Southern Belles

Chapter Four

Chapter Four – Southern Belle Rule #18: Hold Your Head up High

            Isabelle stared at herself in the mirror at one of the shopping stores outside of Brantley. She wore a light blue halter dress that snug her curves perfectly and showed off months of toning and exercising. She pulled her blonde hair back behind her shows. Not feeling satisfied, she held all of her hair on her head to see what it would look like. If she ever wore the dress, she decided, she would wear it with her hair pinned up. She smiled to herself thinking that there would never be an opportunity to wear an extravagant dress like this one.

            She had woken up to her little cousin, Dylan, screaming at the top of his lungs. Her Auntie Sarah was bent over him in the living room trying to soothe him with his pacifier, to no avail. Isabelle remembered how happy she had been to see her auntie and her newborn after so many months. Her mama rarely liked her sister so that meant Isabelle never got to see her auntie, unless her mama decided to run off after her boyfriend. Her auntie demanded that she take Isabelle and Dylan out to go shopping for no reason. It was a perfect way to spend her Friday evening.

            She walked out of the changing room to show her auntie how the dress looked on her. “Oh, sweetie, twirl for me,” said her auntie when she saw it. She made a spinning motion with her finger as she talked. Doing as she was asked, Isabelle did a silly twirl for her auntie.

            “What do you think?”

            “I think you look so grown up. I can’t believe how much you have grown in the past months. Can I take a picture?”

            “Auntie,” whined Isabelle, but she didn’t mind. She loved having her auntie with her constantly snapping photos of her as if she was some famous celebrity. Her auntie snapped the picture regardless of Isabelle’s whimpering.

            “I swear you act like Dilly,” said her auntie, using the nickname for her son, Dylan.

            Isabelle shook her head in disagreement. “What are you talking about? Dylan is the sweetest little angel. He is so quiet and rarely cries.”

            “He acts like an angel in front of other people, but when he gets home with me, he really shows out.” There was a second of sadness as her auntie said that. It had Isabelle thinking how stressed her auntie had to be. She was raising a toddler on her own without family, friends or a husband to help. Isabelle could only imagine how difficult it has to be to take care of a kid that was needy. Soon, the depressed look in her auntie’s eyes died down and she was back to her over-cheerful self. “I’m buying that dress for you.”

            “You don’t have to, Auntie Sara,” said Isabelle. “This is designer and it cost a fortune.”

            “Nope, I’m buying you that dress,” said her stubborn auntie.

            “Better idea; charge it to mama’s credit card.”

            “What a terrific idea,” replied her auntie who happily grabbed the credit card Isabelle’s hand.

            They both went to the front of the store where the cashier was. She was tall with red hair that was pulled into a tight ponytail. She was flipping through a Time’s Magazine sitting in a chair behind her desk. Isabelle recognized the red head, pale face beauty. It was none other than Yankee, the girl that had burst into tears when Cara had insulted her. The last thing she wanted to do was travel down memory lane, but she was the only cashier on duty.

            Her auntie strolled Dylan along in his stroller paying no attention to Isabelle’s worried lip biting. “Hi, I would like to ring this up.”