BETWEEN REVENGE AND LOVE

53

Saturday, 25/11/1995

Mrs Maxwell, the owner of this hellhole of a shop, is chasing me.

Well, maybe she's not exactly chasing me. But she's been at my heels for about an hour now, whirling around at a pace I wouldn't have expected from her.

She's old, maybe in her mid-nineties if not older and looks accordingly fragile. But her age-stained, shrivelled hands dig through one pile of clothes after the next, energetically as ever.

"We are going to find you a dress to remember." She smiles, tackling the next mountain of clothes.

Yes, this shop has a rather peculiar arranging system. A unique one, certainly.

Mrs Maxwell's got no shelves or cabinets, or anything really to display her dresses hanging. Instead, they're all piled up on the floor, creating a neverending chaotic sight.

But somehow she seems to have an idea of where to find everything.

"What would you like; buttons or a zipper?"

She doesn't look at me, keeps rummaging on. How would I know? Buttons or a zipper?

"Zipper would be more practical, I s'pose?" 

My lazy mind screams at the thought of having to button up dozens of buttons myself.

The sound she makes in response doesn't show much enthusiasm. "A proper dress needs buttons, I say."

"Fine then," I sigh, giving up on arguing before I even start.

A few minutes ago she asked me about what cut imagine, particularly about how much shoulders, back and cleavage I'd like to show.

My reiterations about it being a school event she didn't want to hear at all and showed me a couple of dresses with downright frightening cuts.

"Let's see," she mumbles, pushing me further into the depths of the room. "What about the colour? Any preferences, any wishes?"

"...green would suit you, don't you think?..." It echoes through my head. Tracey didn't show any mercy this morning.

After breakfast had ended she attacked me with tons of questions. What colour, what cut, what fabric, what material?

Oh yes and ruffles, do I like ruffles? Do I like ruffles?!

"Green," I respond, having a hard time not tripping and in the worst case damaging a dress with it.

"Good choice." Her voice sounds like a smile and I'm happy too, because she apparently doesn't plan on listing me every existing dammed shade of green.

Forest green, sage green... what else?

It's astounding how big this shop is on the inside. That's magic's fault, I suppose.

From the outside, it looked so inconspicuous and small. But the corridor through which we squeeze now is longer than logically explainable.

"Over there, my dear!" Hastily she grabs my hand, almost jumping with excitement.

Rushed she drags me along, heading towards an especially big dress pile. Purposefully she reaches into it. As she pulls her hand out again there's something green attached to it.

A lot of fabric, how it seems, dark green shiny fabric to be exact.

"Wonderful," Mrs Maxwell rejoices, "this is what I pictured exactly! Do you like it? Yes, you do, look at you how happy you are."

Confused I stare down at her white head of curly hair. Happy? She's not even looking at me.

"You're going to try it on now. Where's your friend I bet you could use some help with those buttons." She holds out the dress to me and I take it, noticing how there's not a single crease in it, despite the questionable storing methods. Magic, again.