She was just trying to help her pick out a dress.
"I've had that in my closet forever..."
"Forever?" Katie brought the dress in toward her chest and reached into the neck and pulled something out. "Then why is the tag still on?"
Ruth wasn't sure what to say to that.
"It was a 'dream dress' when I bought it. Something I wanted to wear someday, but it wasn't exactly a good fit back then, you know?"
Katie nodded and then held out the dress to her. "Could you try it on for me?"
Oh. That was low.
There probably wasn't anything else she could have said that would have been more effective to get her to try to squeeze into the dress.
Ruth took the dress and hanger from Katie. "I'll give it a try."
"Cool!"
Katie sat down on the edge of the bed. "I bet it's going to be the perfect dress."
Ruth nodded and stepped into the bathroom.
She hadn't turned on the light in there. The only illumination was a night light plugged into the wall so she didn't stub her toes into the cabinet under the sink. She used the side of her foot to close the door. Not completely because she needed to hear if Katie called out to her.
She pulled her t-shirt off and dropped her pajama pants on the floor.
The zipper purred easily as she opened the back of the dress.
Ruth let out a breath and stepped into the dress.
She drew it up and over her hips finding more room than she remembered. From there, she slipped one arm in at a time and then with the straps around her shoulders, she reached back to the zipper.
She made it up and over her butt. Then she got it up to her somewhere around the bottom of her ribs and that's where she had a problem.
With the shoulder 'straps' where they were she couldn't reach her arms up more than an inch or two.
And she wasn't flexible enough to reach around and back to zip it up further.
Ruth looked into the mirror and panicked for a moment.
Her breasts made the chest of the dress bulge in a weird way and there was no way that she was going to ask Katie for help if she looked like a flour sack stuffed into a dress.
Lowering the zipper a tad, Ruth reached into the front of the dress and re-positioned 'the girls.' Lifting a little and tugging the dress against her chest to keep them 'in place.'
Then she reached back and got the zipper back up to the same place.
From there she had to make a decision. Looking in the mirror she had to admit that she didn't look half-bad in the dress.
The problem was getting it up all the way to see if her 'dream' dress was actually a reality.
A soft knock at the bathroom door turned her head.
"Miss Baker? Do you need help with the zipper?"
Ruth shook her head. "How did you know?"
"Well," Katie's voice was almost a singsong tone, "I was the one who picked it out of the closet and that's a loooong zipper. I'd have trouble zipping it up."
