Curse of Pizarro

Chapter 13~ Girl to Girl

"What do you think? Too much?" Jez asks holding up a sun dress with bulky, fake jewels sewn into the top. I looked the price and while I love cheap clothes, I knew the jewels wouldn't be attached for long.

After stalking this guy for two days and hearing a thousand plus complaints about how boring the library was, we finally decided it was time to launch phase two of the plan.

That meant Jez got to make me go shopping with her since we kind of left all our clothes on the train. We only bought a minimal wardrobe to replace it the first day in Guayaquil. If Jez wanted to get the house resident free as quick as possible, she probably needed to hone in on her girly side.

"Way too much," I pull a strapless yellow cotton sundress off the rack. "This goes well with your skin tone." Jez could make even the most formidable looking outfit work, but we needed something that would make gay men stare, and at a reasonable price. The tag said eight dollars, but I was pretty sure we could bargain it down to five at least. 

She holds the fabric up to her body and nods in approval. Draping the dress over her arm we move to the next pile at the table. The flea market was in full swing and trying to move to the next stand was near impossible.

Jez starts eyeing a light blue skirt. I start to think she is about to go into a shopping frenzy, so I ask, "Just how many dates do you think it will take Jez?"

"Not many," she replies checking the skirt for poor stitching.

"I think one dress should cover it then."

"But I'm looking at this for you! And I don't want to back to the hotel yet," she looks at me from the corner of her eye.

I knew who she wanted to avoid at the hotel. While she and Juan were talking, there was still a lot of tension in the atmosphere of our room. He didn't come with us because it was clothes shopping, and Jez wouldn't have let him anyway.

"Jez, you knew he would get jealous."

"Yeah, but I didn't expect him to go flirting with other girls. He is supposed to be my encantador principe."

"You're what?" Five years of Spanish, and I still don't understand a quarter of the things that come out of her mouth.

"My prince charming," she sighs and stares at the skirt way more than needed.

I roll my eyes. Not this mushy, desperate to find love stuff. Usually she gets like this after watching a really sappy romance movie.  "Maybe you shouldn't try so hard to push him away then."

"It's not that I want to, but I can't look at having a serious relationship until this stupid necklace is out of the family tree for good."

"I know, but you need to understand Juan is having a hard time dealing with all this too."

"I understand it, that doesn't mean I have to like it."

I laugh, "Okay, now put the skirt down, and we'll pay the nice lady for your dress."

Jez takes out her wallet and hands the woman a ten dollar bill. In Spanish, she says she'll take both the dress and the skirt for ten and the woman agrees. The vendor then turns her attention to a couple browsing her wares.

She smiles at me as I proceed to criticize her, "Jezebel Ida Tyson! You do not need two pieces of girly clothes! It's not like money is going to fall from the sky when we really need it later!"

She tried to look as innocent as possible while saying, "This is a worth while investment. If Fallon ever did get too close, you can put on something with easy access, and he would be too busy figuring out his priorities long enough for me to shot him."