Page 44 of August
“You look good,” Bridgette said.
“I do? I should dress up. I don’t really dress up, though. I have three modes: work mode, casual mode when there are jeans and T-shirts involved – sweaters, too, if it’s cold – and a super dressy mode when I’m going to a wedding or something, but I just rent suits for those. I don’t really have an in-between.”
“When are you most comfortable?”
“When I’m in work mode, honestly. Probably because it’s the mode I’m in most often. But Elisa has already seen me in work mode – inonlywork mode, really – and this is our first date.”
“Myra, you look nice,” Monica offered. “Do you want the shirt tucked in, though?”
“How did you know?” she asked, looking down at the white button-up shirt she had chosen to wear.
“You keep pulling on it,” Monica noted.
Monica and Bridgette had been free after work, and they wanted to hang out, so when Bridgette had texted Myra to see if she was free for drinks or something, Myra had explained that she had first-date plans with her new neighbor. Bridgette had then offered their getting-ready services, and while Myra hadn’t been sure what that had entailed exactly because she had never had friends help her get ready for a date before, she had taken them up on their offer. They’d arrived twenty minutes ago and were currently sitting on her sofa, giving her their opinions while Myra tried out clothes and walked out in front of them.
“I’m a classic butch, I guess. I like my shirts tucked in and my boots functional.” She laughed a little awkwardly.
“Tuck the shirt in. Let’s see,” Bridgette replied.
Myra tucked in the shirt, grateful that she had what shecalled mildly full breasts, which was her way of saying they were full but not overly so and fit just fine into her preferred sports bra, and looked up.
“That looks good. I’d leave it on that tight tuck,” Bridgette said. “Don’t, like, pull it out a little or anything. You’ve got that whole flat stomach thing to pull off the look.”
“Thanks?” she asked more than said. “It’s from work. I don’t exercise.”
“You exercisebecauseof your work. You get credit for that,” Bridgette suggested. “I can’t do what you do. How many heavy things do you lift in a day? Hell, how manystepsdo you take? If I’m in the office, I hardly stand up.”
“Usually, at least a few heavy things a day when I’m at a site. And it depends on the day, but sometimes, it’s around thirty or forty-thousand steps, according to my phone.”
“You literally walk miles a day, whenIcomplain about having to go get coffee across the street,” Bridgette noted. “Should I be working out, babe? We have a wedding–”
“Nope,” Monica interrupted her and shook her head. “We’re not doing this again. You have your suit.”
“They can take it in. I want to look good on our wedding day. God, I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who would care about that, but I am, it turns out.”
“Bridge?”
“Yeah?”
“Babe, you’re gorgeous. I don’t need you to lose weight, and I especially don’t want you to do that just for one day.”
“But there will be pictures, and we’ll hang some in the house.”
“And I want them to look likeyou, not someone who’s lost weight just for the pictures, and people ask me who’s in the photo on the wall.”
“Fine. Fine,” Bridgette replied and turned to Myra. “She hasn’t seen my outfit yet. We decided to do that thing where we don’t see each other dressed up until the day of, and the photographer catches us in that first glimpse. Mel and Kyle went another way. They picked out their outfits together.”
“I know. I was there when they did,” Myra said.
“I was only there for Mel’s. You saw Kyle’s?”
“Kyle went with a suit,” Myra shared. “And yeah, she asked me to go with her. I wore a suit to my wedding, so I’m familiar. She got an all-white one. It’s going to go great with Melinda’s dress. Mel was there, too, and let’s just say she really, really liked the suit Kyle picked out.”
“She did that eye sex thing?” Bridgette asked of her best friend.
“For at least an hour before I finally left them alone in the store,” Myra said as she laughed. “Are these pants okay?”
“They’re great,” Monica replied.
