1
FRANKIE
My fingers shook as I pulled up the zipper on the side of my dress. The material was silk liquid beneath my touch, far more delicate than anything I’d ever worn.
It blew the thrifted pink gown I’d donned for prom a few years back out of the water. I swallowed, the nerves starting to set in for real. A rumbling in the pit of my stomach almost made me queasy. I was doing this.
Really, actually doing this, and now that I had the gorgeous dark blue dress on, it felt like there was no turning back now.
I wouldn’t have turned back anyway. The stakes were too high.
If I didn’t attend this event tonight, if I didn’t do what I’d agreed to do against my better judgement, Mom would have no choice but to sell our house to the predatory company that had been harassing her about it for months.
The place where I’d taken my first steps, where Mom had taken her last before her disease took that freedom away fromher, would be turned into a cookie-cutter, short-term rental for people on vacation. This night was essential.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t having second thoughts—and third, and fourth, and seventieth.
“Doing okay in there, honey?” Mom’s soft voice floated to me through the bathroom door, making me jump. I cleared my throat to clear out the cobwebs.
“Yeah, Mom! I’ll be out in a minute!”
As soon as I could gather the courage to stop looking at myself in the mirror.
It was just hard to conceptualize that the glamorous figure I saw there was me, regular old Frankie Taylor, and not someone much more exciting. Someone who made more sense as a potential guest of an exclusive underground auction with questionable legality.
This whole plan had come about because I’d reached out to my father, which should have been the first clue this was a bad idea.
It had been my most desperate attempt at solving our money problems after a part-time job at the library hadn’t made much of a dent.
Mom and I had never had a lot of money, since she’d raised me on her own, but ever since she got sick, the medical bills had drained our resources close to dry.
My father, on the other hand, was rich enough that I knew of his wealth despite knowing so little else about him. Robert Ferrara wasn’t in our lives, hadn’t ever been involved with me beyond sending an occasional nondescript birthday card in the mail over a month late.
But he had a certain sinister reputation in the area that told me everything I needed to know.
And in an unsurprising fashion, he hadn’t offered to help us with our money troubles out of the goodness of his heart.
Hadn’t offered, even, to help with my college tuition so I wouldn’t have to drop out of school, which I optimistically thought a father would feel obligated to do.
No, my father had offered me a chance toearna “hefty sum,” as he put it, by attending the exclusive, invitation-only event I was getting ready for tonight.
Well, I guess Iwasready. My outfit was on, my makeup as close to perfect as my mediocre skills could accomplish, but at least it made my brown eyes pop.
My dark hair was brushed out and actually shining. My precarious heels were buckled and all prayers that I wouldn’t break an ankle were said. I was just…procrastinating.
Now or never.
I added my last touch, a pair of sparkly earrings that dangled close to my collarbones and sparkled bright enough that I was sure they were made from real diamonds.
Then I opened the door and stepped out to see my mom in her wheelchair, looking up at me with moisture glistening in her eyes.
“Oh, Frankie. You look so beautiful.”
I smoothed my hands over the dark blue silk that hugged my hips, showing a subtle curve I’d barely recognized was there before.
The neckline of the dress was daringly low, emphasizing my chest in a way that made me blush.
And if I wasn’t so terrified for tonight, I might agree with her. Maybe I’d share that starry-eyed wonder at my Cinderella-like transformation.
