for: the fantabulous Glittering Moonlight! Hope you like it!
prompts: wordpress blogs, raspberries, eyeliner, a play called Dig It!
"What's not to love about Rebecca Minkoff?" a voice trilled, blaring from Alicia Rivera's iPhone. "Fun, flirty, shows the perfect amount of leg-"
"Dyl, shut up," the iPhone owner whined, throwing a coral dress out of her walk-in closet. "You can't wear something like that on a first date!"
"Why not?" Dylan Marvil sang. Alicia cringed. She entirely regretted texting Dylan with the news first, but Massie was already away in the Hamptons so it wasn't like she could text her and ask for fashion advice. Three days before the date, the redhead dragged her on a shopping trip to buy clothes for the occasion, but Alicia had come up empty-handed. Well, except for a cute pair of rain boots at Saks. On the day of the "first date shopping extravaganza," as their friend Claire Lyons had put it, Dylan had ended up Neiman Marcus shopping bags than she had, and that was truly pathetic.
Her best friend eventually relented after Alicia's third frappuccino, and allowed her to shop from her closet, but it didn't stop her from having to weigh in on every piece of clothing that she picked up. Besides, Alicia simply refused to wear anything with watermelon-print and called Dean, her chauffeur, to pick her up from Dylan's enormous walk-in closet before she had to put on a lemon-print dress.
However, it was ten A.M. on the day of the date, and she had yet to find a single article of clothing that was worth putting in the "things I could wear" pile.
"What kind of date are you guys going on, anyways? Is it a romantic dinner at Giuseppe's or is it something casual, like pizza at a Slice of Heaven?" Good God, Dylan was getting annoying. She had definitely inherited her mother's inclination to stick their noses into people's business.
"We're going out for dinner at The Pine Tree and then watching a play or something at the Westchester Community Playhouse," Alicia elaborated. She held up a pair of harem pants before balling them up and tossing them at her canopy bed. Way too Rihanna for her tastes.
"Oh my God, wear something from Moschino, then! Moschino's like, the trendiest brand right now, according to one of those fashionista Wordpress blogs everyone's been talking about, anyways. There's this really adorable tank top I bought the other day – I told you that you should've bought it, but nooooo, you didn't – and you can totally come pick it up if I can find it; I'm packing for Hawaii right now anyways! Let me find it! I mean, we're like, the same size, and –" She hit the end call button as fast as she could.
"Honey, Josh is here!" Nadia Rivera's voice floated up their spiral staircase and into her only daughter's bedroom. In a frenzy, Alicia put the finishing touches on her makeup and stumbled across her room to check her reflection in the mirror one last time.
Approximately three minutes after hanging up on Dylan, she found the perfect navy blue shirtdress in a corner of her closet, and paired it with brown Salvatore Ferragamo wedges. A cross-body bag held lip gloss (in case of an emergency lip kiss), her iPhone, wallet, and a tin of Altoids. She had kept her makeup natural, choosing to put on nothing but navy blue eyeliner, foundation, and Key Lime Pie Glossip Girl, which Massie had lent her prior to leaving for eight weeks. She looked like a 9.4, which was the Massie-imposed minimum for a date.
Alicia smiled at Josh, who was making casual conversation with her mother and had seemed to forget that he was here for Nadia's daughter. Silently, she went over the date-day tips that her cousins, Isobel and Celia, had given her. Don't eat anything with garlic or onion in it. Keep your lips moisturized in case of a first-date kiss. No texting at the dinner table – God forbid that he think that you were texting one of his friends instead of him. Why were they talking for so long? What was on the piece of paper that Josh and Nadia were both peering at?
"Sweetie, let me take some pictures of you two!" Her mother was practically purring by the time a sheepish Josh turned to Alicia and greeted her. She forced herself to smile at the camera, quietly dreading how the date had already taken a turn for the worst. First, her date was more interested that her supermodel mother than he was in her. Secondly, her mother insisted on embarrassing her – she wouldn't be surprised if Josh had just taken a look at a photo of baby Alicia.
"Ready?" he finally smiled at her, baring the pearly-whites that all the girls at Octavian Country Day were talking about. She nodded quickly, wishing for a second that she could run back to her room, dive on her bed, and moan to Dylan about how the date would go horribly if it continued the way that it had been going.
He made small talk as they walked the short distance to the tiny European restaurant on Westchester's busiest intersection. She silently wished that she could curl up with a tub of her favorite raspberry ice cream and soak her feet in some hot water. It wasn't that she didn't want to go on this date with Josh – in fact, she had been passive-aggressively waiting for it since they stated texting in March. However, they were currently engrossed in a conversation about his favorite baseball team, and she just wasn't interested in sports. Isobel always told her that boys should lead the conversation, so she had unwillingly gone along with it in hopes that the topic would change to something more interesting. More interesting meaning, well, her.
"We're going to go to the playhouse after this," he said after they had ordered (the house special, whatever that was, for him and grilled chicken with a white mushroom sauce for her). "I found this comedy show that a few of the OCD and Briarwood kids are in and I thought it'd be cool if we would go, y'know?"
"Yeah, I get you," Alicia lied, about ready to slip under the table in shame. If dinner went badly, that would mean the two hours they would spend watching the play would go badly. And for the love of Prada, if that went badly in front of the LBRs that performed on stage, Massie would hear about it and she would be kicked out of the Pretty Committee faster than she could give a news report to her antique vanity.
Well, at least the pasta didn't have garlic or onion in it.
"'Dig It!, the latest improv comedy show to hit New York,'" she read off of the marquee, teetering as she leaned against a pillar outside of the Westchester Community Playhouse. "'Featuring Layne Abeley, Eli Ottoman, and many more!'" Her date walked back to her, holding out her Diet Coke. She smile-thanked him as they walked into the theater room. His free hand brushed hers, sending a jolt of feeling-electricity up her arm as a soothing reminder of how well the dinner had gone. He had taken what Alicia felt like was a legitimate interest in her desire to become a reporter for Entertainment Weekly, as she had covertly texted to Dylan while in the bathroom.
"I think they pull people from the audience to participate in some of their skits," Josh whispered as they took their third-row seats. She approved – the first two rows were reserved for overeager drama mothers and the performers' braces-wearing siblings, but the third row was quiet and full of other couples. A small voice in the back of her head hoped that the high school girl next to her wouldn't start making out with her boyfriend during the show, because that would be incredibly awkward.
As the lights dimmed, Alicia noticed the paper number taped to the back of the chair in front of her. What if they pulled her out and made her embarrass herself in front of Josh and the other 98 people in the theater?
An hour later, she was doubled over in laughter with Josh, who had progressed to holding her hand awkwardly between skits. Layne Abeley could be very funny, as much as she hated to admit it. They had both silently agreed that the other guy on the marquee was not as funny as the playbill had made them out to be, but Lame Layne? Comedic gold.
As the whole crew ran out for a song-and-dance number, Alicia happily grabbed Josh's hand. He looked at her in surprise, blushing. She simply smiled and leaned back.
The night had gone well – he hadn't made any unwarranted or awkward attempts to kiss her. He had been a perfect gentleman, paying for her meal and the Diet Coke at the playhouse. At one point, her feet had started hurting on the walk over to the theater, and Josh had volunteered to give her a piggyback ride. Right when she was about to decline out of embarrassment, he scooped her up and walked the last block over with her reluctantly kicking her wedged-feet against his arms.
She felt happy – the awkward start had eventually progressed to a lot of laughter and one or two inside jokes that she would be sure to text him about tomorrow morning. Chivalrously, his mother would be picking both of them up and dropping Alicia off at her home, to keep them both safe from the unknown dangers of Westchester.
For a second, she wondered whether or not Josh would get out of the car and walk her up the winding driveway of her mansion. Would he give her a kiss on the cheek? What about a kiss on the lips? What if he didn't like Key Lime Pie Glossip Girl and preferred her raspberry lip balm? At what time was it appropriate to text him and say that she had fun? What if it ended badly and she would still have to say that to him? Josh squeezed her hand, jolting her out of her thoughts, and grinned at her. Alicia returned the smile.
Nothing could ruin this first date.