17. Dress and redress
- Location
- Across the universe
17. Dresses and redress
"Midori, just letting you know the police are here at the office. I will act as your lawyer if you want, so let me do the talking if they're still here when you get back," you say quickly into your phone before hanging up. Hopefully Midori will check her voice mail before she gets back.
A loud crash from downstairs tells you that the police have gotten impatient while waiting for someone to come let them in. Not as if you could manage the stairs in your current condition. You estimate the cost of door repairs and add this to the list of reasons you're annoyed at Jake and listen to the sounds of booted police officers tromping around in the lower floors of the office.
"Hey!" you shout weakly. "Tentacle Girl isn't down there, you can go home, thanks!"
A few moments later, half a dozen police officers are pouring out of the stairwell from the middle floor of your office up into the upper floor with you. A short and furious bout of legal-fu ensues, in which you establish that you are mentally competent, conscious, and not interested in a ride to the hospital. A forensic specialist stays behind to execute the search on their warrant; unfortunately, she doesn't listen to you when you tell her there's nothing interesting in the fridge, and you watch in horror as she crawls a little bit further in at a time, pulling out out two gallons of milk, saying something muffled about blood stains, then crawling further in ... and then the door shuts behind her.
You wait, but she doesn't re-emerge from the fridge. Ten minutes later, Midori arrives through the ceiling.
"There's a police officer in the fridge," you say, by way of warning.
"Um?" Midori pokes her head into the fridge. "Maybe there was, but he must have gone out the other door."
"She," you say, correcting the record. "It was a woman officer."
"Sorry," Midori says, shrugging. "She's not there anymore."
"So ... uh ... where is the other door, exactly?" you ask, imagining the forensic specialist wandering through an abyssal hellscape full of non-Euclidean insanity-inducing monsters.
"Redmond," she says. "Unless maybe she went through the lettuce crisper? The lettuce crisper goes to 'Utu Vava'u."
***
The battle between the National Guard, Seattle's super community, and the Pharaoh took two days to resolve. Roughly two dozen priests, under-priests, and officers were captured, but Pharaoh himself remains at large, having remained out of sight since shortly after his battle with Tentacle Girl. You haven't talked to Jake since then, refusing his calls and responding to his texts only with curt short responses like "No," ":-( yes," "have u checked in redmond," "not my fault," and the occasional "still mad at u." Because you are mad with Jake, and you're not quite sure how to deal with this situation.
Meanwhile, you've poured your heart out to Alice and Lewis, asking them to talk to Jake and help straighten him out. He needs to trust you rather than sending the police storming into your office. Alice and Lewis both agreed that you need to speak with Jake in person. Lewis suggested you use the opportunity to bring him over to your side, or at least give him another chance. Alice suggested you open up by dumping him and then tell him you might take him back if he promises not to keep any secrets from you. Lewis then responded by saying that sometimes, some secrets have to be kept. Alice replied by suggesting that you dump him anyway, because if the secret is more important than your relationship.
Lewis responded by saying he made reservations for dinner for four Friday evening on the rooftop of a certain small but expensive Italian restaurant. At this, Alice said that Jake probably would feel out of place and probably won't meet the dress code and surely he can't simply be bribed into behaving better. Lewis countered by saying that Jake told him that he's always wanted to try wagyu beef, and that he will lend Jake suitable attire for the evening, and that the two of them can discuss that further when he takes her dress-shopping Friday afternoon. It's now Friday afternoon, and the stream of texts back and forth between Lewis and Alice on the group chat you started has finally abated.
Neither of them actually asked if you had plans for Friday evening, but fortunately, you didn't make any. You are a little worried about the issue of suitable attire, and you're staring at your closet in a state of mild panic. There's the knee-length purple number you wore to the opera with the matching knee-high boots. You do have a little black dress, which is sort of standard, and then there's the gold number that you wore at your cousin's wedding... as a bridesmaid. Fancy, but ... uh ... not pretty. You have your old prom dress still, although it'd be a pretty tight fit to squeeze into it; it's peacock blue with green sequins, with the knee-length hemline mandated by school policy. There's a knock at your door. It's Alice. She has two dress bags folded over her right arm and a large shopping bag in her left hand, and there's a limo parked outside.
"I made him give me his credit card, call up a limo, and go back home," Alice says, triumphantly. "We'll meet them at the restaurant. And I decided that if Jake and Lewis are going to show up in matching suits, I want us to match up and blow them away. They'll be sorry they kept secrets from us. Hopefully I have the fit right."
She gives you a suspicious look. The first thing Alice reveals is a pair of four-inch glittering purple heels. You stare at them skeptically as she hands them to you and unwraps the dresses. The dress Alice brought you is a revealing a maxi-length asymmetric checkerboard of crimson outlines with crimson embroidery on deep royal purple panels. The revealing part is that the crimson outlines surround diaphanous panels, exposing half the legs and a third of the torso to sight almost as clearly as if there had been nothing there at all. The one she bought for herself is crimson with purple accents, and switches the left and right siding of the dress.
"I thought of your prosthetic foot," she says, indicating the solid lower left part of the dress. "Oh, and there are matching gloves," she adds, pulling out a pair of elbow length gloves, purple with red accents and half of the fingers left uncovered.
"That's ... quite something," you say.
The fit is perfect, and Alice has a vaguely disappointed look on her face. "Lewis rattled off a shoe size and a set of measurements when he said I shouldn't loan you one of my old dresses and to trust that you'd have something suitable enough. How does he know you have thirty-nine and a quarter inch hips?"
"Thirty eight and a half," you correct, feeling defensive but remembering the last time you measured.
She tugs at the dress. "Thirty nine and a quarter," she says, and slaps your butt, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. "All these secrets are making me sick," she adds, audibly. "I don't suppose you can tell me something about why my boyfriend knows the shape of your body that exactly?"
What to wear?
[] Accept Alice's interesting donation and go to battle with the boys as a matching team.
[] The more modest purple dress you wore to the opera. Jake will remember it.
[] The little black dress. It's classic and you can't go wrong with that.
[] The gold dress. It's distinctive, memorable, and made of pretty durable material.
[] Your old prom dress. Anything less dramatically colorful will leave you a drowned-out accessory to Alice.
[] Uh ... time to run to the department store. (Write-in emergency purchase.)
What to tell Alice?
[] It has to be a lucky guess, you have no idea why.
[] Her boyfriend must have magic lech-vision. Men can be such pigs sometimes.
[] Her boyfriend is no ordinary man. She's lucky to have landed such a talented guy with a good eye.
[] Her boyfriend has powers.
[] You have powers. And damnit, your hips can be thirty eight and a half if you want them to be. *stretch*
[] (write-in)
Do you have a plan of attack for the Italian place?
[] No. You'll let the others take the lead. Let Jake come to you.
[] Yes. (write in plan)
