Note – Thanks to all my readers for the feedback. And I can't believe Calla's back…or reading this. :-P I'm slow to overcome shock. Also for Mels. I owe you banners.
The Right Girl 36
Two weeks later…
The Nurse's Ball was coming up and, in keeping with a decade-long tradition, Elizabeth Webber designed the annual t-shirts for the crew. Nadine already had hers – a commemorative keepsake of her first real hospital function, and the fundraising dinner the week before hadn't counted – and she was really looking forward to attending. She had been thinking about what to wear and had finally settled on a black gown she had somewhere in the back of her closet. It was super old, but no one in Port Charles had ever seen her in it, so she figured it was fine.
Still, she found herself walking into the MetroCourt boutique, eyes peeled for that one green dress that she had her eye on for the past few weeks, hoping that no one had snatched it up yet. Not that she could afford it anyway, but it was the principle of the matter.
But the first thing she saw when she walked into the trendy boutique was decidedly not her beautiful green dress but instead a beautiful black dress…wrapped around none other than Claudia Zacchara.
Johnny's sister was standing in front of the three-fold mirrors on a little pedestal, hands planted on her hips, turning this way and that to get the best view of her tall, athletic body in the elegant gown, and she caught Nadine's surprised gaze in the mirror and addressed her without turning.
"What are you doing here? Don't you have small, whiny children to poke with needles?"
She smiled and walked through the store, past the frenzied shop girls pulling out the finest couture red and black gowns the boutique had to offer. She had no doubt who had sent them out to do her bidding in that manner. "I could ask you the same thing – shouldn't you be hanging by your feet in a cave somewhere and sleeping until dusk?"
The older woman grinned. "My secret's out. But seriously, what are you doing here? It's the middle of the day. I'm only here because I had to get a dress altered, and the tailors at the boutique are much better than the clearly blind and arthritic dullards in Crimson Pointe."
Nadine adjusted her grip on her tote and looked around the practically empty store. "Well, I'm pulling a double shift at the hospital today and I've got about an hour and a half until the next one starts. I already ate lunch – it doesn't take me long, I don't get why some people complain about not getting a full hour for that – so I have all this time left over and I was like-"
"Didn't ask for you life story," Claudia interrupted, snapping her finger for a shop girl that quickly scurried over. "You. I don't like this one. Give me the one you've got on your arm."
She took the dress from the girl and draped it over her arm, then tipped her head at Nadine as she hopped off the pedestal and headed for the dressing room. "Follow."
Well used to terse directives, Nadine did as she was told. "And anyway, I had all this time left over-"
Claudia groaned at the incessant babble and was much relieved to disappear behind the safety of a fitting room door. "Yeah, yeah."
Nadine leaned against the partition and waited patiently. "-And I was already at the little restaurant across the street – did you know that they make the absolute best calzones? I had spinach and pineapple and jalapenos and bell peppers in mine, and it was amazing. And I'm pretty sure the secret ingredients in their marinara sauce are love and hugs."
The door opened a few inches and Claudia, dressed now in bra and panties with her black Glock resting on the seat behind her, shoved a designer gown into Nadine's hands. "Tell someone to put that back."
She straightened the gown and draped it over her arm to prevent wrinkling as Claudia slammed the door shut, then headed over to a nearby rack and tossed it over the bar. "So since I was in the area, I thought I'd come to the boutique and look around. They have the prettiest stuff, and the Nurse's Ball is coming up, so I thought it'd be fun to just come and look around. I mean, I already have my dress, and it's this long black one with a really nice drape, and the last time I wore it was my celebratory dinner when I graduated from nursing school, but no one here's seen me in it ever, so I figure I'm safe until next year's ball, but I'll have time to scrimp and save for a pretty dress until then, so it's all good."
Claudia blew out of the stall, dressed now in a dark burgundy dress accented with silver crystals, and headed out to the three-fold mirror again, leaving Nadine with no choice but to follow.
"I can't believe I'm actually considering buying off the rack," she grumbled, hopping up onto the pedestal and studying her reflection. "Huh. Not bad. I was iffy on the color."
"It kind of washes you out," came a bored voice from behind them, and both women looked in the mirror to see Maxie Jones's reflection as she presented her ticket and receipt to a shop girl that went to retrieve her altered dress. With that business taken care of, she turned her full attention to the two women.
"It's a nice dress," she said, "but you've got such pale skin and such dark hair that the color washes you out and makes it look like you glow in the dark. Either go tanning, or use a really warm foundation. Swirl a golden bronzer on after you put on your blush, and you should be fine."
Claudia scowled and Nadine winced, knowing she wouldn't like what was sure to happen next. "What are you, a shop girl, or something? Did I ask for opinion?"
Her biting remarks didn't faze Maxie in the least. "I'm not anymore, but I used to work here for a while. Now I'm the Chief Executive Assistant for a fashion magazine. The title doesn't really mean anything, it's pretty much made up, but it does mean that I get to look at all the new lines and help supervise photo shoots and that's where I picked up a bunch of new make up tips. Like I said, warm foundation and gold bronzer over your blush. It'll highlight your cheekbones."
Nadine looked warily up at Claudia, scarcely daring to hope that the older woman wouldn't cause a scene. It didn't take much to set Claudia off – really, she should look into anger management classes or something – and she was the sort of woman that didn't really care that much about where she let her temper loose.
But Claudia just sniffed and looked back at her reflection. "What do you think of this dress?"
Now posed with an actual question, Maxie pushed herself away from the counter and walked on over to the mirror. She tapped her chin thoughtfully, walking around Claudia as if she were a prize hound at the fair (which Nadine was sure wasn't going to go over well) and spoke up just before Claudia lost her patience with her.
"Aside from the color, which we've already talked about, I think it's a great dress for you. It's strapless, which draws attention to the fact that you're toned and you have a tiny waist and really nice boobs."
Nadine choked on her saliva. Her plight went ignored.
"The drape is what I really like about it. You're tall, and the way the waist is stitched along with the super gentle pleating in the bodice makes it look like your legs go on forever. I would suggest, though…have it altered a bit."
Claudia arched a brow. "What?"
"Here." Maxie came up next to her and pinched the fabric in around Claudia's lower ribs. "Just a little, and right here. It makes you look sleeker and brings out your curves. And like I said, you're tall and thin so you face an uphill battle with curviness anyway. Hey, I'm the same way," she added when the older woman glared at her. "I'm all small and skinny. I'm built like a stick. But this way, we can play it up a bit."
"Stop touching me."
Maxie let go and the fabric fell back in place. As Claudia continued to reflect on her reflection, she turned to Nadine. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you here. I didn't even think you knew where this place was. What are you doing here?"
"The eternal question pops up yet again," Claudia murmured with a smirk, now pinching the fabric at her ribs just as Maxie had done earlier.
Nadine was used to both of their brands of abuse and didn't take offense. "I just came by to look around."
"Are you buying a dress for the Nurse's Ball?" Maxie asked excitedly. "Have you picked one out yet? Oh! Oh! Can I pick one out for you? I swear, I'm so good at this sort of thing. And I promise I won't dress you in feathers and old newspapers and call it the latest in couture. I did that to Carly once and she practically had a meltdown. It was so awesome."
Claudia let out a laugh at the visual, and Nadine shrugged in reply. "I'm not really looking. I mean, I have a dress and everything…"
"And you sound just thrilled about it," Maxie noted drolly, arching a brow just so.
She shrugged again. "I don't know, sometimes I just come to the boutique to try on this one green dress I've kinda sorta had my eye on. It's just the prettiest emerald green color. So I come in, I put it on, I pretend like I'm going to buy it and, I don't know, it's kind of a pick me up."
Claudia let out a snort. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
Nadine looked away and scuffed her toe on the carpet. "Yeah."
"…So try it on."
She blinked in surprise. "What?"
"Try it on," Claudia repeated without removing her gaze from the mirror where she was so busily admiring herself. "I wanna see what kind of taste you have. Oh, and if there are polka-dots? Or ruffles? I will make fun of you. Loudly and publicly. And repeatedly."
"Yeah, go try it on," Maxie agreed, not noticing that her dress was ready until the shop girl tapped her on the shoulder. "Ooh, they're done with mine. Sweet."
"If I try mine on, you have to try yours on," Nadine announced, grabbing her elbow. "Come on. We'll be back in a minute."
"Whatever," Claudia replied, waving over the shop girl. "You. Come here. Take notes. I want this dress, and I want it taken in just this much, right here and here. Nowhere else, and just this much. You got that? I'll leave it with you when I leave, and I'll be back in two hours. I expect it to be ready as soon as I walk in through the door."
"Yes, of course, Miss Zacchara, it absolutely will be."
"So you don't get your fill abusing the staff at Crimson Manor, huh?" came an amused voice from behind her, and Claudia turned to see her little brother smirking. "You had to turn to outsourcing as a way to find fresh victims."
She grinned and threw her hands up in the air. "Hey, I know what I like. And that's abusing subordinates. What are you doing here?"
"I was in town and have some time to kill, and I saw your car outside."
"So you were bored and wanted to engage in sibling shenanigans?"
He rolled his eyes. "Not really. I just, uh, wanted to see if you'd eaten already or if you wanted to go get lunch."
"Vacuum Girl unavailable?"
"She wasn't at the hosp-" He stopped and glared at her. "Shut up."
"I didn't say anything," she replied, turning around on the pedestal once more so that her back was toward him. "And if you're going to be so snippy, I'm not sure I want to break bread with you."
"You buying a dress? I thought you already had one for the ball."
"But I like this one."
"But you already have one."
"But I like this one."
He sighed and shook his head, vowing that he would never understand women and their affinity to pretty but useless things. "Fine. Whatever. If you're done shopping, can we go?"
"Not done yet."
"But you told the girl that you were going to buy the dress."
"Not done yet," Claudia repeated mysteriously, and Johnny would have demanded that she drop the subtext and tell him why he had to stick around in a room full of frilly, lacy things when a petite blonde emerged from the dressing room clad in a sleek black dress with a wide hem that swished as she walked.
Maxie quirked a curious look at Johnny but didn't address him, instead looking pointedly up at Claudia. When the woman didn't hop off the pedestal, Maxie shrugged and sashayed up toward the mirror and in front of the pedestal, blocking Claudia's view her herself, and did a little twirl.
"I look damn good," she announced. "Allie? Tell Cecily she's a genius with that needle."
Johnny stared at Maxie, who admittedly did look damn good in that dress, and then up at his sister, quirking a brow as if to ask, since when are you shopping buddies with her? Claudia was a little too preoccupied with the fact that Maxie was blocking her pretty burgundy dress from view to care.
"You weren't kidding about the built like a stick part."
Maxie's eyes narrowed. "At least I don't have the shoulders of a 49er."
Claudia's lips thinned in reply as Johnny tried not to smirk. "You have mosquito-bite breasts."
She tilted her chin up and arched her back defiantly. "My breasts are fabulous."
"This is enlightening, really, and thanks for the visual aids," Johnny started, quirking a brow at Maxie in the mirror, "but I'm leaving. Claudie, if you want to do lunch, change in the next two minutes and come with me."
"If I pop out of this thing, one or both of you has to spin it as a wardrobe malfunction so it doesn't ruin my career," came a voice from the dressing area, and they all looked over as Nadine walked in, wearing a silky emerald dress and fiddling with the Swarovski-crystal brooch pinned to the belt just under her breasts.
"Either that, or I should stick a chicken cutlet down my front on each side to keep things kosher." She glanced up as Claudia stepped off the pedestal and gingerly climbed on, not wanting to step on the dress or snag it because if she had to buy it due to damage done, she could forget about making rent this month. "So, what do we – Oh!"
Her eyes lit up and she spun around on the pedestal. "Hey, Johnny, you're about the last person I'd expect to see at the boutique. What are you doing here?"
He tried to answer. God's honest truth, he tried to answer her innocuous question to the best of his ability, but it was very difficult to do so when all he could see was the outline of her lush, curvy body under that exquisite emerald silk. Two teasing straps dipped into a low, low neckline that ended a full inch below her breasts, and a crystal brooch boldly drew further attention to that…general area. And it didn't help that she was standing in front of a three-fold mirror, meaning that he got three different but equally tantalizing views of an expanse of creamy skin bared by the backless dress.
Johnny blinked and swallowed, and if he had seen his sister's expression just then, he would have throttled her in full view of exactly seven witnesses. "…Guh."
Maxie smirked and turned to Claudia. "You know, personally, I'm not really feeling the dress," she feigned. "Maybe it looks better from over there."
She moved next to Johnny, crossing her arms across her chest and looking up at Nadine seriously. "Oh, yeah, it's definitely much nicer from where he's looking."
Johnny closed his eyes, mentally kicking himself for the visible flub, and took the brief respite from the tempting vision not two yards in front of him to collect his thoughts. "I'm not really here. I saw Claudia's car parked outside and came in to see if she wanted to get something to eat."
There. He'd spoken and the words were actually sensical and strung together logically. He'd never been more proud of himself than he was in that moment, but Johnny's self-confidence was short-lived.
"Turn around," Claudia ordered, keeping one eye on her brother. "Work it a little, I want to see it from all sides."
Nadine did as she was told, not realizing that both women were paying more attention to Johnny than they were to here. She took down the messy bun she always wore at the hospital and shook out her waves, squinting at herself in the mirror. "Well? What's the verdict? Be honest, I can take it."
Claudia's lips thinned as she thought and she finally ordered, "Buy the dress."
"What?" Nadine glanced at her over her shoulder. "I can't do that. I mean, I have been putting away a part of my paycheck every two weeks for a rainy day, but it just feels a little frivolous to spend it on an expensive dress that I'll wear only once or twice to a fancy party. I mean, it's not like my calendar's chock full of galas and events anyway, so it seems kind of wasteful. Especially when I have a perfectly good dress at home."
"This color's better on you," Claudia informed her. "Trust me. I've seen you in black, and it looks okay, but it doesn't do you too many favors. Especially that prudish house marm dress of yours."
Nadine frowned at her. "When have you ever seen me in a black dress? And looking house marm-y? I don't look house marm-"
"In the city." She tipped her head toward her brother. "John and I were both there when you were playing nursemaid to that prince of yours. We all stayed at the same hotel."
Nadine's lips parted in surprise. "We did? I didn't even- well, why didn't you guys come over and say hi? I would have been thrilled to see you."
"It was while you and John were broken up," Claudia told her conspiratorially, causing Maxie to quirk a brow at a chagrined Johnny in blatant interest. "I didn't want to insert myself into your after-school drama and cause any undue teenage angst."
Nadine rolled her eyes. "I still would have been happy to see you," she grumbled. "Okay, so, I'm going to change out of this thing."
"But I told you to buy it."
"I do appreciate your interest, Claudia, but contrary to what you think, I can't make my financial decisions based on your orders," she smiled. "Besides, it's either buy this dress or eat for the next two weeks. And I like to eat. I've heard it's good for me."
She hopped off the pedestal and began putting her hair up in a bun again. "Okay, back in a few. And if I didn't say so earlier – Maxie, you look really cute in that dress. Spinelli seen it yet?"
"Nope," she replied. "Ever since I told him that I got a really killer dress for the ball, he's been wanting to see me in it. I even found him looking through my closet for it once when we were hanging out in my room, so I gave him a choice: either see me in it before the Nurse's Ball or see me out of it afterwards."
Claudia looked like she was going to vomit. "You're actually with that Spinelli kid?"
Maxie cocked a brow in challenge. "Yeah."
"And you let him touch you?" She shuddered, visibly disturbed. "I didn't even think his secondary sexual characteristics developed yet."
"Claudia, come on, he's a nice guy." Nadine looked pointedly at the brunette, who remarkably let it go, and then slipped off. "I'll be right back."
As soon as she was out of earshot, Maxie roughly elbowed Johnny in the arm. "Hey. What a waste, right?"
He wasn't following. And he had no idea why she was being so familiar with him and elbowing him like that. The chick really didn't have any boundaries. "Huh?"
"The whole 'friend' thing," Maxie shrugged, though her eyes glittered mischievously and gave her away. "Me and Spinelli tried that for a while before we hooked up. What a total waste. If you didn't have to abide by that wholesome label, you could cook up a deal similar to ours and peel that dress off with your teeth."
He nearly choked on that, despite the fact that he wasn't consuming anything, but Maxie wasn't done. "But I guess that's what Lulu's for. I'm sure she has a pretty little dress for the ball that doesn't make her look like as big a horsebeast as usual. And, hey, if she really wants to get dolled up, she can have someone braid her mane with little ribbons."
Johnny snarled at her, but Maxie didn't seem to mind. Instead, she had already taken interest in what Claudia was saying to one of the shop girls. She had a short attention span, after all.
"-tell her that it was marked down fifteen-percent, and sell it to her at the discount price," Claudia said. "And put the extra fifteen on my bill when I come pick up my dress this afternoon."
"Of course, Miss Zacchara, consider it done."
Maxie smirked as the girl drew away. "You know, that was almost nice. What you did for Nadine just now, I mean."
Claudia spun around, looking guilty at having been caught in the act…of niceness. "I didn't do it for Vacuum Girl. I did it to screw around with my kid brother. That's worth fifteen-percent of whatever that green curtain she was wearing costs. Hell…Make it twenty-five percent!"
The shop girl nodded and clicked a few numbers out at the register as Johnny rolled his eyes. One of these days, he was going to kill his sister. And it would be damn fun.
Nadine emerged from the dressing room in her blue jeans and t-shirt, the gown slung over her arm. "Okay, I'm ready to go. Maxie, you wanna head out together?"
"Sure," she replied sprightly. "But you have to buy that dress first."
Nadine spared her a weary look. "Not you, too. I already told you guys, it's either get this thing or-"
"Or eat this week," Claudia snorted. "Yeah, we're well aware of your bean-counting."
"I just talked to Allie and she said that she saw the dress you were trying on and to tell you that it's marked down twenty-five percent," Maxie interjected, smiling when Nadine's eyes lit up. "And that she just forgot to mark it down because she was super busy catering to a certain picky someone all morning."
Claudia huffed in disgust. "Grow a pair of breasts and lose the cojones, twit. I'm going to go change. John, wait for me."
Maxie grinned as the older woman stormed out of the main area and back toward the fitting rooms, watching Nadine delicately finger the silk as Johnny looked on. "See? Now there's no good reason not to get the dress."
And when she dared to flash Johnny a cheeky look over her shoulder, he came to the conclusion that while he was at it with Claudia, he might as well take her out, too. He'd buy Spinelli a new computer in way of apology.