Vol.5, Chapter XIV — The Recital, Part 1: Dressing Up and Dressing Down

As I had previously suspected, my e-mail box was as barren as a desert, aside from one or two e-mails telling me about how I won the big prize in a lottery I hadn’t participated in and had less than 24 hours to claim the prize.

Click… Click… Click.

Following that, there were the three websites I used to check on job offers, looking for anything worthwhile. The first one had nothing new, just more of the same. A couple of offers for food delivery that required the candidate to have a license to ride a scooter, Le Perrot, my old workplace, having one with two vacancies to serve tables and another to wash dishes, three as sales assistant that promised better pay as commissions if certain goals were achieved. I didn’t have a licence to ride a scooter, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to deal with the stress of having to hurry getting the food to the address while riding amidst the traffic. Le Perrot was completely out of the question. Sales assistant was also a no-go because I had to persuade people to buy certain things so I could achieve their established goals and I can barely talk with people outside my circle, not to mention, Abby wouldn’t be there, so I had to deal with people alone.

Click… Click… Click.

Second website was pretty much the same, except, there was a new job offer that got me interested.

Librarian assistant? Hmm, interesting!

It sure sounded good, and the requirements they had were all perfectly achievable. Furthermore, the profile they were asking—someone who enjoys reading, has a good sense of organisation, and that has a flexible schedule, were all things that matched me. There was only one problem though, and that was that they required the candidate to be eighteen or older “due to some sensitive literature we have available”.

“Tsk!”

“What’s wrong?” Abby asked from behind me.

“Nothing honey,” I mumbled, already moving on, as I visited another website. “Just another bit of disappointment.”

“Finding some part-time job is really hard, huh?” she asked, trying to get me to vent a bit.

“Finding some part-time job? Not really,” I said, scrolling past quite a few. “Finding a good one though, that’s the hard part.”

“You still haven’t told me why you suddenly decided on getting one.”

“…Because there’s something I want to buy,” I told her. This was the third time I said this to her.

“I know, but you haven’t told me what it is. And while we are at it, can’t you just use your allowance to buy it?”

Oh, I definitely could. I could, but… it was our engagement and wedding rings, so I felt like I had to buy them with money I earned, not just the one I have lying around in my bank account just because Dad now makes more money.

“…I need to buy it with money I earned,” I explained it to her as I skimmed through a job offer. “I could buy it right now, but I feel like it’s something that I need to earn. I want it to be something that, in the long future, I look back at it and feel like I truly earned it and what it represents.”

“Always so serious,” Abby chuckled. “Then again, it’s stuff like this that makes me all head over heels for you.”

 I chuckled, and that was when my brain at last fully registered the sound of a camera shutter.

Click… Click… Click.

I finally unglued my eyes from Abby’s tablet that I had been using while she took care of my hair to see her twisting her lips around while staring at her phone screen, holding it with both hands, her brow furrowed. Looking at the mirror, my hair was exactly how it was when I sat down fifteen minutes ago or so despite all the fiddling it had gone through.

“Have you been taken photos of me?” I asked her, confused as to why my hair wasn’t done already.

“I have, yeah,” she said, coming to sit on my lap. She positioned her phone so both of us could clearly see the screen as she showed me the photos she took. “I can’t decide between the sexy librarian hairdo, the elven princess, the Victorian maiden, or simply letting your hair loose as it is now.”

“Well… as much as I like seeing my hair loose, since we are going to your sister’s recital, I’d prefer it tidy,” I said, that being the only thing I could say for certain. I too was having a hard time picking one style over the others.

Just as I had finished talking, there was a knock on the door. Her sister came in, looking absolutely beautiful. She had a black satin blouse with the sleeves partially folded, her skirt was the carmine I had bought, and she was wearing elegant stiletto high-heels in a somewhat glossy black leather, making her look even taller and statuesque. Her hair was tied in a ponytail with the hibiscus-themed scrunchie she had gotten from Claire. Her make-up too was impeccable, her lips a nice soft red colour that glistened a bit and her eyes popping even more with the little bit of pencil and shadow she applied. She looked calm enough, her hands just a bit restless as she held then together over her lap as she walked up to us. Her fingers moved as if she was already playing the piano.

“Just came to check on you,” she told us with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting you two weren’t done already.”

Abby was, I was the only one of the three not yet finished. Abby had simply applied—to both of us—a bit of gloss over the lips, and in my case, a bit of a cat-eye to the corners of my eyes. Abby was wearing the white skirt with the navy-blue rose flower-patterned skirt I had bought that in her case reached the middle of her shins. On top, she wore a white shirt whose sleeves barely went past her elbows, had a ruffled front, and a pink lace to fasten the collar with a bow, almost like a bolo tie. Her footwear was the least formal of us three and very in accordance with her nature, a pair of pink sneakers with white soles, laces, and toecaps, the ankle-length white socks she had on barely peeking out. She had pulled the front of her hair and top half into a ponytail while the rest hanged loose and falling over her shoulders, fully revealing her face, her soft cheeks and tiny ears standing temptingly uncovered for me to play with. She looked like a doll.

I was somewhere in the middle of the two, wearing my forest-green skirt and the white blouse I had bought, the sleeve folded to the elbow and the collar partially unbuttoned. My footwear was a simple but elegant black sandal shoe with just a bit of a high-heel, about three fingers tall would be my guess. While I appreciate a nice high-heel like the ones Sophie was wearing, I personally don’t like wearing them as they aren’t that comfortable and make my face even more out of reach for Abby. Abby would never wear them either, but still, I’m curious to see how it’d work on her since she’s a hundred-forty-seven centimetres tiny. According to Abby, I looked like a model.

And of course, Abby and I had our chokers on.

“Sis, help!” Abby chirped as she extended her phone to Sophie. “Violet and I can’t decide on her hair!”

Sophie giggled, taking the phone out of Abby’s hands. My mind briefly worried that she could find some embarrassing pictures of me or us, but honestly, whatever she might find there, she has already seen first person, so it was a useless worry.

“Hmm… how about…” Sophie began, her voice trailing off as she compared and thought about it. “How about you do the usual braiding on the sides and pull the braid back, but then tie the top half of her hair in a bun with the two braids around the bun and hanging down?”

“Oooh!” Abby howled. “You mean, mix the sexy librarian with the elven princess? Yeah, that does sound like a very nice idea! Alright, I’ll go with that!”

“Hold on, I’ll help,” Sophie said, setting the phone on the table and joining in on the “fun”. Truth be told, I was having fun too, although it was a bit embarrassing having the two of them working on my hair. And that embarrassment soon was compounded when Dad showed up.

“Can I go next?” he asked as he walked in our bedroom, having used the opportunity that the ajar door allowed him to peek inside and then walk in.

“Dad, you’re going dressed like that?” I asked as I gave him a good look without moving too much my head so not to disturb the sisters’ work.

He asked what was wrong with it. I wasn’t quite sure if there was anything wrong to begin with, I just didn’t know what to think.

He had a charcoal grey blazer and dress pants. So far so good. He also had a matching brown leather belt and shoes, both with a bit of shine to them, so that was perfectly fine too. But then there was his shirt. It was tucked into his pants, and it was navy-blue with cream-coloured buttons. It was patterned, having palm leaves drawn in a darker shade of blue and it then had silverish highlights here and there. He also wore a polished metal watch and his hair was a slightly messy side-part.

“I like it,” Abby said with another chirp. “Very Papa-Stan!”

“Yeah, it really suits him,” Sophie said. “First time I see someone dressing up a hawaian shirt, and I must say, it works better than I’d initial have thought if you were to ask me.”

“Thanks girls! And I must say, you three are all looking like princesses tonight. The other parents are going to be jealous.”

“Dad, please!” I grumbled, my face turning redder than the skirt Sophie had on.

Then joined in William. He was in a similar get-up as my dad, but his suit was dark-blue and his shirt a crip white. Both man had no ties on, choosing to wear the top two buttons open.

“Looking good, Stan!” William said, clapping my Dad on the shoulder.

“Thanks man, you too!” My Dad laughed, returning the compliment and clap. “But even better than our dressed up old asses are our daughters, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes!” William agreed, giving us a good look. “You’re right, the other parents are going to be jealous.”

At this point, I just wanted to disappear. Luckily, the girls were done with my hair, so we could move along… after Abby took some pictures of us all together and of my hair for future memories and reference respectively.

Still, before we all got out of the bedroom and head outside to the family van we had borrowed from one of Dad’s acquaintances, I called out to him, waiting for the others to be far enough to not hear what I had to tell him.

“…I think you’re looking good too,” I told him, pretending to fix the collar of his blazer. “I just have never seen anyone dressed like that, so I wasn’t sure what to think of it.”

“Thanks sweety,” my dad said, sounding genuinely touched as he caressed my cheek. “I just wish your Mum could see you right now too. She’d be so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I told him.

We got a bit awkward after that, but it didn’t last long as Abby popped back inside the room to hurry us up.

Dad left first and I was walking behind him when I left a breeze hit the back of my legs and the fabric of the skirt pressing against the front of them. Looking back, I saw Abby holding my skirt up and peaking under it, her eyes widening and her cheeks turning red as she saw under it. My face flashed a bright red as I remembered what I had on, having completely forgotten about it.

You see, I had told Abby about the underwear they had on sale at the store I got the skirts from and asked about her opinion on it. To sum it up, she didn’t find the ones she had uncomfortable at all, and the reason why she never wore them was because since she was interested in me and after that she began dating me, at first feared I’d find her “dirty” or some other nonsense, and also simply because she almost completely forgot about them, only remembering they exist when it’s her turn to put away our clean laundry and comes across them. She did give me the recommendation to give them a try if I was curious and thought that it could help combat the heat. I don’t think she was expecting for me to actually do it, at least this soon, as her face was showing as she lowered the hem of my skirt, giving me a silent apology before hugging my arm. Frankly, neither was I expecting to have followed through so soon, if at all, but I had that idea nudging at the back of my mind throughout the day, and since I was wearing a high-waisted long skirt that was opaque, I ended up relenting to that curious side of me.

“Are they at least comfortable?” she asked in half a voice.

“Y-yeah… could use just a bit more coverage though,” I hummed. “At least, I think so…”

“Hmm… Let me know if it gets uncomfortable,” she hummed back. “We can make our usual exchange if you need to.”

I kissed the top of her head as a thank you. With Abby by my side and having told me that, my mind was completely at ease, and my choice of underwear quickly faded back into oblivion as I started planning on how to spoil her once we were back home.

After a bit, just as we were approaching the van and I was planning giving Abby’s feet a nice massage while she eats some ice-cream once we got back home, Abby pointed out how the only thing I had on that wasn’t new was the choker.

And I don’t think I’d be dressing up this well if it weren’t for having met her. I never was an ugly-duckling, but looking back to how I dressed just two years ago to how I dress now… it’s night and day. And I’m sure Abby wouldn’t too, not out of her own volition at least.

“You really look beautiful tonight,” I whispered to her ear, giving Abby a small giggling fit.