That Blue Gibson: Another Round

eight

"Josie, this thing is ridiculous."

Liz held her hands up over her head so Josie and her new assistant Leah could buzz around her, straightening the swaths of black fabric into shape.

"It's not that bad," Josie insisted, but still furrowed her brow when she stepped back to take it all in.

"Looks like you're about to curse a spinning wheel because you weren't invited to a birthday party," Sarah snickered from Liz's reading chair.

"What is it with you and Disney movies?" Josie shot back with a laugh. "Last year she was a mermaid and now she's a sorceress?"

"Let's just put some horns on my forehead and call it a day," Liz offered. She had been standing on the hardwood floor of her bedroom for so long that she was almost serious. Dave would totally wear some to match, she was sure of it.

Awards season was looming once again and Liz was being summoned back into the spotlight to present awards and just generally float about to draw attention, especially now that she was romantically linked with a vestige of rock and roll. But the entire thing served no real purpose as far as she was concerned. It was a desperate move by the Hollywood machine to convince the general public that these award programs weren't just a self-congratulatory evening to display an egregious amount of wealth, but an actual showcase of the arts. Her first instinct was to decline immediately and go back to hiding out at home, but the temporary distraction had proved too tempting. 

Things were still weirdly tense between her and Taylor, and Allison was beginning to ask questions that no one really knew how to answer. Dave insisted he was over being angry, but his almost daily phone calls with Taylor had dwindled to once a week, sticking strictly to band talk and the entire situation made Liz feel supremely guilty. But, Dan, Sarah, and their new baby, Sadie had come down from Oregon to visit and Liz was finally feeling a bit like her old self again. 

"What if we did it in another color?" Leah asked. "Zac originally had this in a really pretty plum color."

"Black hides the bump," Josie reminded her. "Spanx can only do so much at this point."

"Thanks, Josie," Liz muttered and ran a hand over her little bump. "I love you, too."

"Well!" she cried exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "You've given me an almost impossible task of hiding that bump on two of the biggest nights of the year! You're lucky you have such a long torso or else there would be no way in hell we could- Dave! Get in here and help!"

Liz looked up into the large mirror as he stepped into the room with a bundle of soft linen in his arms, ignoring Josie completely in favor of Sarah. "She's waking up," he told her. "Just yell when she's done eating and I'll put her down for her nap."

Both Josie and Leah stopped fussing with the dress to stare at Dave and then Liz. "Yeah, I know. Quit being so obvious," she whispered to them, then called over to him once he had settled Sadie with her mother. "Babe? What do you think of this one?"

"It's... big," he chuckled and wandered over to examine the dress. "I'm gonna trip over the back of it all night, aren't I?"

"Yeah, probably," she smiled brightly when he shuffled around the train to get close enough to kiss her. The only good thing to come from the fallout with Taylor was that Dave had become more affectionate than usual; like he was trying to remind her what she meant to him. "Only two more dresses and we'll be done, okay?" she promised. 

"Take your time," he said softly, then kissed her again. "Dan and I are just watching the smokers."

"You two just don't want us hens down there interrupting barbecue time," Sarah muttered from her corner.