Can't Stand the Heat (20 page)

“I
still don't see why you need to buy a new dress,” Lauren said as she slouched into the suede club chair in the posh dressing room. She gazed with boredom at her sister Stephanie. “I
know
you. You probably still have dresses at home with the tags on them. Why can't you wear one of those?”

Her sister twirled on the carpeted platform, admiring herself and her plum silk gown in the three-way mirror. She gave a wink and a smile at her reflection, making Lauren roll her eyes.

“Because wearing an old dress is something I just don't do! Besides, it's a special occasion. We've got to look our best or Cynthia won't let us hear the end of it.”

Grudgingly, Lauren nodded in agreement.

The Historic Preservation Association was holding a major party in less than two weeks in honor of the recent renovations of one of the historic mansions outside of Chesterton, a project that Cynthia had spearheaded. All the Gibbons girls had agreed to attend the event to show their support. Lauren planned to ask Cris to go with her. But unlike her sister Stephanie, Lauren did
not
plan to buy a new dress for the occasion.

Not only could she not afford to buy a dress, but dress shopping wasn't at the forefront of her mind right now. She was still shaken by the news of her mother's debts, and frustrated that she couldn't offer her mother much financial help. She couldn't even get James to back off of Yolanda. She knew what his terms were to get him to do that, and there was no way she was going back to him. No way in hell!

Cynthia, Dawn, and Stephanie had all agreed to pool their funds to provide a safety net for Yolanda for a while, at least until Mr. Widower-Two-Towns-Over turned out to be the meal ticket their mother believed him to be. But they all agreed that there was no way they could afford to pay for the mansion if the situation became much worse. They would have to put up for sale their childhood home.

Lauren was angry and frustrated. She wished she wasn't so broke and so powerless. There was no way she would ever go back to her old life, those gold-digging ways, but there were times like these that definitely tested her resolve. What she wouldn't give for a magic money wand to make all the bad things like bill collectors and men like James go away.

“Would you like more champagne, ma'am?” one of the salesgirls asked as she held a silver tray near Lauren's elbow, snapping her from her thoughts.

“No, thanks.” Lauren adjusted in her chair. She half-heartedly held up her half-full glass. “I'm still good.”

The salesgirl nodded politely. She then walked across the dressing room and disappeared behind a sliding glass door that led back to the store floor.

“So what do you think, Laurie?” Stephanie smoothed the dress bodice with the palms of her hands. “Isn't it gorgeous?”

Lauren tilted her head and squinted at her sister. “It's nice.”

“Nice?”
Stephanie challenged as she stared at herself again.

“It's more than ‘nice.' A thousand dollars gets you nice. Six thousand gets you
gor
geous.”

“How much a dress costs doesn't change how it looks, Steph.”

“But knowing how much it costs changes how you
wear
it, which makes it look better!”

Lauren figured there was no point in arguing with her sister. If Stephanie was bent on the idea that an expensive dress looked better than a cheaper one, Lauren knew that there was nothing she could do to dissuade her. She took a sip from her half-full champagne glass as her sister continued to preen in front of the mirror.

“You can try on your clothes back here, ladies,” said the salesgirl. Her muffled voice came from the other side of the dressing room wall. Suddenly, the sliding glass door opened again, revealing three black women in Capri pants and colorful blouses who looked to be in their early forties.

“This is one of our more private dressing rooms,” the salesgirl informed proudly as she crossed the room with a stack of clothes slung over her arm.

Lauren gave a casual glance toward the three women as they entered. They were laughing and talking to one another, giggling over some joke. Lauren couldn't recollect their names, but one or two looked familiar. She had probably seen them back in town at the grocery store or somewhere else on Main Street.

She smiled politely at them in greeting before turning back around to look at her sister, who was still standing on the platform.

Stephanie turned and faced the women as they entered. She grinned. “Well, isn't it a small world? Hello, Mrs. Montgomery! How are you?”

The light-skinned woman in the center of the three, who had blond highlights, stopped talking the instant Stephanie spoke. Lauren assumed she was Mrs. Montgomery.

The two others who stood on both sides of Mrs. Montgomery continued to chatter and giggle until she elbowed one of them and focused her gaze on Stephanie with laserlike intensity. The portly, dark-skinned one beside her followed the woman's stare. She loudly whispered something into Mrs. Montgomery's ear, who then nodded. The two other women took in an audible breath and then frowned with disapproval. Now all three women were glaring at Stephanie.

Lauren lowered her champagne glass from her lips.
Just what the hell is going on?

“I haven't . . . I haven't seen you since the open house . . . you know, on Westlake Drive,” Stephanie said nervously. “How have you been?”

Mrs. Montgomery didn't respond. Instead she continued to glower at Stephanie, shooting daggers at her with her eyes.

The tension that Lauren had felt only vaguely now grew in the dressing room by tenfold.

“I'm going to put your clothes here, ladies,” the salesgirl said as she hung several dresses and blouses on individual hooks. She seemed oblivious to the growing strain in the room. “I'll return in a few minutes with your champagne and hors d'oeuvres. Let me know if you need anything, OK?”

She smiled as she walked back across the dressing room, opened the glass doors, stepped through, and silently shut them behind her. Her high heels echoed across the hardwood floor on the other side of the dressing room wall as she walked back toward the store floor.

Lauren had heard the expression “the room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.” That expression came to mind at this moment as her sister stood stiffly like a mannequin in front of the three-way mirror and the three women continued to huddle on the other side of the dressing room, staring Stephanie down. Only Lauren broke her casual pose. She leaned forward in her chair, prepared for anything.

“Can you believe this?” the portly, dark-skinned woman finally uttered with a curl in her lip.

“Sorry, ladies,” the tall one with the glasses said. “My girlfriend told me this was a nice place. But I didn't know they let just any type of
trash
in here! If I did, I wouldn't have come.”

At that, Stephanie snapped out of her trance. She quickly gathered the voluminous fabric of her skirt into her hands and stepped off the platform.

“Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mrs. Montgomery,” Stephanie said with a false airiness. She turned to Lauren. “On second thought, I won't buy the gown after all.” Stephanie walked back to her dressing room stall. “You ready to go, Laurie?”

“Ready when you are,” Lauren said as she sprang out of her chair.

“Oh, look at her run!” Mrs. Montgomery chided with a biting laugh. “I wonder if she runs as fast when she's chasing after other people's
husbands!”

“So how were you planning to pay for that dress?” the portly one shouted after Stephanie. “Let me guess. With somebody's husband's credit card!”

“Did you like the bracelet? I saw Hank bought it for you from Tiffany's!”

Lauren followed her sister into the beige stall. She shut the door behind them. “Steph, what the hell is going on?”

“Nothing! Nothing!”
Stephanie whispered shrilly in return as she pointed over her shoulder. “Just help me with this zipper so I can get the hell out of this dress and we can get the hell out of here!”

“Did you sleep with one of their husbands?”

“No!” Stephanie's face twisted with desperation. “Look, I'll explain it to you later. Just help me out of this damn dress!”

Lauren began to lower the zipper down Stephanie's back.

“Just to let you know . . . I wasn't surprised when I found out about you and Hank,” Mrs. Montgomery said on the other side of the stall door. “My Hank's never been able to keep his hands to himself, especially when low-class hookers like you throw themselves at him! But I guess you just couldn't help yourself, could you? I heard all about you, Stephanie Gibbons,
and
your slutty ways! I heard what you're all about!”

“You know what they say about the Gibbons girls,” one of her friends shouted. “If there's a man with money around, a Gibbons girl can't be far behind!”

Her words were followed by an “uh-huh” and sharp laughter.

“Open your wallet and they'll open their legs!”

“You're just a bunch of whores!
All
of you!” Mrs. Montgomery shouted as she slapped her open palm against the door.

Lauren froze. Her heart began to thud wildly in her chest. Her hands began to shake. She turned and glared at the closed stall door.

Stephanie stared at her little sister. “No, Laurie. No! Don't go out there!”

Lauren undid the door lock.

“Laurie, what are you
doing?
Don't go out there! They're gonna beat the hell out of us!”

Lauren slowly opened the door to meet Mrs. Montgomery's glare. She tilted her head and leaned against the door frame. She then defiantly crossed her arms over her chest. “What did you just say?”

Though Lauren stood only five-foot-one-half-inch tall, there was enough fury on her face to make her seem two feet taller. The woman's angry gaze faltered. She took a hesitant step back from the stall doorway.

“I . . . I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to
her,”
she said as she pointed over Lauren's shoulder to Stephanie, who was holding the gown's bodice to her chest.

“No, you were talking to me. You called my family, and by extension
me
, a whore,” Lauren said with eerie calmness. “I just wanted to make sure I heard you clearly. You did call us whores, didn't you?”

The woman took several steps back. She bumped into her friends, who were standing behind her. The dark-skinned one loudly sucked her teeth.

“You
are
whores,” she spat. “Everyone in town knows it! A bunch of
broke
hoes, as a matter of fact. I heard that even that
mama of yours
has started to sell off her furniture because no man was willing to pay for her old ass anymore!”

That
was it. That was the trigger!

Minutes later, if anyone asked Lauren what had happened at that point, she couldn't honestly remember. It was like she had blacked out. She only came to reality minutes later when the salesgirl was tugging her backward by the shoulders and she realized she was sitting astride the dark-skinned woman, who was screaming and covering her face with her arms. The one with the wire-framed glasses, which were now askew on her face, was sitting on the dressing room floor with her legs crossed. She wept quietly as she held her reddened cheek in her hand. Stephanie was in her bra and panties, grunting and rolling around on the floor with Mrs. Montgomery. Stephanie seemed to be winning her fight.

“You can't do this!” the blond salesgirl yelled. “This isn't that type of store! Vanessa, call mall security! Call the police!”

Lauren blinked as she slowly came to. She saw the full carnage that surrounded her. Chairs were overturned. The champagne glasses and tray of hors d'oeuvres had crashed to the floor, and canapés and chocolate-covered strawberries were now enmeshed in the gray plush carpet.

“Get her off of me!” the dark-skinned woman screamed. “She's crazy! She's trying to kill me!”

Lauren looked over at her sister, who gave Mrs. Montgomery one final shove before triumphantly staggering to her feet.

“I think we should go now, Steph,” Lauren said with huffing breath.

Stephanie nodded.

“What?
Who's going to pay for this?” the salesgirl shouted as Stephanie stepped into the stall and grabbed her sundress and her purse. “Who's going to pay to clean up this mess? You ripped a six-thousand-dollar dress!”

“The dress wasn't that cute anyway,” Stephanie muttered as they opened the sliding glass door and stepped out of the dressing room.

They reentered the shop floor and were greeted by stares from the several women who stood stark still. Realizing they were still half-naked, Stephanie hastily tugged her dress over her head and shoved her arms through the straps while Lauren adjusted her blouse, which had been ripped open. They walked down the center aisle of the shop, ignoring the gazes of amazement that followed them.

They quickly made their way through the mall, taking a different path than they originally planned when they noticed a mall security officer racing toward the second level, where the dress store was located. They still garnered stares from each person they passed as they drew near the outdoor parking lot.

We must look insane,
Lauren thought as she tried desperately to fix her hair.

As the adrenaline from their dressing-room boxing match disappeared, shame gradually washed over her. Lauren couldn't believe she had done that. She had beaten a woman she barely knew, slapped another, and nearly got arrested—because of what? To defend the honor of her family, the
same
family that on many occasions she had called whores herself? In fact, secretly she had called them a lot worse!