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It’s still weird to hear her swear. She used to be such a prude about stuff like that. My sister has found confidence aplenty in Zakharov House. But when I take a look at her personal life, I can feel the tethers coming loose.
We arrive in the heart of the upscale shopping district. The sidewalks are huge and clean, sprawling beneath ornate gas-powered streetlamps.
The first store makes me shiver with the feeling of being somewhere you don’t belong at all. It’s a black façade with one word printed in huge rose gold letters on the window:TRIBE. There aren’t mannequins in the display box, just a shadowy waterfall of black curtains.
“Cee, are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“I know it looks strange, but the magic is on the inside.”
I have no idea how to respond to that. So I just follow Celine into the store quietly. I probably look like her mild-mannered assistant. I’m certainly dressed like it, in my high-rise jeans and mustard yellow crop top.
The store’s interior is much less black and shady. The exact opposite, in fact—everything, from the walls to the carpets to the ceilings, are white. Mannequins in strange, contorted positions dance around the perimeter, draped with fabric so soft and ethereal that I’m still not one hundred percent convinced it’s real.
“Tay, stop dawdling and keep up,” Celine calls to me. I blink and realize she’s halfway up a spiral staircase that leads to a mezzanine section of the store closed off from the rest of the space.
“This is insane,” I mumble to myself as I follow her up.
The salespeople are obviously familiar with Celine. They coo over her like she’s some high-class European princess with cash to burn and parties to attend. The moment I think it, I realize that’s exactly accurate, except for the “European” part.
When I get to the top of the staircase, I find myself in a sitting room that’s also entirely white. The sofas and the coffee table blend into the backdrop. I double-check to make sure the couch I’m about to sit in is in fact real before I let my weight settle down.
“Okay, so, Genesis here has picked out a handful of dresses that we can both try on,” Celine explains, gesturing over to two racks dripping with gaudy gowns. “I told her you like simple and classic.”
“And comfortable,” I add.
Celine sighs. “You’ll have to excuse my sister,” she says, turning toward Genesis and her probably equally-ridiculously-named colleagues. “She’s not used to places like this.”
I feel a twinge of self-consciousness when the three stooges facing Celine swivel their heads in my direction as though I’m an elephant in the zoo.
I swallow my embarrassment. “If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna hang out here for a minute.”
“You don’t want to try on a dress first?” Celine asks, obviously disappointed by my lack of enthusiasm.
“You first.”
Shrugging, she grabs a dress and dips into one of the two dressing rooms that face us. Genesis grabs a tray from I don’t know where and approaches me with her arms outstretched. “Champagne, ma’am?” she asks. “We have cocktails, too. Or wine, if you prefer.”
“Um…anything non-alcoholic?”
She actually twists around to glance back at her colleagues.Look at the loser asking for non-alcoholic beverages. How quaint.“Of course, ma’am,” she says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Let me go see if our in-house bartender can whip up a mocktail for you.”
In-house bartender? At a clothing boutique? Goodness gracious.
Look out, Toto. We’re not in Kansas anymore.
All the stooges have cleared away by the time Celine emerges from the dressing room. The dress she chose is a velvety red, with diagonal cutouts that display her midriff. It feels over the top to me. It doesn’t really suit her skin tone, either.
“Well, what do you think?”
Way back when, I would have given her my unvarnished opinion. But this is a different Celine, and that makes me feel as though I have to be a different version of me when I’m with her.
“I think you look, uh, beautiful.”
Celine frowns, her expression growing pointed. “Do you really think that?”
“Of course.”
“Your leg is bouncing.”
