I glared at her, “It’s the only thing we got that has pockets!”

I took the blue dress down from the hanger and looked it over more closely. “How do I even put this on?” I asked.

“Undo the snap at the neck in the back and unzip it,” Mom suggested. “Then just pull it over your head like a t-shirt. Get it settled around your waist and come out here. We’ll zip you up.”

“Yeah!” Donna agreed.

I puffed out a sigh. An enthusiastic Donna was not less annoying than a sarcastic one. But I followed instructions. The dress was less frou-frou than I had feared, but it was still a bit creepy to see myself in the mirror as I pulled it down. I wiggled a bit, testing the fit.

My bra—yes, I was still wearing a bra—managed to keep my unwanted accessories from wobbling too much. They did move around a bit, but the cut of the dress kind of helped keep them where they should be, except that they shouldn’t be on my chest at all.

I tugged and pulled the fabric to try to get comfortable, but the main problem was that in the mirror, I saw a busty, redhead girl wearing a dress. I seemed to have disappeared. Maybe it was true. No one would recognize me. Not even me.

The lace at the neck kept me from showing a lot of skin, which seemed like a good idea for a church dress, despite Mom and Donna’s implications that I was supposed to—I dunno?—show off to score points?

I opened the door of the changing stall and stepped out. “Ooo!” Donna squealed.

Mom smiled and motioned me to turn around so she could do up the zipper and the snap. “You look very nice, dear,” she murmured.

“I feel like a goon,” I protested.

“You look sweet,” Donna contributed, smiling in a non-ironic way.

I made a face, and they laughed. The lace at the bottom of the dress fell just below my knees and that felt extremely weird. The sleeves didn’t reach my wrists but didn’t leave my forearms bare, either. It was all strange. The red-headed girl in the mirror looked bemused, perhaps a bit puzzled by Mom and Donna’s enthusiasm for the clothing.

“You look lovely,” Mom told me, and Donna nodded.

“Okay, I guess,” I murmured, not convinced.

“Do you like it?” Donna asked.

I shrugged, (and immediately reminded myself not to do that). “At least it’s blue, not peach or ‘fuchya,’ or whatever.” I was trying to joke.

“Okay,” Mom responded. “We’ve seen how it looks on you, you can take it off, and find out which of the skorts will fit. That’s a medium, so try the larger of the two.”

“Uh?” I tried to stall, but Mom turned me around, undid the snap and zipper and pushed me back into the stall. She also took two dresses off a rack in the hall and pushed them into my arms. “Then you can try these two on.”

“What?” I squeaked. “I’m not—it isn’t? Why?”

“Well, you can’t just buy the first thing that fits and looks good, you know,” she offered as explanation, and Donna was agreeing—with her arms full of another pair of more casual-looking dresses!

“For gosh sakes! Why not?” I protested.

“Sweet!?” I protested, but that only made them giggle.

Mom suggested “Adorable!” as an alternate description, so I just went back into the booth to take the lovely, sweet, adorable garment off. Easier said than done, I’d forgotten the hook-thing at the back of the neck and managed to unzip the top of the dress before figuring out something was wrong.

“You need help?” Donna offered from the hall.

“No!” Last thing I needed just then was my sister to deal with in close quarters. “Stay out!” I warned her.

“Well, hurry up!” she urged. “We have these other dresses for you to try on, too!”

I finally got the blue dress off and hung up and just stood for a moment, leaning back against the padded wall of the changing booth. A glance down reminded me why I wasn’t leaning with my forehead against the wall, a pose I’d been using for years when dealing with Donna’s antics.

I sighed. I could hear them babbling on the other side of the door. “This navy skirt suit would make a good choice for going to school! This yellow sundress with the big pink and green flowers would really attract the attention of the boys! And how about this floofy orange top? It’s almost the color of her hair!”

I wasn’t at all sure I would even be going back to school. Maybe after I joined the foreign legion. And why would I want to attract the attention of boys?!

I briefly considered just running out the door, perhaps screaming as I went. The picture in my mind was funny enough to distract me from my angst, if I’m using the right word. It didn’t look as if I were going to be able to escape this ordeal, and they really were just trying to help me.

I took down what looked like the larger of the two green jumpers and checked the label to be sure. Medium. Maybe it would fit. I followed the prescribed method of putting the thing on, undoing the zipper front and stepping into the wide pants leg part, then pulling it up and zipping the front.

Wonder of wonders, it seemed to fit. It didn’t look too bad, other than being girl’s clothes. The cut was kind of … wait a minute. I turned from side to side, looking at various angles. Hmm. It fit trimly in the waist and flared out over hips I didn’t really have. The zipper stayed where I put it and I could control how much skin I showed. With not a little reluctance, I decided that this would work.

It was definitely girl, but not super girly. I posed a bit in the mirror, trying a big smile on. OH SHIT! I closed my eyes and checked it out again. Yes, the jumper skort made me look cute!

“Joni!” Donna called through the door. “Have you got the jumper skort on? Can I see?”

“I suppose,” I began but she had already opened the door and come into the booth a couple of steps, Mom right behind her. “Oh, Joni! That is just so cute on you!”

“Argh!” I mentioned. “Cute is a four-letter word, you know!”

I managed to get out of there with only three new dresses and two of the skort jumpers. Oh, and two skirts to go with the tops we’d gotten earlier. “But I already have slacks to go with those,” I protested.

“Sometimes,” Donna explained, “you just really need a skirt.”

I rolled my eyes, and Mom giggled.

“You seem to be taking this better now,” she added.

“Yeah, well,” I admitted. “I guess so.”

“You did pick out your own sundress,” she pointed out as we left Nordstroms.

“Yeah, well,” I said, wavering a bit. “You guys are way too fond of pink.” For some reason, I felt the need to fluff my newly red hair.

“And you decided on the denim jumper,” Donna commented, making a face.

I glared at her, “It’s the only thing we got that has pockets!” For some reason, that made them both laugh like loons.

We got back out into the mall proper, and I was surprised to see that the place was still full of shoppers. People rushed this way and that, with a few lingering near the entrance to the food court. I thought we had been trapped in the bowels of the changing rooms for long enough that most people would have gone home, and so could I. But no!

“Time to find you some shoes,” Mom announced.

“I have shoes,” I said, wiggling my feet to demonstrate. My sneakers were practically new, classic Vans in a dark gray. I had an old pair that still fit that were almost identical except for being tan.

“You can’t wear sneakers to church,” Mom pointed out. “Especially not with that nice dress.”

It was a prelude to madness. I tried distraction. “Nordstrom’s has a shoe department,” I pointed out. “We could have shipped for shoes without leaving the store.” The big department store now felt like a refuge for avoiding being dragged through several shops looking for the perfect sandal, brogan, or clog.

Donna huffed. “Nordstroms shoes are mostly old lady styles.” A tactical error on her part since Mom bought shoes there only last month.

Mom spared her only a short glare before marshaling us troops for her campaign. We’d scouted the whole mall earlier and found eleven shoe stores, only two of which were not devoted to fashionable shoes for women and girls.

“We saw some cute shoes earlier, Joni, didn’t we,” Mom suggested, but I didn’t rise to that bait.

“Mphm,” I grunted, which again caused Donna to giggle. We both knew I was doomed.

“You’re going to need a purse, too,” Donna suggested, just to twist the knife.

* * *

Looking at shoes, trying them on, and arguing about which ones were acceptable took the rest of the afternoon and into the dinner hour.

I put my foot down, so to speak, on the idea of heels, or who knows what insanity might have happened, probably at least two or three more pairs. As it was, we, or rather I, ended up with five new pairs of shoes. Including a pair of red-gold Vans I was now wearing almost identical to the gray ones I had had on, except for a sort of fake bow at the top of the vamp. (If you don’t know what part of a shoe the vamp is, neither did I until the boy who had sold us the sneakers told me.)

I also collected a lot of polite, even genteel, compliments on the shape of my feet, the delicacy of my ankles, and the slenderness of my calves. Shoe salesmen seem to all be a bit kinky about lower extremities.

The other pairs of shoes were two of what were called simply flats, one pair of sandals and another called kitten heels. They snuck that last pair in after my prohibition on any heels at all because I really didn’t notice. The lift on the embarrassingly cutely named shoes was barely more than an inch, and actually, I suppose I could use all the help I could get in the height department.

“After all,” Donna insisted when I protested the switcheroo, “you have to have a nice pair just for wearing on a date.”

And that set off an even more embarrassing argument on the way back to the car.