The Trouble Is

Chapter 14: Outfits

The week flies by in a whirl, and before I know it, it's Friday afternoon. Katie is stretched out on my bed, looking at a book with Doug. He taps a picture in the book.

"Like that, Katie Leigh," he says. Doug is the only person alive who she will allow the use of that little nickname. When she was much younger, her grandmother called her Katie Leigh. Around the time she became a teenager, she managed to convince her family that her name was Katie or even Kate, but in no way would she answer to Katie Leigh. Doug is the exception.

"Do you have a single bed sheet, Dougie?" she asks. "Like one that goes on top of your bed."

He nods, indicating he understands, and jumps over the end of the bed and scoots out the door. I can hear objects falling as he rips the sheet from his bed. He's back before I can even voice a disagreement.

Katie carefully helps him wrap it around him, then up and over his shoulder. He looks like a shrunken little priest or some kind of miniature disciple. He says a polite little thank you and then makes the sign of the cross toward her as he race-walks out the door. I know I'm going to have to deal with this thing of his eventually, but it will have to wait.

Katie props herself up on the bed and watches me pick through my clothes. I touch each shirt and straighten each plastic hanger.

"How are you supposed to know what to wear, Annamaria," she says, "if you don't know where you are going tonight? Isn't that just making you crazy?"

I don't need to answer that; she can already tell by the alignment of the hangers and the perfectly parallel alignment of my shoes in their cubbies. The only part of my closet that is not perfectly straight is the inside of the doors. Katie and I have covered the doors with song lyrics, movie lines, and every single watchword we've created over the years. It's a rainbow of Sharpie ink topped by elegant black letters written years ago by my mother telling us to each "express yourself."

"Looks like you've been exercising the demon, my dear," she says, nodding toward my perfect closet. The clothes are now grouped by color, rather than type, and then hanging in order according to length. "Let's see what you've got in mind."

I spend the next thirty minutes rotating between outfits. I accessorize and re-accessorize. I go from short skirt to skinny jeans to long sundress. And then I do it again. I'm getting ready for the third round when Katie blows up.

"Enough!" she shrieks. "Get those skinnies back on, or the white shorts, but wear the black sandals with that top. Find some earrings that dangle, and you're good to go."

She straightens my bed back just how I like it and gives me a kiss-kiss-goodbye thing in the air. As she heads downstairs, she yells one final contribution toward calming my nerves.

"I'll check on little Dougie on my way out. But if he's doing the communion thing again, I'm going to need the real wine this time, sister.

"By the way," she pauses at the bottom of the stairs and yells up at me. "As you may have guessed, real sex is probably nothing like Edward and Bella, unless you want me there to sprinkle some glitter."