Seafoam //Completed//

Chapter 19

Never had she seen so many frills in her life. They were standing in the middle of a large costume shop, drowning in tulle and sequins, Ava's eyes twinkling with the reflection of the glittering dresses. Lulu was overwhelmed. She liked shopping but this was on another spectrum entirely.

"Look at this one!" Ava tugged her over to a rack overflowing with fluffy gowns. Tiny Ava looked even smaller as the rack towered over her, almost knocking her to the ground when she tried to pull out a bright yellow dress from the center.

"Oh...ouch! Got it," she grunted as she finally pulled out the dress and, panting, held it up for Lulu to see. The shock of yellow made her blink rapidly as she took in all the different details ranging from a beaded bodice to feathers on the shoulders. Scrunching up her nose she gave Ava the thumbs down and her friend shrugged and soldiered on.

When Ava had said dress shopping, Lulu wasn't aware she meant costume dress shopping. Apart from being a masquerade, the student council had decided to make the dance a costume party. Lulu had been excited when she found out, still riding the high from the morning when Matty had invited her, but now she stared apprehensively at all the princess gowns around her.

"Okay, what are you and Matty going to dress up as?" Ava called out from behind a barrel of toy pirate swords. "Michael wanted us to go as pirates," she held up a sword, making a face.

"I don't want to have a peg leg and an eye patch so I told him if he wanted to go as a pirate, he'd have to take his pet parrot as a date."

Laughing, Lulu continued to browse the rows of dresses and props. 

"Matty just told me to decide, and he'll match his costume to mine," she shrugged.

She'd messaged Matty earlier, asking him what he wanted to go as, but he said he'd go as whatever she wanted. Except, she had no idea what she wanted to go as. The dresses were beautiful but definitely too much. There were princess dresses taken straight out of the Disney movies, fun and quirky dresses of all colors, and some seriously beautiful ball gowns that looked as expensive as their price tags said.

"I'm going to try a few of these on!" Ava informed her excitedly, and trudged towards the dressing rooms with a mountain of gowns in her arms.

"I wanna see every single one," laughed Lulu as she watched her friend struggle a little to keep her balance.

While Ava was busy not showing Lulu the dresses she deemed unworthy, Lulu kept browsing the aisles halfheartedly. Every now and then she'd hear an exasperated growl from her friend. At one point she heard Ava groan out "Ugh, what is this monstrosity!" and Lulu had to duck into a frilly aisle to keep her friend from hearing her snickering. Recollecting herself, she turned to exit the aisle of dresses and came face to face with one of the store attendants. The girl looked barely older than Lulu, maybe early twenties, but the look on her face gave her an eerie disapproving-grandmother air. Her sharp eyebrows were raised so far up, they almost disappeared into her light brown hairline and her ruby red lips were pulled into a tight line.

"Can I help you with anything, honey?" she asked.

"No, thank you. I'm just browsing."

Lulu made to push past her but the other girl wouldn't budge.

"For homecoming?"

"Um, yeah, actually. It's a costume-masquerade."

"Oh, you're from Valmont High!"

Lulu nodded, a little surprised. This shop was downtown, miles from home, so it was strange that this older girl even knew her school's homecoming theme.