Cutie Alert!

Chapter 7: Formal Just Ain't Normal

 

Chapter seven
Formal Just Ain't Normal

Caitlin

Okay, so remember when I said that I just don't do formal? I meant it. We had gone back to my house - since Mom and Dad weren't there as usual – and we felt comfortable flipping the house upside down, just to find me a single dress – notice the sarcasm?
    We settled for a dress that was in the back of my closet. Pfft! I should tell you, I even forgot I had that dress! Mom had bought it as an apology gift for not showing up on my birthday party last summer.
    I had to say, the dress wasn't really bad. It was a leather detailed LBD (Little Black Dress). Its color was black, so I liked it. It had a circular black collar-like neck that had leather details around it. It also had leather details around the hip area. The top was flowing down as a triangle, exposing most of my back - which I hated. It reached about my mid-thigh, making me fidget every few second to pull it down.
    Amanda let me borrow some of her shiny black heels, since all my shoes were either worn-out boots or tennis shoes. I made an exception for wearing the heels since they were only 4 centimetres off the ground, plus they were tango-dancing shoes and I happen to enjoy wearing those.
    Tiffany had suggested I have my hair straightened but I was just bored with the idea, so I curled it instead – just like Taylor Swift's so it reached down my shoulder a few inches. I didn't really wear a lot of accessories. Just a black Ice Watch my dad got me – thank God. Though Tiffany thought it was manly to wear only a watch on a formal dinner, but I couldn’t help but disagree.
    Applying makeup was the hardest part. Since I had no experience in formal makeup, Tiffany suggested to do my makeup, and I couldn’t really argue. Tiffany coated my eye-lashes with mascara and barley convinced me into wearing a colorless-kind of lipstick. Hey, I had a really bad experience with makeup, you don't even want to know.
    Let's just say to sum it up that they got me out of my house, looking like that, kicking and screaming. Not exaggerating.
    Alex and I joined up and met Dylan and Cole at the entrance. Their parents must have been in the restaurant since Alex got us late by fifteen minutes. We were 'fashionably late', she said. I have to tell you, I was a little embarrassed when I stood next to Alex. Since she looked terrific and I looked… eh. And the restaurant… it was just indescribable. But that wasn't the thing that surprised me the most. What surprised me the most was Dylan giving me a gift. Yeah, a real gift, one that was visible and that you can actually touch and feel. Oh my God. Could the Dylan actually be turning into a respectful guy?
    "Hey," Dylan said, handing me a really fancy-looking, heart shaped box once Alex and I approached them. "This is for you. A nice box."
    "Dylan," I said in amazement while I grabbed the box from him. "Wow, I can’t believe you did this! It’s–" I opened the box to find it–"it’s empty." Yeah, why am I not surprised by that? I glared at him, waiting for a good excuse.
    "But," he said in defence, forcing his grin to widen. "It's a really nice box, isn’t it ?" He winked at me right after he said the word 'isn't it?' Wow, he was acting like we shared some kind of inside joke or something. I rolled my eyes and looked over at Cole and Alex. Alex was staring at Cole with narrowed eyes and a suspicious look. Apparently, Cole had a  chocolate stain at the side of his mouth.
    "What?" He asked when he noticed that everyone was staring at him. "Oh, I didn’t do it."
    Alex looked at him in disgust before she rolled her eyes and said, "Come on, let’s just go."
    As Alex started walking, Cole followed. Actually, I noticed Cole would go anywhere just to spend more time with Alex. I'm planning about mentioning that to her later – once I know what the hell I just stepped on. Oh well, maybe it was just a bug, Amanda wouldn’t notice. On our way into the restaurant towards the table, Dylan said, "You know, I didn't see you in that dress since–"
    I cut him off saying, with sweet sarcasm, "Yeah, since the first time you lied to me. Last summer. On my birthday."
    "I was gonna say since our first date," he said, feeling ashamed – at least that’s what I hoped. "Don't you think that's a little less harsh?" I just snorted at the sound of that.
    I kept walking, but when we were half way to our table Dylan started sniffing, "Hey, what's that smell?"
    "I don’t know," I said noticing the smell myself and scrunching up my nose. "But it sure is horrible."
    Dylan seemed to think the smell was coming from me, which pissed me off when he leaned closer to me and started sniffing a bit harder.
    "Well," I said, glaring at him. "It’s not me!" Then I noticed he was looking at the floor. "What are you looking at?"
    "You have doggy no-no on your heel!" Dylan whisper-shrieked, pointing at my shoes. That caused me to freak out.
    "What?"  I said, looking hurriedly at my heels, noticing, sadly, that Dylan was right. "Oh man," I complained, stomping my doggy no-no shoes. "I wanted trampled-on boots, not doggy no-no heels!" I automatically looked at Alex for help.
    "Don’t look at me," she said, raising her hands up in an I-am-not-guilty way. "I’m wearing Converse!"
    "It won’t matter," Dylan said, glancing on the floor one last time. "The waiter will clean it. Come on, my parents are waiting."
    Great, I thought to myself as we made our way to the table. The evening didn't even start and I have doggy no-no on my shoe. But – I had to look on the bright side. At least I found out before reaching the table and sparing myself some royal embarrassment. Literally.