"Okay, Sherbatsky. You can do this." Only one hour now, no more time to panic, no more time for indecision. She was going to have to make some difficult choices and make them fast. Lily was gone, the key to the liquor cabinet clutched in her hand. Two pale blue bags with the stylized F of the Flayton's logo hung from the back of the bathroom door. "One dress or the other. Both black tie. No bad choices."
It should have been easier than this. It all should have been easier than this, but it wasn't. For the fifth time since forcing herself out of a lavender scented bubble bath, one that did absolutely nothing to calm her nerves, Robin adjusted the tie on her white terrycloth robe and stared down the two sets of underwear laid out on the duvet cover. Black lace or yellow cotton. Boy shorts or granny panties.
"Alberta, what do you think?" Robin cast a glance at the small black and white mutt who regarded her with bright button eyes from her corduroy dog bed. A triple thump of her tail was Alberta's only answer. "You're no help, do you know that?"
Alberta crossed her paws and let out a contented whimper.
"I'm going out with Barney. You don't know Barney. We used to be married. That's like mates in dog terms. Before that, we were best friends. We were bros." There was a word she hadn't used in, God, how long had it been? Years. "That's, I don't know, pack members? Not everything translates, okay? Now I don't know what we are. He's the one who said black tie. That's like really fancy collar in dog fashion. You know, the pink one with all the rhinestones?"
Alberta rolled onto her back and wiggled her legs in a bid for Robin's full attention.
Robin turned from the bed and bent to plant one hand in the middle of Alberta's speckled belly for a good scratch. Two scractches, three, and she straightened again. "That's all you're getting until you help me figure this out. What I have to do in the next five minutes is pick one of those dresses," she pointed toward the two bags, as if Alberta would even care, "and I can't do that until I figure out what underwear comes first. There is no dog underwear, except for that really weird store on the lower East side that promise I am never taking you to again."
She could stall for a few more minutes. Worst case scenario, she'd still be standing here when the buzzer sounded and Abdul, the doorman, would announce her guest. Guest. As if Barney Stinson could ever be anybody's guest. They weren't strangers, no matter how hard either of them had tried to keep it that way. No matter how much she'd wanted to think that was ever going to be possible.
All it took was Ted's hand on her arm, guiding her to her spot at the altar, opposite Barney, as though there was nothing in the world wrong with positioning Robin opposite her ex-husband during a freaking wedding. During Ted's wedding. If ever there were a moment Robin could have literally died from humiliation, that was it, but that wasn't what happened.
His smile, that slightest of nods, and all the pain and confusion and loneliness of the last three years and change melted away. There was only him and only her, only them, together, the way it always should have been. The way it still could be? She didn't know. She didn't want to know. All she did know, she told herself as she made her way to the mirrored vanity opposite the bed and settled onto the padded stool, was that moments like that were the real reason she'd made Tracy promise, made her pinky swear over the phone that they wouldn't leave her alone with that man. He did things to her. Always did. Always would.
Alberta followed on silent feet, then flopped down at Robin's side. Her fuzzy chin rested on the top of Robin's bare foot.
If only all relationships could be that easy. She scratched Alberta once behind her sticky-up ear and set her mind on what she could control. She didn't need to think to make proper use of the bottles, jars, pots and powders arrayed on the polished wood top of the vanity. Fix her attention on her reflection in the lighted mirror, ignoring the giant red Velcro rollers that covered her head in three precise rows. "Hair comes last," she told Alberta, and unscrewed green handled mascara wand from pink tube. Open eyes, open mouth in wide O, like Susan from Flayton's. This, too, was a specific job in the midst of chaos.
You know I love you, right? Barney's look at her, that smile, that nod, said it clearer than any words ever could.
Yeah, I do. She hadn't been able to hold back her own smile then, couldn't turn off the memories that came flooding back. Standing at another altar, a lifetime and a second ago all at once, opposite Barney, surrounded by friends closer than family, that wasn't something she could forget easily. Couldn't forget at all, and she'd spent the better part of the last few years trying. Love you, too. Only it wasn't that easy anymore.
"What do you think, Alberta? Lashes?" Robin batted her lashes at Alberta, who answered with a single sharp bark. "Lashes it is." Applying false lashes would buy her a couple more minutes, but lips would depend on dress and dress depended on underwear, and underwear, well, that depended on her.
"I say no underwear at all." It was easy, too easy, to imagine Barney strolling out from a bathroom he'd never even seen, much less used, affixing cufflinks before sweeping black lace and yellow cotton alike from the bed. He'd accompany the gesture with a waggle of eyebrows, then come up behind her, place warm, strong hands on her shoulders and suggested blowing off the entire evening to stay home. Alone. Together. Naked.
Both lashes in place now, there wasn't any more time for stalling. "Crunch time, Alberta. You know, some dogs would have helped out their people by eating one of the choices. Lying down on one is good, too. Get dog hair all over one so there's no way I could wear it. Want to give any of that a try?"
Alberta's only answer was a swipe of pink tongue over the top of Robin's foot.
Robin pushed back from the vanity and settled on the floor next to Alberta. "Must be nice being a dog. Must be nice being fixed. I mean that pug in the off leash section of the park? Nothing? Nothing at all? I'm a person, and I can see it. He really knows his way around a tennis ball." She scooped Alberta into her lap. "Barney is like that pug. He's fun. He's gorgeous. He looks great in a sweater, though he's usually in a suit. One look, and I really, really, really want to play with him."
The wet nudge of Alberta's nose under her chin was all Robin needed to cut through the crap and admit the real reason choosing one pair of underpants took the entire day.
"Thing is, Barney has a puppy. A person puppy. She's real. We're going to see her next week, and I don't want to." Robin squeezed her eyes shut, silently commanding the tears not to come. Big girl panties, Sherbatsky, she ordered herself. She knew exactly which ones they were.
