Chapter 2: "Dressing the part"

"Rach get your cute butt out here! That dress is adorable," Mercedes shouted over the music that was blasting all over the store. It was a chic new boutique at the mall that Rachel had never heard of, but of course it was already Mercedes' favorite store.

"I don't know Mercedes… I don't think I can pull off the strapless… it's really uncomfortable," Rachel whined from behind the door.

"It can't be that bad Rachel, and besides you'll only have to wear it for a few hours. I think even you can deal with that.

"Fine I guess you're right… OH MY GOD!" Rachel gasped.

"What? What's wrong? You didn't rip the dress did you?" Mercedes began to panic; only Rachel could make a simple task of trying on a dress takes this long and be this dangerous.

"The price is outrageous! Why do I need to pay ninety dollars for some stupid dress that I'm only going to be wearing for a few hours – like you said!"

Mercedes sighed glad that nothing had happened to the dress, "It's not some stupid dress," Mercedes explained. "It's the dress you're going to meet your so-ul mate in." Mercedes couldn't stop the laugh that escaped her lips as Rachel peeked her little head out of the door and rolled her eyes dramatically.

"He is NOT my soul mate."

"Then why are you spending so much time worrying about how you're going to look in the strapless dress you'll wear when you meet him?"

Rachel gasped and stormed out of the dressing room. "You made me come and try this ridiculous thing on!"

Mercedes grinned because she'd finally gotten Rachel out of the dressing room so she could see her in her dress and it was gorgeous. It was a short strapless pink tube dress with a white and light pink flower pattern that crossed the bodice on a diaganol. "What are you talking about?" Mercedes exclaimed. "It's gorgeous! Lover boy won't know what hit him!"

Rachel paused and looked at herself in the 3 way mirror, "you really think so?" She couldn't help but to smile at the girl she saw in the reflection. The color pink of the dress compliment her fair skin and dark brown hair perfectly, and she knew for a fact that she had a pair of pink heels at home that would match the color perfectly.

"Definitely," Mercedes smiled at her. "You look like Cinderella in that dress."

Finn sighed and stared at the clock on his dashboard. It was 5:45. Quinn was suppose to be here fifteen minutes ago. Leave it to her to be late on the one day he had something important to talk to her about. Annoyed to be waiting so long, he decided to pull out his phone and check for any new messages, and, of course, there was one from her.

From: stargirl01 at 5:00pm, September 22

-So… I just realized something. How am I suppose to know it's you at the dance? I'm wearing a pink dress with a flower pattern on it, but I'm assuming you'll be wearing a suit like every other guy at the dance…

He grinned, she was clearly one of those girls who tended to over plan for things, it tended to annoy him when Quinn did this, but when she did it, she planned everything for him. It was a nice change that this girl wasn't telling him what to do. She just wanted to know what he was doing. Not being able to resist the chance to mess with her, he quickly responded.

To: stargirl01 at 5:46pm, September 22

-No worries, my suit's dirty so I was just going to wear my footsie pajamas.

He waited for her response while he continued to look out the window for Quinn, who still hadn't shown up.

From: stargirl01 at 5:48pm, September 22

-Hahaha. You're sooo funny. :P Seriously! I don't want to just walk up to a bunch of random guys on the dance floor and ask them if they're "drummerdude12"!

To: stargirl01 at 5:49pm, September 22

-Well I can't tell you my name because that would ruin the surprise. Wouldn't you agree? But I am wearing a purple tie to the dance, if that helps.

From: stargirl01 at 5:50pm, September 22

-Ooh purple, how very masculine of you

Finn sent his last message and looked up just in time to see Quinn walking towards his car, about to open the passenger side door.

"Hey," she said quickly before she immediately jumped into their plans for the homecoming dance. "So I got a dress for the dance last night. It's light blue. You'll have to get a tie that matches so we don't look tacky, and please get me a corsage that matches too. I don't want it to distract people from how great my dress is. Also, where do you want to go out to dinner before the dance? I was thinking maybe breadsticks or -"

"Quinn wait!" Finn quickly interrupted, "there's something I need to talk to you about," he began cautiously. He knew how pissed she could get and was afraid for his and his car's safety.

"Wait? Wait for what, Finn? Homecoming is in two days. We should have started planning for this weeks ago."

"Well…" he began still unsure of how he could best word this without making her set his entire car on fire. "I don't think we should go to the dance together."

"What are you talking about, Finn? We're both nominated for homecoming court so we have to go."

"No, you don't understand," Finn was getting more nervous by the second. "I mean I'm still going, and you're still going, but I don't think we should go together," Finn put an emphasis on "together" hoping it would get his point across in the nicest way possible.

Clearly it didn't, because Quinn's jaw dropped open in shock and then a split second later closed into a mean grimace that was accompanied by a glare that could turn anyone to stone. "WHAT?" Quinn gritted through her teeth. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"I just don't think it's going to work out between you and me; we're too different. We can still be…" Finn began.

"DON'T say the word friends," Quinn finished for him. "This isn't happening. You're just confused; yeah, that's it! Here's what'll happen: I'll over look this little lapse in judgment you're having and I'll meet you at the dance on Saturday. Ok?" And with that she got out of his car and quickly walked away.

Finn sighed and watched her go. He'd tried many times before to end things with her, but she just could never take no for an answer, and eventually he stopped trying. But this time it was different. There was someone else – someone who understood him like he knew Quinn never could or would – who he wanted to be with. In all honesty, he felt like he knew her better than anyone else too.

So why did it matter that he didn't know her name or what she looked like? Those things aren't what's important. Looks don't matter…right?

Tina walked into the large ballroom at the local hotel where this year's homecoming dance was going to be held. She was surprised when she noticed that the decorations had less of an underwater theme and more of a classic black and white look. She quickly jotted down some notes and took a few pictures. When she heard the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, she turned around just in time to see two members of student council walk up to her with matching looks of panic on their faces.

"Thank you so much for coming at such short notice, Tina!" Artie exclaimed. "As you can see it's not an underwater theme this year."

"Yeah I noticed that," Tina said as she hit record on her small tape recorder, "what happened?"

"Well," he began nervously. "The decoration company got our order mixed up with another school in Michigan's order. Ironically, their school name was also 'McKinley High School'. So now we're stuck with their lame black and white color scheme while they're partying it up with our mermaids and fish decorations."

Then Lauren added more information to the story, "and that's why we called you here. We want you to post some information on what happened to the theme and a few 'sneak peak' pictures of the dance to make it seem cool so that the entire student body doesn't hate us!" Lauren and Artie exchanged a terrified look before they turned back to Tina.

"Well you called the right person," Tina grinned. Tina was the self proclaimed "gossip queen" of McKinley High. She created the most read online blog at McKinley. She created two sections of it as well; one for her and her alone, where she could post the newest most shocking stories, and another for students to post their own gossip news. Although, no one had ever beaten her to a story and that half of the blog was hardly ever posted in – except of course by anonymous students posting completely ridiculous and made up rumors that were quickly deleted by Tina herself. Since it was her senior year, she'd already had 3 successful years of the blog and by now people just called her whenever they had big news. Tina looked around the ballroom a bit more, and realized that without a good theme this dance was going to blow. Who wants to go to a dance with a theme based on two colors? Certainly not her. No one would want to show their face at a dance like that. Wait! "I know exactly what you need to do, and it won't cost you anything. So don't worry about your budget." Artie and Lauren sighed in relief as they looked at her expectantly to here her great idea. She didn't disappoint. "We'll have a masquerade ball. It's elegant and the crazy masks that some of the students will definitely wear will pop against the dull décor."

"Sounds perfect!" Lauren applauded. Tina blushed, thanked them for giving her a great story, and promised to post the information on her blog as soon as she got home.

As she walked out of the ballroom, she heard quietly squeaking wheels behind her and turned around. "Oh hey Artie! Did you forget something?"

Artie looked up at her nervously, "Actually I was wondering if you, um, wanted to go to the, uh, dance…. With me?"

Tina's eyes popped open in shock, "Artie, I'm flattered, but I have a boyfriend. I'm sort of going with him…"

"Oh…" Artie looked down dejectedly.

"But hey," Tina began grabbing his attention. "If this dance is as big a hit as I know it will be, you'll find your Cinderella there for sure!"