The Pull of Destiny (32 page)

And guess who
decided to walk in at that very moment? Thankfully, not Ahmed (how the hell
would Luke have explained that?) but still, Shazia’s expression as she saw Luke
kiss my cheek was bad enough. I didn’t even want to look in Robyn’s direction
as Luke let go of me, waved cheerily to Shazia and let himself out of the
living room, whistling as he left.

“Astor!” Ahmed
bellowed again, sounding irate.

Shazia’s eyes
were still wide as she stared at me. I couldn’t look her in the eye.

“He so wants
you,” she proclaimed in a voice full of conviction.

I groaned,
hiding my face in my hands. “Guys, knock it off!”

“That’s why we
need to get her the sexiest dress we can find,” Robyn put in, touching up her
lipstick. “Something that will knock his socks off.”

“Or we could
settle for finding me a nice dress that looks cute on me, that would work too.”

I didn’t want
to knock Luke’s socks off, did I?
Yeah, you do.
Only a little bit,
though.

“Yeah, no. Sexy
is better. Even though with the way he was looking at you, he wouldn’t notice
if you showed up wearing rags,” Robyn pointed out.

“Like I said,
he so wants her,” Shazia repeated, a smug smile on her face.

“Are you guys
sure I need a new dress?” I asked them, trying to steer the conversation onto
safer grounds. Luke didn’t want me, but obviously Robyn and Shazia weren’t
prepared to believe that.

Nodding
empathically, Shazia said, “Yes!” She glanced at her watch. “We’d better move,
too. The shops close soon. We need to find the perfect dress!”

CHAPTER 14

Once upon a
gala.

As it happened,
we found the perfect dress in the very first shop we walked into. Shop isn’t
exactly the correct term; it was a small boutique, one of the high end fashion
ones that Robyn frequents.
Expensive.

The dress was
on a mannequin right in front of me, in all its gorgeous pink, sparkling glory.
I stared at it for a long second, my heart thumping with longing, but I knew I
couldn’t have it. The dresses on the mannequins were usually the most
expensive. Still, I could just look, couldn’t I? And look I did as Shazia and
Robyn walked off to look around, a saleslady descending on Robyn immediately.
The floaty dress was practically inviting me to try it on and I steadfastly
ignored it, moving away to look through dresses on the rack.
A dress that
gorgeous has to be expensive
. And I was in no position to even look at it,
even though my gaze kept going back to it while I rifled through the cheaper
dresses, gulping at the prices.
Who spends five hundred on a dress?
The
more expensive ones didn’t even have price tags and I shuddered to think how
pricey
they
were.

I finally
picked out a light blue dress, the cheapest one on the rack, and found Robyn by
the shoes. “Okay, I’m going to try this one on,” I told her, holding it up.

Robyn glanced
at it and pursed her ruby red lips. “Hmmm. I don’t know,” she said slowly.
“It’s too simple.”

“Simple’s
good,” I protested.

“I just want
you to wear something amazing-,” Robyn started, fingering the material of the
dress. She wasn’t sold on it.

“Ooh, try this
one on!” Shazia exclaimed, walking towards us with a dress in her arms. I
groaned as Robyn pounced on it, her eyes gleaming. “Look at it, it’s gorgeous!”

As luck (good
or bad, I wasn’t quite sure which) would have it, Shazia had honed in on the
pink dress, gotten a saleslady to take it off the mannequin and was now handing
it to me, not knowing that I wanted nothing to do with it.

“Nice choice,
Shaz babe!” Robyn cooed, patting Shazia’s shoulder as I reluctantly took the
dress. It even felt amazing, soft, light and- perfect.

“It’s pink,” I
objected, trying to pretend as though I didn’t want it, even though I did want
it, and badly. “People dress in conservative colors at galas.” I looked at
Robyn for backup. “Right?”

“But it’s so
pretty,” Shazia exclaimed, her eyes shining.

“And you can
wear whatever color you want, especially since we need you to stand out. Pink
is the perfect color. Go try it on,” Robyn said.

Not helpful.

Whispering so
that the saleslady couldn’t hear, I said, “It’s too expensive.”

Shaking her
head imperviously, Robyn said, “Just go try it on.”

“Yeah, I saw
you looking at it when we walked in,” sneaky Shazia added.
Crap.
Diplomatically, she said, “Try both of them on and we’ll choose.”

Groaning, I
headed to the changing room, excited to try on the beautiful dress but sad
because I knew there was no way I could afford it. I looked for a tag before I
tried it on. None. It was a perfect fit, the bottom of the dress reaching the
floor. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I found myself hoping that the
girls wouldn’t like the way it looked on me. Even though it looked pretty nice,
I had to admit. Taking a deep breath, I stepped outside to face the music.
Please
hate it, please hate it, please hate it.

Robyn put her
hands up to her mouth, apparently shell shocked. The various ladies who were
shopping stopped to look at me. Shazia gasped.

“This is it,”
she said simply, clasping her hands in front of her like a fairy princess. She
had a big smile on her face. “No question about it. This is the dress.”

“OMG, you look
great,” Robyn gushed, circling me like an errant fly. “It’s so simple yet
elegant!”

“I thought you
were against simple?” I couldn’t help saying. They weren’t supposed to like it
at all!
No fair.

“I’ll make an
exception with this one,” Robyn said.

Eager to get
involved, the saleslady said, “It goes so well with your skin tone, too. You
look beautiful.”

I smiled sickly
at her. “Thank you.”

“We’re taking
it. That’s it,” Shazia decided, folding her arms over her chest.

I stared wildly
at her. “But- I haven’t even tried the other one yet!” I protested.

“You don’t have
to. This one just screams ‘Celsi’.” Shazia turned to the saleslady. “How much
is it?”

“Eight
hundred,” she replied calmly, while my blood ran cold. Eight hundred? For a
dress to be worn by little old me? No, no, no, no.

I held up the
other dress. “I’m taking this one,” I announced, as Shazia, Robyn and the saleslady
stared at me in surprise. “This one- it’s too expensive.” I ran my hand over
the soft fabric wistfully. “And it’s too pink.”

“There’s no
such thing as too pink, Celsi,” Robyn rolled her eyes.

Shazia turned
to the listening saleslady. “Excuse us for a moment.”

The girls
pulled me into the changing room and pushed me onto the seat.

“Celsi, read my
lips,” Robyn said, a stern look on her pretty face. “You’re wearing that dress
to the gala.”

Shazia nodded
in agreement. “Yeah, it looks perfect on you! It’s like the ultimate dress!
You’re not going to find another dress like this anywhere.”

“Shaz-,” I
started.

Wagging her
finger in my face, Robyn snapped, “No excuses. You look fantastic in that dress
and I swear-.”

“Rob, it’s not
about the dress,” I cut in, trying to make them understand. “I love the dress.
Love it!”

Shazia frowned,
tugging on her earlobe. “So- what’s the problem?” she asked, clueless.

I stood up,
pacing in the small room while Robyn and Shazia stared at me like I had gone
loco. “The price is the problem,” I said in a small voice.

Robyn snorted
derisively. “That’s okay, I’ll put it on my card. Don’t worry about it. Now,
are we done here?”

I turned to
her, shaking my head. “Robyn, don’t you get it? I won’t be able to pay you
back. That’s why I don’t want anything to do with this dress.”

Shazia looked
shocked. “But-,” she started, reaching out to touch my arm.

“No.” I shook
my head sternly. “I can’t- I’m not taking this dress.”

“Celsi, how
long have we been friends?” Robyn asked me, a serious look on her face.

“Since the 8th
grade,” I replied, confused at the sudden shift.

“And how many
times have you been there for us when we needed you?” Robyn continued.

“Um-,” I said
slowly.
Was that a rhetorical question or was I actually supposed to know
the answer?

“You’ve
comforted Robyn through all her breakups,” Shazia said.

Robyn nodded.
“You listen when Shazia rants about Ahmed. Like, really listen, not fade in and
out like I do.”

“And you help
Robyn with her homework when she doesn’t understand it,” Shazia said.

I bit my lip,
confused. “What’s your point?”

Shazia put her
hand on my shoulder. “You’re always there for us. And you have some nerve
thinking that after all you do for us, we’d even let you think about paying for
the dress.”

Nodding in
agreement, Robyn repeated, “Some nerve.”

Tears sprang
into my eyes unbidden. “I – I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, my lip
trembling.

A compassionate
smile on her face, Robyn hugged me. “Don’t you dare cry. You’ll make me cry
too, and I can’t afford to mess up my makeup.”

I sniffled, a
small smile on my face as I hugged her back. “I’ll try not to.”

“So it’s
settled,” Shazia said, hugging me on the other side (hug sandwich, anyone?).
“We’ll buy you the dress, and if you ever think about paying us back we’ll excommunicate
you.”

I couldn’t
believe what was happening. My friends were willing to pay for an eight hundred
dollar dress for me.
Do they know how much this means to me?
“Thank you, guys,” I sniffed, blinking back the tears. “You’re the-.”

“Best, yeah, we
know that.” Robyn had a pleased as punch smile on her face.

I smiled back.
“And you’re full of yourselves,” I joked.

“We love you,
Celsi,” Shazia said sincerely. “And we want Luke to love you too, which is why
you’re going to rock this dress to the hilt.”

I smiled down
at the gorgeous floor length dress, unable to believe that I owned something so
beautiful.

“He’s going to
have a seizure when he sees you in it,” Robyn giggled.

I snorted
teasingly. “Now you’re just exaggerating.”

Penthouse

Back at the El Hamed’s
place, Robyn and Shazia got out the makeup after dinner and proceeded to give
me what Robyn called ‘the ultimate makeover’.

“Even though
Aisha’s sending someone over to do our makeup tomorrow, let’s just practice,”
Shazia said, wielding a blush brush while Robyn attacked my eyes with mascara.

“On me?” I
complained, secretly enjoying being pampered. Even though it wasn’t fun when
Robyn almost poked me in the eye with the mascara wand.

“You have the
perfect face for makeup,” Shazia said, an appeasing tone in her voice. “Now,
sit still.”

After they
finished making me over, they let me look in a mirror (finally).

“Wow,” Robyn
said, impressed by her handiwork. “If you look half as good as this tomorrow,
Luke won’t be able to keep his hands off you.” She winked at me. “He’ll be
groping you
all
night.”

I tossed my
head, smiling at my reflection. I looked like a totally different, pretty
person. “Luke wouldn’t grope me. He’s a gentleman like that.”

“When he sees
you looking like this, he’ll probably grope you,” Shazia laughed, running a
hand over my hair. “I’m so glad Luke asked you, it was so sweet of him.”

Now that’s a
rapid turn of events.

I looked up at
Shazia in surprise and amusement. “I thought you thought he was a jerk!”

“That was
before he apologized to you. Twice. Like I
told
you he would.”

Lying on
Shazia’s bed, Robyn said, “You never really told us how that went down.”

I bit my lip in
thought.
Obviously not.
How could I tell them that the main reason I
forgave Luke was because he told me that he was sick? And that the only reason
he asked me to the gala is because I was helping him deal? Nobody else knew
about this and I didn’t want to be the one who spilled his secret, even to my
BFF’s. Luke would never talk to me again.