Myra and Hera had claimed two other chairs and moved them just that extra bit away from Jean and Jules, declaring war.
Frigg was slouched in a chair behind the row of four, arms crossed over her chest and a small smile on her face.
“Is she possessed? Did a zombie bite her?” Jean whisper-shouted again.
“I’m strutting.”
“Are you craving brains? Should we start doing the Thriller dance?” Jean asked.
I flipped her off with both fingers, which sent her into a gale of giggles.
Cheryl ushered me up onto the platform so I could get a good look at myself from every angle. Not bad.
“Now that,” Myra announced, “is gorgeous. And practical. It looks so easy to walk in.”
“Bor-ring!” Jean announced.
Myra scowled but didn’t look at Jean. In a perfect hostage negotiator voice, she said, “Delaney, isn’t this much easier to move in? You don’t have to deal with all the layers and fluff of the first dress.”
“True,” I said, doing another runway strut.
“No!” Jean said. “It doesn’t even sparkle. It doesn’t have lace!”
“Let me just undo the ties and take off the long skirt.” Cheryl came up behind me to do exactly that.
“And now it doesn’t even have a long skirt!” Jean complained.
“Oh, Delaney,” Myra said, her voice utterly rapt. “You look fantastic. Why are you always hiding your legs in pants? I can’t believe you don’t live in short skirts.”
“And think of what Ryder would say if he saw you coming down the aisle in that,” Hera said.
“No,” Jean said, “don’t think about Ryder. Who cares what he says? Think about all the sparkles you don’t have. Think of all of the plain sadness you’re wearing.”
“It’s more the parts I’m not wearing that I’m thinking about.” I didn’t own anything sleeveless, and Myra was right, I never showed this much leg.
“Frigg?” I asked.
“Again,” she said, “you look amazing in it. I want to see the third one, though, before I declare the winner.”
“All right. Let’s get the third one over with.”
Cheryl raised her eyebrows at me.
“I mean, yay!” I said. “Third dress!”
She pushed me into the changing room and told me to behave. I told her she should go ride roughshod over my sisters, which made her laugh, and leave me alone.
The last dress was the easiest to get into. Long, without a poofy under layer and no tricky absence of sleeves, it was soft against my skin. The lace seemed a little over the top since it covered every inch of the dress. It cut square just beneath my collarbones, covering my shoulders and all the way down to my wrists.
But it was easy to move in.
I didn’t know how I felt about it.
“This one is giving me mixed feelings,” I called out to the crew.
“Let’s see it,” Jules ordered.
I walked out, and just like with the other two dresses, Cheryl got me up on the little platform.
