That's Amore! - Janelle Denison [41]
"It was expensive."
"Fashion is something you buy. Style is something you are."
Style? This was her style.
Kiki stuck her right hand inside the bodice of Efi's dress. Efi gasped and grabbed her arm. "What are you doing?"
"Copping a feel, what do you think I'm doing?" She wiggled her fingers against Efi's breast. "I'm trying to improve on your cleavage."
"By groping it?"
Kiki smiled wickedly. "It is said that the more you massage them, the bigger they grow." She glanced at her own modest chest. "So much bullshit, really. Now, would you let go of my hand so I can do my job?"
"Which is?"
"To help my best friend feel better by looking better."
Efi released her grip and watched as Kiki shoved her breasts up then adjusted her bra so that instead of flat skin with the hint of shape under the dress she now had two swells of visible flesh.
Efi moved to put things back the way they were.
"Don't! I'm not done."
"What are you going to do next—roll up the waist of my skirt and make it a mini like we used to do in middle school?"
"That's an idea, but … no."
Instead she tugged on the belt where it was loosely lying against one hip. She tightened it, further accentuating her narrow waist.
"You know, I'd like to breathe again at some point tonight," Efi complained.
"Screw breathing. It's overrated."
Efi laughed and swatted her friend away.
"Here, try these on."
Kiki had kicked off her shoes. Only they weren't shoes, really, but towering skyscrapers with six-inch spike heels.
"Uh-uh. I hate heels."
"And the shoes you now have on hate you." Efi made a face and considered her low-heeled pumps.
"Forget it," she said, beginning to loosen her belt and put her bra back in order. "I am who I am. And it's who I am that Nick asked to marry. If I go out there the way you want me to, everyone will know I'm jealous. That's not what I want them to remember about the days leading up to my wedding."
Kiki's gaze was on hers in the mirror. "And you? What will you remember?"
Efi didn't want to think about that right now. Hopefully she would remember only the good things and let the rest of it fade away into the blurry recesses of her mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
Day four
EFI SLOWLY AWAKENED to the sound of raised voices downstairs. She plucked her brass wind-up clock from the side table and squinted at it. Just after nine.
She jackknifed upright in bed, nearly putting her sister Diana's eye out with an elbow. Just after nine!
"Hey, watch it," her sister grumbled, then rolled over on the double bed. Diana's room had been commandeered by visiting relatives.
"Sorry." Efi slapped the clock back to the table, tried to peel her eyes the rest of the way open, then decided she could see well enough as she got up, pulled on her pink oversize robe and dashed for the door, tripping over the blankets that comprised her sisters Eleni and Jenny's empty makeshift bed on the floor because their room had been taken over by even more relatives.
She paused in the upstairs hall, listening to the voices downstairs.
"No, you take this back. This isn't ours." Very definitely her mother.
"Look, lady, it has your name on it. It's yours." A man's voice, unfamiliar but obviously impatient.
"It's not mine. That might be my name, but those aren't my things. You've made a mistake. You'll have to take this back to your truck and bring me the right package."
Efi moved toward the stairs and bumped straight into Aphrodite, who had taken over Diana's bedroom along with her parents. She squinted at the other woman who had a good six inches on her and looked drop-dead gorgeous while Efi felt like death warmed over.
"Morning," she mumbled, then made her way around her cousin.
She quickly took the steps in her bare feet, not stopping until she nearly bumped into her mother.
"What's going on?"
The way Penelope and the deliveryman in a brown uniform looked at her, she supposed it might not have been a bad idea to make a pit stop in the bathroom before coming downstairs.
Her mother waved at the deliveryman. "He's trying to make me sign