The Notorious R(uth) B(arakat) G(rimaldi)

Chapter 14: And We Danced

AN: (DOUBLE UPDATE--HAHA!!!) It has nothing to do with the story except that it has the same name as the chapter title, but if you've never heard the song up there, please, please take four minutes and watch and listen. The Hooters were a moderately popular band with the college crowd in the 80s, and this song was one of their best, IMHO. It is pure, unadulterated joy, and if it doesn't make you want to jump up and dance, well, there's something wrong with you. And the bridge, well, it's sublime 🤗

🍁💫💐💫🌟💫💐💫🍁

Elliott saw a pair of legs with muscular calves walking backward down the stairs, and saw Phil slowly appear. He was taking video with his phone held out in front of him, focused so keenly on what he was filming that he didn't notice he'd reached the the bottom of the stairs and nearly fell down. The object of his intense scrutiny was walking carefully down the stairs, trying not to laugh at her father, and therefore didn't really pay attention to the presence of her date in the foyer, even though she knew he was there.

The same, however, couldn't be said for Elliott. He stared at Ruthie and realized when he started to feel light-headed that he'd forgotten to inhale. He carefully took in air, being careful not to be too noisy about it and draw attention to himself.

Ruthie, meanwhile, was looking between her fathers and Elliott, waiting for their opinions.

"Well? Pop wouldn't really say, though I think he liked it. It's kind of out there, I know, but I like it. What do you guys think?" She looked hopefully from Todd to Elliott. "Not too weird? Not too much like a costume?"

She had a point. Her dress was gray, and embellished with gray beads and pink rhinestones. It was sleeveless, in the 1920s flapper style, and only the attention to detail and its simplicity made the difference between it looking like a costume for a play and an actual dress that a woman would wear out. With it she wore high-heeled silver strappy sandals that showed off her pretty pedicured toes and slender calves.

As Elliott watched her turn toward him, an expectant smile on her face, he realized that, though there would probably be much more scantily dressed girls at the dance, none would look so alluring as his date. The neck of her dress was cut round, barely showing a hint of cleavage, and it was cut nearly straight down, with no indentation for her waist. The hem, along with the sparkly fringe, ended a modest two inches above her cute knees.

But the dress was sleeveless, leaving her beautiful arms bare. And the fit of the dress was almost perfect, pulling taut across the front in little diagonals with every step she took, from breast to hip, making the fringe sway this way and that as it sparkled prettily. Her legs were as gorgeous as her arms, the perfect color and tone.

In short, Ruthie was a vision.

Wow.

[AN 10-31-2018: I'm sticking a picture in here because someone asked me about it. It's not a picture of the dress, because I made that up, and it would be amazing if I could find that, but this is close, and kind of inspired the description I came up with:]