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Mom’s wardrobe was in my parents’ bedroom. Dad and I had left it untouched since her death — once or twice he’d mentioned that he’d like to see me wear her wedding dress at my own ceremony one day, but I had never worn any of her clothes. It felt too intrusive, like I was somehow pulling her memory apart.
April had no such hesitation. She gasped as I opened the wooden doors and sifted through the rack.
“Kyla! These are beautiful!”
A lump formed in my throat as she inspected the garments. I could remember the last time I saw Mom wearing every single one and somehow, after sixteen years, the memories still felt recent. April pulled out a red dress with a V-neck and short sleeves, a dress I’d last seen Mom wear at my cousin’s wedding.
“Try this on.”
April thrust the dress in my arms and I blinked away tears, not wanting her to see them. The dress no longer smelled like Mom, which was lucky because if it did, I might not have been able to hold back my emotions — over time, the scent of her perfume had been replaced by the smell of wood and mothballs.
I pulled off the maxi dress I was wearing and replaced it with the red dress.
It fitted perfectly.
“The bra’s wrong,” April said, as she walked around me inspecting the outfit. “And you’ll need different shoes, obviously. But it looks incredible.”
I twirled in front of the mirror. The calf-length skirt fanned out, making my prosthetic leg more obvious than I’d like.
“Do you really think so? I mean… look at my leg.”
April readjusted the dress around my breasts to make my cleavage pop out and smiled.
“You should embrace it. Trust me, nobody’s going to notice anything below your waist.”
I knew she was right, that I noticed my leg more than anyone else did, but aside from the scene in the swimming pool, I hadn’t gone out in public without covering it for as long as I could remember. Even at high school, when the other girls wore tartan knee-length skirts, I’d asked for an exemption so I could wear long pants from the boys’ uniform.
This felt weird… like I was naked, somehow.
“Come on, let’s do hair and makeup.”
April bounded ahead of me back to my bedroom. She’d brought her own makeup kit, and she sat me in front of my mirror and did a job that would rival Crystal’s.
“You’re good at this,” I said, as I examined my smoky eyes and red lips.
“I have to be.” April shrugged as she wound my hair around a round brush and plugged in my hairdryer. “I’m on camera almost every day.”
“Maybe you should do this professionally?”
She stopped rolling the brush and let the hairdryer blow into the air.
“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make me feel better about not getting the role of Daisy, and it’s not going to work.”
I sighed. Was she ever going to get over that?
“Youknowthat they only hired me because I knew the lines. You could have memorized them too…”
“Not everyone has a photographic memory,” April shouted over the hairdryer and dragged the brush through my hair, creating a bouncy curl at the ends, “MissI-can-remember-twenty-orders-at-once.”
A strand of hair blew across my nose and I almost scratched it before I remembered that I’d mess up my makeup. I hadn’t known she’d noticed me memorizing orders at the cafe, and for a moment, I had the uncomfortable feeling that I’d been watched when I was unaware of it.
But then the moment passed, and she blow-dried my hair perfectly. I shook my head, and the waves bounced around my shoulders and settled softly around my face.
“Seriously, I would pay you to do this.” I ran my fingers through the strands and she pulled my hands away.
“Don’t touch it — you’ll mess it up.”
None of my bras worked with the dress so I decided not to wear one, and since my prosthetic leg wasn’t designed to be worn with high heels, found a pair of flat silver shoes that looked nice without overpowering the dress, and a matching pair of silver earrings. The doorbell rang, and I jumped.
