Espresso Shot

“Yes.”

Another sigh. Then she looked me up and down again. “You can’t wear that to my office, Clare. We have advertisers and VIPs coming through all the time. We have an image, you understand?”

“But I’m not part of your staff, so why would-”

Breanne wasn’t listening. In three long strides, she moved around me, opened the fitting room door. “Adele! Would you come in here?”

The boutique manager was a small-boned, stylish woman, a head shorter than Bree and probably ten years older. Her short, cinnamon-brown hair was cut into a meticulously layered style, and her pinstriped suit, the color of raw salmon, was accessorized with a shimmering opalescent scarf that perfectly matched her sheer blouse and designer eyewear.

“Please find this woman something to wear,” Bree said, then lowered her voice. “Keep it under seven.”

“Thousand?” Adele asked quietly.

“Hundred,” Breanne whispered.

“I can’t afford that!” I interjected (neglecting to keep my voice down).

Breanne shrugged. “If you can give up a day for Matt. I can give up some petty cash.”

I tried not to choke on that one. Seven hundred had been my monthly mortgage payment back in New Jersey. But if Her Highness was paying, I figured what the heck. At least I could boast to Mike Quinn that someone actually compensated me for my investigative services.

“Okay,” I said, effectively green-lighting the assault on my dignity.

THIRTEEN

THE humiliation began immediately. Adele looked my body up and down with a critical eye, which included an exceedingly uncomfortable few moments puzzling over my hips and buttocks. Finally, she gave me a plastic, slightly pained smile.

“Let’s get you measured, shall we?”

“Fine,” I said, “just give me a minute.”

Skirting two tailoring dummies, I headed back down the hall to the boutique’s main floor. My gaze immediately searched the front windows for any sign of Pacing Man. But he was no longer on the sidewalk.

I approached Roman, who’d returned to reading Gourmet on the white leather couch.

“Would you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Sure, sweetie.”

I explained how Breanne wanted to dress me in appropriate attire for her office. Then I gave Roman a description of the man I’d seen earlier. “If he comes back, I want you to let me know right away, okay?”

Roman scratched his head. “Whatever for?”

“I want to question him.”

Roman’s eyes widened a bit, as if I’d piqued his interest. “Okay, Shirley Holmes,” he said. “Consider me your Watson.”

Ten minutes later, I was back in the fitting room. As I stood there in nothing but my bra and panties, a dozen outfits were brought in for Breanne’s approval (now who was the dummy?).

“She’s got issues,” Breanne said, shaking her head as she held hanger after hanger of beautifully cut cloth against my scantily clad five-two frame.

“Yes, many,” Adele said. “She’s a petite, her legs are good, her waist is fine, but those hips.” She shook her head, practically tisking aloud. “A real problem area. And she’s far too big on top.”

I am?

“We could put her in a wrap dress, even an empire waist,” Breanne mused, “but we’re going to my offices, not a tea party. And the fitted suits won’t work without alterations. We have no time for that. Let’s try some separates.”

Adele nodded. Then she regarded me again. “Who did your work, by the way?”

“My work?”

She tipped her head toward my chest. “Your augmentation?”

Oh, for pity’s sake. “These are real.”

Adele frowned. “Aren’t they a burden?”

“They weren’t when I was nursing my daughter.”

“You’ve never considered a reduction?”

“No!”

“Well, you should if you want to wear quality designers.”

Okay, maybe it was my early exposure to Renaissance art and all those plump, buxom Madonnas with breasts and bellies looking like lovely ripe peaches; or maybe it was simply my disgust with reading about yet another runway model who died from ingesting nothing but lettuce leaves and Diet Cokes, but I could never understand this requirement that women starve themselves until they no longer had their God-given hips, breasts, and buttocks.

My gig here might be attempted murder, but I found it a crime how some women shamed others when it came to something as beautiful and natural as a healthy female form. Just what the hell were we teaching our daughters, anyway?

“Not everyone’s a slave to high fashion,” I pointed out to Adele.

“Clearly,” she replied, her eyebrow arching at the Old Navy jeans she’d gleefully impaled on Fen’s fitting room hook.

“I do have designer outfits in my wardrobe,” I said, “and they fit my body just fine the way it is.”

“Is that so? And where did you purchase these clothes?”

“The discount outlets.”

The woman actually winced. “Let’s move along, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s.”

When all was said and done, Breanne had bought me a classic black pencil-style skirt that allowed room for my “problem” hips but narrowed on my “good” legs. Atop the skirt was a sheer silk blouse of chartreuse, a color I never would have selected for myself but didn’t look half-bad against my light-olive skin and green eyes. A bolero jacket matched the blouse exactly, and its black piping tied the garment back to the black skirt. The finely made fabrics were soft as kitten fur, the tailoring very flattering. With the wide black belt cinching my waist, the ensemble evoked a sort of retro forties hourglass silhouette. I had to give it to her. Breanne certainly did know her business.

“Not bad,” she said, observing me.

High praise indeed from someone who’d referred to me as a Chihuahua thirty minutes ago.

As I stepped into a pair of modest pumps and took possession of a small bag of quilted-style leather (we were getting perilously close to $900 now), someone knocked on the fitting room door.

“Ms. Summour?” a woman called in a loud, impatient voice

“Come in.”

The door flew open, and a pair of thigh-high black leather boots strode into the room. The woman wearing them was in her late twenties, about five-seven, and very slender with pale skin and blue-black hair cut so bluntly it drew a sharp line from the back of her head to the edge of her angular jaw. Her features were more handsome than delicate: a straight nose, darkly glossed lips, and dramatically made-up eyes that darted around the room only long enough to find the reason she’d come through the door in the first place.

Ignoring Adele and me, she strode right up to Breanne and began a loud monologue. Above the bold boots were layers of offbeat high fashion: a lilac plaid miniskirt, sheer black blouse over a deep blue minitee and violet tank. Long beads around her neck and bangles on her wrists as well as a diamond stud in her nose gave the impression of a funky, club-loving girl.

With her loud, strident voice and agitated gestures, she reminded me of the kind of girls I sometimes saw in Manhattan. Intelligent, well-educated, with backgrounds of privilege and plenty, they tended to think very well of themselves and believe that things would be just great in their lives if only the damn world, and everyone in it, could revolve a little faster around them.

“… and Terri told me that you called. So, of course, I picked them up from Petra and grabbed a cab to bring them over to you myself, as you can see.”

Club Girl had been carrying a leather portfolio under her arm. Now she forcefully unzipped it and held it out for Breanne to take.

Breanne frowned down at the portfolio. Instead of reaching for it, she moved slowly to her handbag. Taking her time, she removed a pair of rimless reading glasses from their case and perched them on the end of her long, thin nose.

“Privacy please,” she announced to the room.

I filed out with Adele. Before the door was shut, I glimpsed Breanne first settling herself into a chair and then waving Club Girl over to present whatever she’d just carted across town.

“I expected to review these pages an hour ago at lunch, Monica,” Breanne sharply began. “What happened?”

“It was Petra. The woman’s way behind in her work. She wasn’t finished with them…”

I wanted to remain by the fitting room and eavesdrop some more, but Adele was right there, watching. Figuring the boutique manager would object to my pressing an ear against the closed door, I threw in the towel and returned to the boutique’s showroom.

Roman was there, still on his couch. His dark eyes danced approvingly when he saw the new outfit.

“Well, well… didn’t you go all Judy Garland on me.”