I pile a couple of pieces onto my arm and Macie does the same, grabbing a lot of things that are probably too formal for a kids’ sleepover, but I’m not going to stifle her personal style choices. Who am I to tell her how to express who she is?
Once we’re sure that we each have enough options to choose from, we head toward the dressing rooms and climb into one of the larger rooms to try on some of the clothes. I help my sister get into her favorite of the outfits she picked out: a white long sleeved shirt that goes underneath a black tartan dress. When she picked it out, she’d mentioned something about pairing her favorite mary janes with theoutfit. I brush my hands over the skirt of it, smoothing out the fabric, and take a step back.
“Okay, gimme a twirl, let’s see it,” I tell her.
She spins in place, sending the skirt of the dress flying out around her as her little face lights up, and my heart melts into a puddle watching the pure, unfiltered joy on her face from something as simple as a new dress.
“Can I get it?” She asks me, making her eyes as big and puppy-like as possible, and I can’t help but smile.
“Of course you can. Let’s set it next to my purse, that will be our ‘keep’ pile.”
After helping her try on a few more outfits, she decides to keep three of them, and I just can’t bring myself to tell her no. She doesn’t get to pick out her own clothes that often, and she deserves this for her big night, so she can have her little pile of goodies.
I cycle through a few outfits of my own before landing on a cream-colored cable knit sweater that I decide to tuck into a matching pencil skirt.
“What do we think?” I ask Macie as I turn around to give her the full view.
Clapping, she nods her head enthusiastically and yells, “Really pretty!”
“Alright,” I say as I smooth out the front of the skirt. “Should we pay for our stuff and head home? You need a bath and we gotta pack your bag.”
“A bath with bubbles?”
“As if there’s any other way,” I tell her, ruffling her hair.
We each change back into our own clothes before collecting our ‘keep’ and ‘put back’ piles, toss the ‘put back’ pile onto the rack of rejected items waiting for us at the exit of the fitting rooms, and make our way to the registers to pay.
Bags in hand, we trek to the parking lot and toward my car, where we toss our merchandise into the trunk andclimb into our seats. Macie insists on buckling herself into her booster seat, so we sit for a good five or six minutes before I can even put the keys into the ignition.
•
“Alright, kiddo,” I say as I help her get out of the bath, “go on and pack your jammies and toothbrush. I’ll be up in a sec.”
She shouts an excited ‘okay!’ and flies through the house and up the stairs while I bring our bags up from the living room.
My hips whine at me as I slowly climb up the stairs, begging me to sit down, but I push them just far enough to get me to my room, where my bed is waiting for me.
I toss the bags down onto the foot of the bed and plop down next to them, kicking off my shoes and letting out a long breath of relief. I sit there for a minute, using removing the tags on everything as an excuse to stay sitting there, until Macie comes in, hauling her backpack behind her which is stuffed to the brim with things she wants to take with her for the night.
I laugh, taking in her excited expression and the overflowing bag. “Got everything you’ll need?”
“Yup!”
“Teeth brushed?”
“Yup!”
“Alright,” I chuckle, “then pick out what you’re gonna wear and you can hang out with me while I get ready.”
I don’t know where Dad is – probably at the liquor store or the dark corner of some dive bar - but he isn’t home, and that feels like a small victory for me right now. I really don’t want to listen to him scream about the way I chose to spend the money that I work my ass off to save.
Macie grabs her pile of spoils and runs off to her room to throw an outfit together, shouting her thanks over her shoulder as she leaves. While she gets dressed, I do the same, then move to my desk to pop some hot rollers into my hair.
My sister careens back into my room a few minutes later, donning that little tartan dress, and I can’t help but break into a smile looking at her.
“You look beautiful, Mace!”
Giving me a big, dizzying twirl, she says, “Thank you!”
