"Yes," he nodded. "Like real people in a real world that hasn't gone to hell. With formal clothes and fancy shoes."
My gaze slid to the sparkling dresses in the shadows of the misses' department. I struggled to find an idea like what he was suggesting. "Like . . . like prom?" I had heard that the English high school girls and boys dressed up for formal dances.
"Yeah. Sure."
I frowned. "We don't really do that. When Plain people are courting . . . it's not so fancy." I blushed. That was an assumption that perhaps I shouldn't make. Courting was serious business in the Plain community. From what I'd observed of the English, dating was casual.
He touched the back of my hand. "Bonnet, you've done a lot of things that Plain folk don't do. And you'll probably do a lot more. "
I thought of Ginger. I looked away.
"We don't have to," he said. "But I'd encourage you to live just a little. You'll have plenty of time for all that dire stuff later."
I sighed. Perhaps I was taken in by the sparkle of the dresses. Perhaps I had always been enthralled by the idea of Rumspringa. Perhaps I was more than a little seduced by Alex.
"All right," I said. "But you have to get Horace's nose out of the fountain so that I can get a proper bath."
He grinned.
"In privacy."
"Okay, okay." He bent down, took my hand, and kissed it. My heart flip-flopped. "I'll meet you at the top of the escalator in two hours, eh?"
I smiled, watching him lead Horace back into the realm of shoes.
Perhaps this was to be my only fairy-tale evening in the world Outside. But I was determined to make the most of it.
***
Just for one night, I pushed the dark world outside away. I tried to put aside feeling guilty over Ginger, missing my family, and fearing for the future. I tried to imagine what the world might have been like if I'd done as I intended, if I'd gone on Rumspringa and experienced the Outside world under normal conditions. I tried to imagine what it would have been like if Alex and I had met under other circumstances.
That thought troubled me. We had been thrown together at the end of the world. I don't know if we would have cared for each other if we had met in a more usual way. There was genuine affection between us. What we had was not the idealized love of English movies, or the bonds of duty that would have been expected of me as a Plain woman. This was . . . something wholly other. And I had no template for how to deal with it.
But just for tonight, I told myself to take it for what it was. That there may be nothing more. This was the last bit of juice I could squeeze out of the withering apple of the world.
I bathed in the tepid water of the fountain with a plethora of products from the cosmetics counter, including a body wash that was purported to smell like pomegranates. I had never smelled a pomegranate, but the fragrance was pleasing. I found some shampoo that was supposed to "rehydrate and restructure damaged hair." It lathered up in a wonderful way. I even indulged in a conditioner in a black bottle that was supposed to be made of "hydrolized keratin protein and fresh acai berry." It smelled like dessert.
I toweled off with some extraordinarily plush towels, then slathered a mint and rosemary body cream over my skin. It smelled close enough to real food that Fenrir came by for a sniff. I wrapped the towel around myself. I glanced upstairs, at the sporting goods department. I could hear Alex digging around up there, but I didn't know what he was up to. As long as he gave me some privacy, I was fine with that.
I shrugged into a soft robe. Carrying a candle and leaving damp footprints behind me on the marble floor, I began to think about a dress.
Here I was out of my element. I knew about Plain clothes. I knew how they were constructed, knew exactly what was expected in terms of hemlines and seam allowances and reinforced stitching. These English garments seemed flimsy and needlessly complicated, covered in shiny bits of beads and zippers and buttons.
And the sizing made no sense to me whatsoever. I'd used store-bought fabric patterns, and I knew exactly what size I was from those measurements. A twelve. I was a slender girl, and a twelve fit me well for modesty's sake-no clinging. A dress was made to work in. But there was no similarity in these misses' garments. A size twelve seemed too large.
I reminded myself that I was not searching for a dress to work in. This would likely be the only fancy dress I ever had on my body in my life. All that was required was that it cover me decently and that I could sit down and walk in it.
My fingers trailed over fabrics that were foreign to me-stretchy, sheer, and metallic. I picked up one, then another. Eventually, with an armload of dresses, I ducked into a mirror-lined area called the "fitting room."
The first dress made me laugh out loud. It was a dark red and floor-length with no sleeves or straps. It reminded me of my mother's red velvet cake. It had a curved neckline and some sort of stiff scaffolding inside it, but I simply didn't have enough bosom to fill it out. I turned my upper body and the dress stayed in place, facing front.
Next was a metallic turquoise dress that reminded me of fish scales. It was made of a stretchy material that clung tightly to my body. I blinked when I saw myself in it. I looked like a full-grown glamorous woman from a magazine. The neckline was low and left little to the imagination.
Interesting, I thought. But not at all appropriate.
I stepped in and out of dresses, trying them on and twirling in the mirror. I had discovered that I was a size four, more or less, based on English sizing. Sometimes a two, sometimes a six. Once, I was startled to see that a dress marked a size zero fit. That seemed to make no sense whatsoever. I flipped through the tags. Some of these gowns cost hundreds of dollars. I was amazed, wondering how much wear an English girl got out of one of these dresses. Could she wear it to more than one prom?
But this was fun, I secretly admitted to myself. The dresses accumulated in a heap on the floor of the fitting room, and I had to step over them to get to the mirror.
I even tried on a bridal dress. Against my better judgment.
I think that I was fascinated because it was white. I'd never worn a white dress. It seemed very shiny and eye-catching. Vain. Prideful. All those things that were against how I'd been raised. When I pulled it on over my head, I got lost for a moment in all that white frothiness and had a moment of panic as I struggled to find the top. I found the opening of it and wriggled through.