon said, her voice almost sad that it was over, but still managing a tinge of excitement at what they’d accomplished.

“You’re gonna have a ball with this jump-start to your new wardrobe,” Jadelle added.

“And the new wardrobe will jump-start the new you,” Shannon added, bagging the goods.

“Yeah,” Clarise said, imagining a new world, where she didn’t shy from new experiences, where she saw what she wanted and went for it, where she . . . lived. “A new me.”

Chapter 5

P
rofessor Higgenbottam, Clarise’s fashion-merchandising instructor, had the flu, as noted in the materials left in the bin beside the classroom door. While Clarise looked forward to the Thursday night class, and to achieving her goal as a fashion buyer, she didn’t mind that the class wasn’t meeting this week. She needed all the time she could get to prepare, especially after Rachel had loaned her the video that would presumably teach her the proper technique of semistripping at Gasparilla.

With her arms overflowing in black and purple bags from Body Boutique, Clarise hurried from her car to her duplex, fumbled with the key and shuffled the packages to her living room. Then she did a second mad dash to her trunk, snatched up the pink-and-white-striped bags from her last stop, jogged up the sidewalk and scooted back inside. Blessedly, there hadn’t been a single neighbor in the illuminated parking lot. Normally she relished the bright-as-day lights her apartment manager installed that made 10:00
P
.
M
. resemble noon; tonight, however, she would have treasured the darkness that would have completely hidden her wares.

Truthfully, Clarise didn’t care if anyone viewed the famously known bags associated with Body Boutique’s trendy attire; however, the second batch of loot, the ones with the equally well-known pastel striping and satin black handles—that was another story entirely. After her class was canceled, she’d driven to the shopping malls in Trussville, thirty minutes away, to purchase her last-minute needs at the sassiest lingerie shop in town. Clarise hadn’t wanted to spend the extra time making the trip across town, but the chances of running into an old high school or college friend, or worse, one of Granny Gert’s canasta buddies, were much less probable outside the Birmingham city limits. She could only imagine what they’d say if they saw her sporting armfuls of bustiers and teddies.

Normally, she’d have purchased her new intimates online and had them delivered to her door in a brown, unmarked box. But while she’d toyed with the idea of how far to go at Gasparilla for three weeks, she had only decided to bare all in Tampa on Tuesday afternoon. Not enough time for delivery.

Clarise sure hoped she had what she needed. She had merely grabbed everything sexy she could find in her size, which she classified as “big” and “bigger.” But, after her afternoon at Body Boutique, she didn’t see that as such a terrible thing.

Peeking in the bags, she eyed the strap of a black garter belt. No doubt the encouraging comments from her two new friends had persuaded Clarise to venture even further out of her comfort zone. Had she gone too far? Another peek, and she glimpsed fishnet stockings. She smiled. Nope, not too far at all. If she were going for it, she was going the whole way, and with the surplus of slinky items in her bags, she had enough to go the whole way a few times. She’d even bought some cotton candy dust, since Ethan liked sweets as much as she did.

What was another pound if it headed to the right location? If indeed Shannon and Jadelle had been right in their opinion, which Clarise wanted to believe. Desperately. Was starting to believe, in fact. What if she was voluptuous and hadn’t even realized it?

“That you, child?” Her grandmother’s voice echoed from the bedroom.

After all the trouble Clarise had gone through to keep the majority of Birmingham from seeing her last-minute purchases, you’d think she would panic at the thought of Granny Gert’s getting an eyeful of her new things, but Gertrude Robinson wasn’t the typical grandparent. As a matter of fact, Clarise considered her grandmother to be her best friend, the one who understood her better than anyone else. And the one who’d totally approve of the flaming red merry widow with peekaboo cups.

“It’s me,” Clarise affirmed, placing her bags on the coffee table and tucking the borrowed video in her purse. While she was willing to show Granny the sexy garments she planned to wear, she wasn’t at all willing to let her watch while Clarise practiced stripping. Knowing Granny Gert, she’d probably want to give Clarise tips, and that would definitely fall into the TMI, or too much information, category.

Clarise rented both sides of the duplex, this side for her, the other for Granny Gert, who actually wasn’t invasive of Clarise’s apartment. She’d called this morning to see if she could bring over a few items for her granddaughter’s “adventure,” as she called it.

“I got you a street map of Tampa with the parade routes highlighted,” she called from the bedroom. “Don’t miss the invasion; it’s incredible. Last time I saw it was in ’88, but I’m sure it’s still the cat’s meow. The costumes and the floats will leave you speechless.”

“I can’t wait.”

“How was class?” Granny called. “You’re home early, aren’t ya?”

“My instructor was sick, so we didn’t meet,” Clarise answered.

“That’s too bad,” her grandmother said. “I know how much you like going.”

Clarise smiled. Granny Gert knew her so well. Most people would cringe at spending three hours in a classroom after a workday, but Clarise looked forward to those long Thursday nights, knowing each and every class brought her one small step closer to her goal. “At least I’ll be back from Tampa in time for next week’s class.”

“By the way, I put everything in your suitcase, along with my personal shopping list and some cash to make the purchases, but if you’re having too much fun to pick up the things on my wish list, don’t worry about it.” Granny Gert stepped from the bedroom and started down the hall toward the front of the apartment.

Clarise took in her grandmother’s traditional daily attire, which was anything but traditional. A hot pink silk dress, its top clinging to her enormous chest like a mud wrap, was paired with a skirt that flowed like liquid around her legs and brushed the tops of floral tapestry heels. She looked the picture of summer, which was to be expected for Gertrude Robinson, in spite of the calendar proclaiming January as the month of choice. Hot-natured, that’s what she called it, and Clarise had obviously inherited the trait; she didn’t have a jacket to her name. And she suspected she had also inherited more than a smidgen of Granny’s feistiness, though she’d never really given it the chance to surface. Time would tell.

She grinned. Looking at her grandmother was like looking in a mirror . . . with an extra forty-two years tacked on, but time had been kind to Granny Gert. True, she’d gone through a slump five years ago, after Grandpa Henry passed. He’d been her true love and enjoyed life nearly as much as she, but he wanted his “spitfire” to move on. He’d told her so, before he died, and now she had, accepting Clarise’s offer of a place to stay, close enough for her granddaughter to help her if she ever needed it, but a place of her own to allow the independence she craved. From Clarise’s point of view, it was a good situation for everyone. If only her father approved of her efforts to nurture her grandmother’s free spirit, then everything would be super. Unfortunately, Granny Gert’s disposition had skipped a generation, leaving him out in the cold. Thank goodness Clarise’s mother had enough liveliness and positive attitude for a small army. The two of them were living proof that opposites attract.