“Sure.”
Willa reached into her desk drawer and pulled out an envelope, then unfolded a glossy page from a catalog. “What do you think?”
The dress was peach, with puffy sleeves. The bottom was shaped like a bell and looked expensive.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“You know the dance is called the Old South Ball. From the pictures I’ve seen in the yearbook, the girls wear dresses with petticoats, so make sure you have one. Have you phoned home for your dress yet?” Willa said, applying blush to her cheeks.
“I’m not going.”
Willa’s hand froze in midbrush. “Of course you’re going. Don’t worry about a date. I wasn’t supposed to tell you this, but Claude’s planning to ask you this weekend. So call home for your dress.”
Sophia hadn’t phoned home in the two months that she had been at Forest. Even if she had, there was no way Ma Deary would agree to send her a tube of toothpaste, let alone a dress for a dance. “We will see.”
“Please, Sophia. It won’t be fun without you. Don’t leave me out there by myself.”
Sophia didn’t want to go to the dance with Claude, had nothing to wear and no one to ask for help, but the thought of disappointing Willa made her feel worse. “I’ll see what Ma says and if she has enough time for a dress,” Sophia lied.
“You’re the best. I have to go. I’m meeting Max on the lawn.” Willa took one last look at herself in the mirror. She looked well put together, as usual, in a pair of pedal pushers with bobby socks and a striped top that accentuated her full bust. Willa was as curvy as Sophia was slim. “I think he’s going to ask me to the dance today.I want to look good but not like I tried too hard. You know what I mean?”
Sophia nodded and closed the door behind Willa, pressing away the feeling of jealousy that had bloomed from the moment Willa said she was meeting Max. Deep down, she knew that it made sense for Max to like Willa. Not only was Willa gorgeous, but they also had the same air about them that said they belonged.
As Sophia gathered up her physics book and notepad, she wondered how she would get her hands on a dress. There certainly wouldn’t be any stuffed in the lost-and-found bin.
She had time for a quick breakfast before she met her friend Nancy in the library to study for their physics test. As she moved through the breakfast line, piling her plate with pancakes, sausage links, and eggs, she spotted Miz Peaches, the lunch lady.
“Hey, sugar. Why the long face?”
The dining hall was mostly empty; students preferred to sleep in on Saturday mornings.
Sophia whispered, “The Old South Ball is coming up. Willa is insisting that I go, but I don’t have a dress.”
Miz Peaches arched her painted eyebrows. “Well, I just so happen to oversee the local Miss NAACP Pageant held at my church. I’m sure I can find something in your size.”
“Really?” Sophia brightened.
“Sure, sugar.” Miz Peaches took the pencil from behind her ear and started writing down notes. “Let me feel your waist.” She came around the hot station and put her cool hands on Sophia’s hips and her wrists and then did something with her red fingernails that started at the top of Sophia’s head and moved to her feet. Sophia looked around to see if anyone was watching them, but the few students in the room were consumed with one another.
“Got your measurements.”
“Just like that?”
“Sugar, dressmaking has been in my family for three generations. I’ve been sewing since I was knee-high to a spider. Let me see what we have at the church that might fit.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Just know that when I’m finished with you, you’ll be the talk of that ball.”
“Thank you, Miz Peaches.” Sophia beamed.
“Now, go and eat before your breakfast gets cold. You leave the rest to me.”
On the evening of the Old South Ball, Willa’s tennis team had planned to take pictures on the lawn before the start of the dance, and she left their room in a cocoon of eye shadow, hair spray, and perfume before Sophia had even started getting ready. Since she had arrived at Forest, Sophia had washed her hair sparingly, not wanting to disrupt the black dye, but even though the Ogilvie box read “permanent color,” each time she shampooed, her hair faded. As she combed it through in preparation for the dance, she noticed that her hair was now a cherry brown and the roots had grown in. She wondered how much longer she had until she was fully a redhead again.
Orangutan, don’t act like you don’t know your name.
Sophia paced her dorm room floor. Miz Peaches was over thirty minutes late with the gown. Perhaps something had come up that was more important; after all, they hadn’t known each other long. Sophia had not been in the habit of depending on people and chided herself for falling for Miz Peaches’s enthusiasm to help her with the dress.
