“We might have to dress up,” I point out from my bench. “You need a suit.”
“Fine, but does it have to bethissuit? It’s ridiculous. It’s toolook at me.”
“It’s chic,” I counter. “Andlook at meis kind of the whole—”
My words stall as he abruptly exits the room. Itisa nice suit. It’d have to be at that price point. But what looked like hunter green on the sales floor is more of a jarring emerald under these lights, and the Euro-chic ankle-length cut isn’t quite right on his lanky frame. It’s giving the impression that he’s actively outgrowing the suit before my eyes.
“I look like Gumby,” he says.
I swear I’m prepared to politely disagree with him, but a snort of laughter betrays me.
“Not Gumby,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even. He plods down the carpeted hall to the mirror at the end of it, and seeing the ensemble in motion is even worse. I don’t know if it’s the suit or just his discomfort, but it does give him a vaguely Claymation effect. “At worst, you look like a lovable, dorky Pixar character.”
Grant shoots me a skeptical look through the mirror.
“Lovable?”
“I believe I saiddorky.”
He rolls his eyes and glowers at his outfit some more. I suspect he’d be acting the same way no matter what clothes he had on.
“Come on, Grant. You have to admit this is off to a great start.” I may be out of my depth here, but I know a makeover montage when I see one. Even if it requires deep denial about what tomorrow holds, I’m determined to enjoy this part. It’s nice to see Anna Matthews hasn’t lost all of her rom-com sensibilities, anyway. “A day luxuriating at Harrods, with money as no object? It doesn’t get much better.”
“We’re being wined and dined for our last meal on death row.”
“Well, you know what they say: it is better to be wined and dined and executed than never to have wined or dined at all.”
Lissa bursts into the room, gaping delightedly. She drops several stuffed shopping bags as she gives Grant the once-over. “Well, well, well! Hell-o, Mr. Movie Star!”
If this is Grant as a movie star, he’s the kind that exclusively appears in stark dramas about white families mumbling at each other.
As he stalks back to his fitting room, Lissa sidles up to me. “Wow, he is determined not to enjoy himself.”
“Don’t take it personally. I think he determined that at a very young age.”
Lissa gleefully shows me what she’s collected: hats, scarves, sunglasses, jewelry, you name it—in every color and pattern discernible to the human eye.
“I may have gone a bit crazy,” she says, looping a turquoise feather boa around her neck. “I couldn’t resist.”
I reach into the bag and pull out a chunky Lucite cocktail ring. “Thisisall more or less a bribe to do the dirty work later, isn’t it?”
Lissa fluffs up the feathers around her neck. “Is it working?”
The light glints off my ring, illuminating pink sparkles within. “Maybe.”
We help ourselves to various odds and ends from the bags, layering on necklaces and modeling hats to our hearts’ content. When Grant emerges from the fitting room, Lissa’s in a cowboy hat and I’m rocking a floral headscarf with bedazzled star-shaped sunglasses. Grant blows past with a small assortment of shirts and pants in hand, disappearing back onto the sales floor. Lissa peers at me and cracks a grin.
“Bet you a tenner you can’t make him smile.”
I offer my blinged-out hand to shake on it. “You’re on.”
But Grant is a tough nut to crack. As we meander through the departments, I make a game out of pointing to an absurd luxury item and guessing its target customer. (Artisan beer fordogs: Trevor, crypto wunderkind. Marble potpourri dish: Judith, expat from Long Island who now pronounces “literally” aslitch-rally. Exfoliating anus mask: Gwyneth Paltrow.) He has no response.
I’m running out of Goop jokes in the sportswear section when I break.
“Okay,” I sigh. “What’s your problem?”
Grant’s brows lift in surprise. “My problem?”
