“No, definitely not,” she said. Until then she saw an old storage box. She paused and slowly removed it and put it on the bed. She popped the lid off and saw the dress that Pawpaw got her when she was in her twenties to congratulate her on graduating college. Apprehensively, shepulled it out and let the beautiful fabric fall. It was a lovely shade of celeste, Pawpaw’s favorite color. And it was a dressy enough of a material that she could wear it. With soft flowing short sleeves and a tapered waistline, the neckline wasn’t too plunged to where it was inappropriate. But this dress was something she wore over fifteen years ago.
Evelyn pushed doubt aside and became eager to put it on. It fell effortlessly around her! Tears welled in her eyes as she touched her stomach and looked at her reflection in the mirror. It fit. Thirty pounds down now. Her full lips smiled widely as she twirled to let the fabric flow and catch the air. The beautiful feeling consumed her entirely. She lifted up her light-brown hair and shook it about playfully.
“I wish you could see this, Pawpaw. Oh, but wait! Thereissomeone who can see this!” She turned and grinned. “Teddy!”
The heavy patters of paws came fluttering with clumsy movements, and in came the new fat tabby ginger she adopted, a male rescue named Teddy. “What do you think?”
He rolled over on her foot exposing his sandy-colored belly.
“Oh, a lot of help you are. I’m going for a promotion today, so I gotta look my best!”
Then she smelled wax cooking.
“Ah!” she hollered. She raced frantically into the bathroom and removed the lid to blow it off trying to cool it. “Oh,” she said shakingly with a bounce in her body movements. “I keep getting you too hot, then you get too cold!”
There was no time to wait, as she was already running late. She turned off the warmer, packed her tweezers, and headed for the door. She kissed Teddy goodbye and left.
Every step she gave had a dance in it. Joshua smiled and waved at her from across the street. “You got that interview today?”
She opened her car door. “Yes! Wish me luck!”
“Good luck! Maybe before you know it, you’ll be designing all the business signs in town!”
She smiled, thanked him, and left. It was a really nice thing to say.
At stop signs, she plucked her brows while looking in the mirror. A car horn honked out of nowhere, and she jumped. “Oh my God!” Before she could even put her foot to the pedal, the truck blazed by herinto the oncoming lane and cut her off. She screamed, squeezing the steering wheel. Her heart was in her throat. “Alan Moffet! I hope Hunt gets you on his radar!” She pulled through the intersection. “At least I don’t have to worry about your ass tailgating me.”
The Chevy truck hit a horrible pothole and almost swerved off the road.
“Serves you right!” She laughed and swerved to the right to miss it but ended up behind a tractor and drummed her fingers, leaning over her steering wheel.
She waited through a construction zone and rocked out to Journey.
Then her tire pressure warning went off. Likely from hitting that pothole too many times.
“Oh, you havegotto be freaking kidding me right now! Ugh!”
Evelyn looked up and around and saw the only gas station in sight. It was some random one that looked like no one would ever go to unless they were desperate, kind of like her. “Please have air. Please have air. Please have air.” She was still breathing heavy from the truck incident.
Circling the parking lot, she saw the one lone air pump and jumped happily, pulling right up to it. But as she got out, her dress immediately caught the wind and whipped about her so fanatically that she had to keep her hands on it. It was horrible! That damn spring wind was ruining her hairstyle and getting strands stuck to her lip gloss. She pulled it away with one hand and tried to lean over to get her pressure checker out, and her panties were almost exposed for the whole world to see in a matter of seconds.
Surely the truckers nearby may like a show, but she wasn’t up for that. The busy highway sounds whizzed off the intersection, and she let go of her hair to grab the pressure gauge. And soon enough, she tried to squat down to check the pressure. The wind was everywhere, and so was her dress! “Dammit! It wasn’t this windy this morning,” she mumbled to herself.
She stood up and tried to configure her dress somewhere between her legs to hold it together with her thighs, but it made squatting nearly impossible, and even when she leaned over, the back end would fly up. Evelyn stood upright and tried to sit down to tuck her dress underneath.
Before she could, a voice called to her, “Ma’am? Would you likesome help?” It had a little bit of a snicker in it, as if the person asking the question found her situation humorous. And even to her, it was…now that someone was there to help.
She pulled her dress down and stopped before she ever sat down. “Thank you so much!” she said happily. “I wasn’t expecting this wind today and-”
Turning, her breath left her lungs.
The wind blew her hair back behind her with the direction she was facing, and her eyes went amiss with seeing him…again.
He chuckled in that boyish smile with those expressive and kind eyes. “There’s no need for a lady to be sittin’ on the ground in a dress. Here, let me see that gauge.”
Evelyn felt her heart racing, pounding harder than it already had been from the truck incident. “I recognize you,” she said as she handed him the gauge. “You’re the man from the drugstore. You helped me back then. Do you remember?”
He scratched his scruffy cheek and rolled up the sleeves of his blue plaid shirt and grinned. He knelt and felt her tire. “Oh, I remember alright. You’re the short girl with the tomato face.”
