STUFFED

Catching Flights Not Feelings

A couple days later she wakes up to a text:

"Goodmorning Courtney! We're still on for tomorrow right? I can't wait to see you."

Right. That was tomorrow. She totally lost track of the days and almost forgot about the whole thing. She thinks back to how she had planned to cancel on him before it got to this point but now she had a change of heart. He seemed pretty genuine. Like he actually wanted to spend time with her. It doesn't seem to her like he's just asking her out to be kind or out of pity.

'Well what should I wear?'

Courtney walks over to her closet and almost laughs as she shuffles through her dress options. They look like they'd fit a doll. She'll have to go dress shopping today... and shoe shopping. She looks down at the pairs of Barbie heels stacked neatly in the corner of her closet. Her feet have swollen up about two sizes.

She gets ready, eats a big breakfast and then heads over to the mall. She'd rather just shop online but with the date being tomorrow there wouldn't be enough time.

She pulls up in the parking lot and walks in the south entrance.

A store called Francine's catches her eye so she walks in. None of the store attendants are busy but no one comes over to help her. Courtney pulls at a little black dress on a rack and holds it up to her body. It's the biggest size they carry and looking in the mirror she knows there's no way it's going to fit her body.

She casually puts the dress down and walks out of the store. This is going to be harder than she thought. She might be better off buying a shower curtain and poking arm holes through it.

On the cheer team when they'd go to banquettes or fancy dinners she was always the most sexy one. She knew how to dress. She was the one the waiters would be hitting on and when they walked into a room she was always turning heads. So why was it so difficult now?

After hours of walking around she's acquired the shoes, some jewelry, and even a new perfume but still not the dress.

She's giving up hope when she sees a dress through a store front window. The mannequin wearing it isn't stick thin, it looks more like her body type. Courtney rushes in quickly and is met by a store attendant.

"Hi! Welcome to Formal Cortex, can I help you with anything today?"

"Hello, yeah I was looking at that black dress displayed in the window over there."

"Yeah sure! Let me take you to the back where all the rest are."

Courtney follows the employee to the back of the store and watches them sift through a rack.

"Hm, that's odd. We usually keep the entire stock of Midnight Champagnes over here." They press a button on the walky talky in their ear, "Carla, have those little black dresses been moved?"

The store clerk listens pensively to what the other person on the line is saying but Courtney can't hear anything.

"Okay, so apparently they've all miraculously sold out. So I'll grab you the one off the mannequin."

She follows them all the way back to the front of the store and watches as they slink the tight dress down off the plastic body.

The sales clerk handed it over to her and then went to attend to another guest. Courtney stood alone, just her and the dress, and holding it up in front of her now it looked really small. It must be really stretchy because it looked good on the model and she was about the same size as the model. Courtney is tired of being in the mall and just wants to get out of there so she doesn't even bother trying it on before purchasing it.