An Echoing Race.

Chapter Four.

#Chapter Four#

“What about this one?” I pulled the dress off the rack and held it up for Mira to see. Her eyes glazed over it for all of five seconds before she had made up her mind.

“No.” 

“Why not?!” I groaned, holding it up higher, as if that would change her mind. “It’s modest, it’s a good colour and it’s not overdone. I like it.” 

“It’s not wow enough!”

“Woman, speak in plain terms please.” 

She rolled her eyes and came to stand in front of me. “You need to wow the people. You’re going to be showcased on every media outlet in the country, so you need to look damn good!” 

Impatiently, I huffed and walked towards the changing room. “I don’t want to wow anyone Mira. I’m going to try this dress on and if it looks decent, I’m going to buy it.” 

“OK fine, let me look at it one more time,” she relented, picking up the bottom of the dress and spreading it out between us, the sound of her rainbow bangles clanking against each other and filling the silence of the store. She inspected it for a good few seconds and I waited, eyebrows raised challengingly. “It’s not half bad.” I fist bumped the air at my win. 

We had been shopping for the last three hours and Mira had been absolutely merciless when it came to choosing my dress. She was adamant on making sure I looked amazing, acting like my own personal fashion designer. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the gesture, but after she had turned down the twentieth dress, merely because it was a ‘plum’ colour and not ‘magenta,’ I had become cranky. 

For the first time in baba’s career as Prime Minister, he had decided to hold a high tea in which members of the society were invited. The purpose of this event was for baba to meet people of the public and hear their concerns or feedback on the system. I admit, I was the one who had come up with the idea and I was very much surprised when baba had actually agreed to the idea. He said that it would be a great initiative that would send a message to the people of this country; a message that said we value the opinions of every individual and we take them into consideration when moving forward.

As a security measure, anyone and everyone could register to attend, however, only two hundred people would be selected at random to come. They of course, had to do background and profile checks on each member that would attend but more than that, it would be quite hard to genuinely listen to more than two hundred people’s concerns.

People will also have the chance to interact with me and even Ziad and Sarah seemed to be intent on making a good impression. That’s why Mira was being so difficult today, constantly reminding me that with a good first impression, came exquisite appearance. I had just nodded my head at her words, pretending I agreed for my own sanity. 

After I had tried on the maroon dress and did a little modelling for Mira, she had agreed with me that it looked really good. Finally content, I strode up to the counter to pay for it and once I had plopped it in front of the sales assistant, she looked like she was going to pass out.