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“Because this dress is awful. I don’t even know how it ended up in my pile.”
“I put it there.”
Chloe looks at me blandly. “I’m not wearing this dress out in public.”
“Oh, come on, you’re being dramatic.” I turn to Laura. “Would you tell her that she looks wonderful?”
“I look like I’m eighty.”
Laura pinches her lips together and tilts her head. “Well…”
“See.” Chloe spins around and disappears before I have a chance to argue.
Dress shopping is officially a form of parental torture. God help me when prom rolls around. If I can’t survive a junior high dance, there’s no way I’ll make it through prom.
The door rips open, and Chloe shoves past me, the stack of dresses in her arms.
“We’ll keep looking,” I say, following her through the store.
“What’s the point? You’re just going to hate every single one I pick out.”
“That isn’t true.”
Chloe whirls around. “Yes, it is. Everything is too short or cut too low in the back, or the straps are too thin.”
“You’re eleven years old, Chloe. I’m not going to let you walk out of the house looking like you’re twenty.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but I’ve had enough.
“Yell at me one more time, and you’re grounded. I am not arguing with you about this in the middle of the store. Now, you can either stop throwing a tantrum and we can keep looking for dresses, or we’re going home.”
“Fine, let’s go home.” Chloe finds a sales associate, hands off the dresses, and heads straight for the door. “You didn’t even want to come to begin with.”
“That’s not true.”
“Whatever.”
God, I hate that word.
The ride home is silent. Not in the comfortable sense, but in the I’m so pissed off at you I can’t even breathe sense from my eleven-year-old.
If this is how it is when she’s prepubescent, I don’t even want to think about how she’ll be in five years.
Lord, have mercy.
I pull into my driveway, and before I’ve even cut off the engine, Chloe hurries out of the car, slamming the door behind her way harder than necessary and then stomps up onto the front porch.
“Come back here,” I say after climbing out of the vehicle.
“I want to go to my room.”
“I’ve had it with your mouth today, young lady. I said, come back here.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” she says when she turns around, but when she sees the stern look on my face, she looks down and finishes the sentence with, “sir.”
“You owe me an apology for yelling at me in public like that.”
She frowns. “I’m sorry if I was disrespectful. I’m just so frustrated.”
“Yeah, well, join the club.”
Chloe’s head comes up, and her face turns from a frown to a tentative smile.
“Hi, Scarlett.”
“Hi, you two,” Scarlett says as she walks across her dad’s lawn. “I just saw you pull in and thought I’d see what you’re up to.”
“Dad’s yelling at me because I’m a brat,” Chloe says, and I rub my hand over the back of my neck in frustration.
“Really?” Scarlett asks.
“No, not really,” I reply before Chloe can. “We’re having a discussion about dresses for her dance.”
“He’s incorrigible.”
“Dads usually are,” Scarlett says with a sigh. “Did you get a dress?”
“No, because he hates everything I like.” Chloe sits on the top step of the porch and props her chin in her hand as if all is lost in her world. “I guess I just won’t go to the dance since I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You have a whole closet full of clothes,” I remind her, but she just rolls her eyes.
“I have an idea,” Scarlett says. “Why don’t I take Chloe shopping for a suitable dress?”
“Really?” Chloe’s head whips up, her face lighting up with excitement. “You’d take me? That would be so dope.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, earning another scowl from my daughter. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Sugar, there are few things in this world I feel obligated to do.”
Somehow, I don’t think that’s entirely true.
“I would love to get out of the house for a few hours and take this sweet girl shopping. If you don’t mind hanging out with my daddy.”
“Done.” I jump at the chance to spend time with Rick rather than a pouty preteen. And I don’t even feel guilty about it. “But there are rules.”
“Of course, there are.” Scarlett crosses her arms over her chest and cocks a hip to the side. I almost forget what we’re talking about. “What are they?”
“What are what?”
Scarlett’s lips twitch with humor. “The rules.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. One, it needs to hit below the knee. Two, no cleavage. And three, it can’t be strapless.”
“Basically, I should just wear a nun costume,” Chloe says.
“Nah, we can totally work with those rules,” Scarlett says. “Let me go grab my handbag, and we’ll be on our way.”
She hurries back to Rick’s house, and Chloe rushes inside ours.
