Chapter 02 Shopping for the Oscars
Quanktumspirit: "Quick note guy's. This tale will have a call back to my first Zootopia tale: Two Nick's One Wilde. So if you need help knowing some OC characters, three of them are in there. Oh and an explanation for: coco, I'm sorry to say but Nick won't be helping Judy out with the tasks, yes being a presenter would be charming and would put Nick closer to Judy, but Judy was strictly instructed not to get Nick involved, which is what I will do."
Back in Zootopia the next morning.
Nick Wild just finished with ticketing the overstayers at several car parking bays, remembering to make sure his timer won't run out. As he was done Nick travelled back to the Zootopian police department and sat in his office.
Luckily he didn't have much paperwork to finish, but even though he finished it a lot faster, Nick was feeling bored.
Suddenly a knock was heard, Nick looked up and saw Clawhouser enter with some hot chocolate and a packet of doughnuts. Good old Clawhouser. The cheetah cat placed Nick's cup down and took a seat next to his friend.
"Hey Nick, thinking about Judy again?" Clawhouser asked.
Nick smiled, he took his cup and looked at the photo of him and Judy at his reward ceremony, before nodding his head.
"It's not fair. I was Judy's partner for years, and now this 'Superstar or whatever' just wanted Judy for a long job? Why couldn't she have asked us both to go? I know I'm four years younger in the police job than Judy, but I'm just as good as her." Nick sighed.
"Hey Nick, don't be down. You can always do things by yourself too you know." Clawhouser pointed out.
Nick sighed again, "I know. But I just like hanging out with her a lot."
Clawhouser grabbed a doughnut from his bought pack and consumed it, pushing then the box towards Nick. He smiled and took one as well, enjoying a break for a bit.
After finishing the meal, Clawhouser smiled once more, an idea came to his mind.
"Why don't you hang out with your brother and his friends for a while? I'm sure he'd like to see you again." Clawhouser smiled.
Nick blinked and a smile spread over his face.
Several years ago, he 'accidentally' discovered he had an identical twin brother by the name of Larry Wilde. Since meeting up he and Larry have switched mobile numbers and addresses and were attempting to pick up the lost past back up again.
But because of Nick's job as a policeman and Larry's job as a detective, the two have had hardly much time together.
"Clawhouser, you're brilliant. I can just take some time off and head down to see him. I'm sure he, Little Loco and Benny would like to meet up too." Nick smiled.
Clawhouser nodded, with newfound energy on him Nick finished his day's work and then grabbed the opportunity by the scruff of its neck. His brother gave him an ok for a meetup and Nick headed home to pack up.
With Judy
In her room, Judy sat on a beautiful couch. She held her phone in her hands and flicked through her adventures with Nick. She was also missing him a lot, but her duty was for her to remain at the actress's home.
Miss Victoria Lamb, the poodle, was a nice enough person, if one can ignore that she constantly smells like she's been swimming in a lake of perfume and always looks like someone modelled her after a god, she was very smart and talented when learning her lines for the films she has to star in.
Her secretary Juan, on the other hand, Judy noticed did everything for her. He arranged meetings, was almost constantly on the telephone to someone getting more meetings done with her, getting the post and doing her online banking and many more. But what surprised Judy the most was, that Mr Juan Star was looking constantly at the actress with a clear love-struck view over his leopard face. Did he have a crush on her or something?
Maybe Judy should get to the bottom of it. As she was just finished getting dressed in her 'most decent looking clothes' Victoria suddenly appeared on her side of the room, looking at her bodyguard a bit frustrated.
"Ok, the clothes will work, but not the face. Come I'll help you a bit." She sighed, "We've got twenty minutes to spare then we three have to go."
Judy blinked and looked over to Juan for an explanation, who just finished getting changed into a neat looking white suit. Worth at least $10,000.
"Wait what?" Judy questioned confused. "What's wrong with-?"
But Victoria just sat Judy back at the make-up table and pulled a bit of pink lipgloss and light purple eye shadow out. She made Judy's make-up and nodded her head.
"That will do for now while we go shopping Judy. But you're going to look amazing for the Oscars. Come we've got a lot to do." She smiled, getting up.
Victoria then looked at Juan, "Is the limousine out back?"
"Yes, Miss Victoria," Juan confirmed, holding the keys.
Victoria nodded and dragged Judy behind her as the three left her estate. They sat in the car, with Victoria sitting in the back, wearing her disguise again from before. And Judy and Juan sitting together in the front with Juan driving them to the mall.
Still with Judy
They arrived at the mall fifteen minutes after departing from Victoria's home. Juan parked it in a private car park owned by Victoria at the mall and the three got out.
Victoria ordered. "Juan you keep an eye on us both and Judy you're going to get everything perfect."
Judy rolled her eyes as they headed into the mall.
First stop, shoes. Judy looked at Juan a few times to see if he was getting uncomfortable with the shopping experience, but he seems to be a walking robot now. Saying to every command given to him, yes and thank you.
Victoria seems to know the mall off by heart because it was less than five minutes later she had Judy be in a shoe shop called; A thousand legs. She sat Judy down and Judy had her feet measured.
"Ok, do you like wearing high heels, or would you prefer ballet shoes, Judy? You can't wear trainers unfortunately, they don't go with dresses." Victoria inquired.
Judy blinked, "I've never worn high heels. We can try some out."
After getting Judy's size, which was a 4, Victoria looked for the right high heels. She picked a light blue set and Judy tried them on.
"Ok, now you have to walk, keep your pressure on the front toe of the high heels and the weight on the back. And take a step towards me." Victoria demanded.
Judy stood up from the chair, the high heels fitted her, but Judy already felt uncomfortable in them. She tried to walk towards Victoria, but her balance was way off and she almost fell over. Victoria quickly grabbed her paw and made Judy sit back down again.
"Nope. I can't walk half a meter in high heels, let alone run in them. So I'll have to try something else out." Judy sighed, "Sorry Ma'am."
"Let me guess Judy, this is the first time you've tried high heels on?" Victoria inquired. "It does take some time. But you're right. If something happens to me and you can't get to me fast enough, high heals won't help in that matter at all."
Judy had to agree, as she sat down to take them off, Victoria was already scanning the shoe display for any other shoes that might work. Her eyes fell upon a pair of light blue ballet shoes. They look better than trainers, no questions asked, but would Judy feel comfortable in them?
Victoria grabbed them and headed back to Judy, with her swift hands she removed the high heels and tied Judy's feet into the two light blue ballet shoes.
"Ok, try this out next," Victoria asked getting up.
She backed a bit away and Judy got up, she could easily run up to Victoria and back to the chair. They were not everyday shoes Judy would have picked, but if it was between these and high heels, the ballet shoes will do the job.
Victoria looked at her a bit frustrated, "Ok I guess we'll have to accept these then. You sure you don't want to try the high heals once more?"
"No thank you. If it's between these or the high heels, I'd rather wear the ballet shoes." Judy said, "Thank you."
Victoria nodded her head and bought the ballet shoes anyway. Judy was glad. The two women walked outside and headed to the next shop.
The next shop, to Judy's horror, was a dress shop. Victoria walked inside with her and Judy was straight away surrounded by three male rabbits, looking at her and Victoria with excitement.
"Miss Lamb, welcome back. And who do you have with you?" one rabbit inquired.
Judy growled between her teeth that none of the rabbits should dare do anything to have her harmed, but Victoria just smiled at them.
"Good afternoon Crafty. This is Judy Hopps, a friend of mine. I'd like her measured for a dress for the Oscar ceremony and picked out. Tried on and then packaged, understood?" Victoria ordered and then walked to the back.
Judy groaned, she'd rather not wear a dress, but the male rabbits nodded their heads. She was grabbed and they placed her on a pedestal. Taking the measuring tape from around his neck the rabbit measured Judy's height, body mass and arm length out, nodding his head.
"What for a dress colour would you prefer Miss? We've got a wide range of styles to chose from." The rabbit inquired.
Judy was allowed down and was handed a massive book full of dress styles, from all colours of the rainbow to more. Judy felt uncomfortable, especially as she saw the prices for them once more. The fabrics ranged again from $30 per dress way up to $400.
But Judy found a nice one, it was open at the back, held around her neck by a dress collar, flat laying bow tie and would show off her hips.
"This looks nice." Judy smiled, looking at Victoria for approval.
She just nodded her head, "It will look good on you And I'd like her to wear the midnight blue Payette fabric for the dress."
Judy blinked, the tailor nodded his head and got the fabric out. Within minutes he had Judy's dress drawn out on the fabric, cut out and Judy had the dress pinned all around her. It reached down to her knees, at the back a bit longer like a train, her chest was covered and a bit of her back was left free and her neck was tied with a dark blue ribbon.
"Would this do, Miss Victoria?" The tailor inquired.
Victoria Lamb stood up and walked around Judy's body, she scanned her up and down, pulled and plucked a bit around the dress before giving her a once over and nodding her head.
"It's almost ok... just one thing is missing..." Victoria said.
Judy wanted to shout at her to not mess with the dress, but the poodle ignored her protests and made a small dark blue bow. She tied that around Judy's waist and tied the bow at the back of the dress, nodding her head.
"Much better. And what do you think Judy?" Victoria inquired.
"Can I first get off the stool?" Judy asked, "I'd like to try something out with it."
"One second Miss." The tailor said.
He quickly attached several pins and plucked a bit more on it, before giving Judy the ok. Judy got off the stool and then made a run from one end of the room to the other and then back to the chair.
She tried a high kick and was still able to move in the dress. It was of course shifted around now more and needed to be re-attached with more pins, but it would do the trick.
"Yes, I think I can be seen with it. And I can move quite well." Judy nodded, "I'll be ok wearing this."
The tailor gave her a nod and quickly gave an emergency sew right through the entire dress, whiles Judy was still in it.
Victoria got her bank card out in the meantime and paid $2000 for the dress.
"Make sure it will be ready and delivered to my home before noon next week." She instructed. "Come Judy we've got to get to the next shop."
Judy wanted to bite her head off but had to keep her temper at bay. After all, it's Victoria's fortune going down the toilet for the party, not her own. Plus she was still being paid for the job herself.
The third shop was a hair accessory and make-up shop.
"Despite the fact I've got enough make-up at home to decorate all of Bunnyburrows with make-up over Judy," Victoria explained as they entered, "I'm just needing to know what you will need and what would look good on you."
Judy sighed, "This will be a lot of wet wipes needed."
"Actually no Judy. This shop is the most modern shop in all of the mall. You just have to sit in front of one of the vanity mirrors, then a digitalized computer will take your face and I can program in it what you would look like with each make-up, eyeliner, eyelashes, lipstick and blush on you until we got a perfect style." Victoria explained.
Judy sat down and Victoria had the computer mirror programmed on. It scanned Judy's face in and then freeze-framed it right in front of Judy and Victoria.
"Right, now look at yourself Judy and decide what you'd like on your face to match to the blue Payette dress," Victoria ordered.
Judy blinked, she imagined herself in the dress and looking at her everyday mondeyen face she didn't feel matching to the dress herself. So a few changes had to occur.
Judy clicked first on the eye shadows, as she selected orange; Judy almost jumped out of the chair. The mirror showed her face, but with the orange eyeshadow now over her eyes. Judy grabbed her paw and rubbed over her face, but she didn't feel any make-up on her, yet the mirror was clearly showing it to her.
Victoria rolled her eyes, "The image is only on the screen Judy, just browse and select, then it will show you how it will look all together."
Judy nodded her head, "Ok, let's try: red lipgloss, green eyeshadow and pink blush."
Judy tipped those into the computer and the image showed her wearing the make-up. Victoria looked at her and pulled a disgusted face.
"Yuck Judy, you look like a clown. Don't try and mix primarily with secondary colours, that never works on faces." Victoria advised her, still pulling a disgusted face.
Judy nodded her head, she changed the programing to pink lipgloss, purple eyeshadow and dark brown blush.
"No, it still doesn't fit," Judy said shaking her head, the photographic image with the make-up on followed her move.
"If I might give you some advice," Victoria said already feeling bored, "Imagine yourself in the dress for the Oscar ceremony, then imagine your head on it and how it should look like."
Judy blinked, that was a good point. Judy breaths in and closes her eyes. She sees the dress before her and her head on it. She thought of the rainbow colours and scanned them which one she felt a nice connection to.
But then another idea came to her, instead of focusing on what might match too the dress, what would just go with her eyes?
Judy opened her eyes and looked at them seriously, she still has lovely deep purple eyes and that gave her an idea. She selected a dark purple eyeshadow. The image appeared with her face on it with the eyeshadow and it really helped bring her purple eyes out more. It looked beautiful.
Judy turned to Victoria and she finally gave a genuine smile to her and nodded her head, the eyeshadow will work.
She then focused on her cheeks, pink, red, yellow all didn't fit well. Judy then accidentally selected brown and her cheeks received on the image the brown blush, yes brown matches nicely with grey. Ok.
Judy next had to check the lip gloss out, no to red, blue, green, yellow, ah pink.
The rabbit added it all together now: dark purple eyeshadow, pink lipgloss and light brown blush. The image appeared to her and Judy smiled, she looked really good.
Victoria looked at it too and nodded her head; "This will work perfectly."
She made a note and then typed a bit more on the screen, It revealed to her the brands of lipgloss, blush and eye make-up to get for Judy.
Victoria nodded, Judy got up and the two headed to the shelves where the make-ups were stored for sale. Victoria read the name of the brands and colours and Judy found them and plucked them from the shelves. Three packs at least, along with a tub of cleaning fluids and napkins to clean Judy's face off afterwards.
Judy was glad that nightmare was now behind her. Now all she had to do was wear the same stuff for the Oscars and party, oh brother.
Victoria took them to the checkout and they got scanned in and bagged up, plus a $40 loss once more.
"We got everything now, let's go outside and wait for Juan to be finished," Victoria ordered.
She and Judy left the make-up shop and walked out, on a search for the leopard.
Meanwhile with Juan.
Victoria's personal secretary had to, sort of, go through the same as Judy was now. He was currently scanning the male's side department at the mall, trying to think of a suit he should wear for Victoria's ceremony.
He turned around and his face heated up, his eyes fell upon a couple of mannequins, one dressed in an elegant black suit and another in a white wedding dress with a train on it.
The leopard felt his face heat up as his imagination imagined him and Victoria in those costumes at their wedding. But this was not the time or place to imagine the impossible. He had to get a decent suit and nothing else.
He entered the store and scanned a few racks for an overcoat first. His imagination was still whipping a goddam wedding up, it didn't help that the song played in the store at the moment was the song: Marry you by another famous singer he couldn't name.
Juan knew his size and selected a nice black shirt, dark blue suit jacket and dark blue trousers. He took them to the back of the dressing room and tried them on.
He looked really good in them, once he sorted his hair out. But something still felt like it was missing. Carefully he walked back out of the dressing room and looked around the shop once more.
Curiously he found a pair of black shades on a display case. He swiped them up, entered the dressing room again and tried them on. Yup this was what the suit needed.
Juan checked that he could walk in the suit easily and it wasn't too tight anywhere. He was please with it and got changed back into his everyday clothes. He hung the suit back up again and hung the shades at the front of the suit. He carried it carefully out of the dressing room.
"Hey Juan, you found something already?" He suddenly heard someone call to him.
Juan turned around and saw Victoria and Judy standing there, they had only small shopping bags and Victoria was holding a checklist on a clipboard to make sure she had everything.
Juan smiled back at them, "Yeah. I got it sorted Miss Lam."
After paying for the suit he left the shop and stood back behind the two women, he quickly made his imagination banish the thought that he and Victoria could ever become anything more serious together than just a boss and her secretary. It was too far fetched, but lovely nonetheless.
'Victoria doesn't even know you love her...' Juan thought to himself, feeling his face heat up.
"What do you think Juan?" Judy suddenly asked.
Juan shook his head, had he really spaced out so much that he missed Judy and Victoria's conversation?
"Sorry I was... thinking about something." Juan blushed, "What was it, Miss Hopps?"
Judy rolled her eyes, "Would you like to go to lunch now? Miss Lam is getting hungry and so am I."
Juan nodded his head, lunch sounds good. Victoria nodded and walked with them both to an expensive sushi restaurant. Judy tried not to groan, but she had a job to complete.
Inside the restaurant, the three sat together at two tables, Victoria at one on her own in a far corner, shielded from onlookers.
Next, Victoria ordered for herself some fish sushi with an extra portion of rice, mixed with peas along with a bottle of white wine.
Juan and Judy sat together at a separate table and were allowed to have lunch too, as long as they don't look at Victoria or point her out to the public around them.
"Man, I'd rather have a vegetarian hamburger than this sloppy rice or fish. Yuck." Judy complained, scanning the menu.
Juan grabbed the card back and handed Judy the vegetarian variant, whiles looking at the meat portions himself.
"Victoria likes coming here for a meal. She's been a fan of sushi since she was little. So anyone employed under her has to follow her around also. I've eaten here so many times I can't remember a meal where sushi wasn't a part of it." Juan smiled.
After they both found their dishes and ordered them they were left alone as well. Now Judy had a feeling she could find some stuff about her 'work colleague' out too.
"So Mr Star,... how long have you had a crush on Victoria?" Judy smirked.
Juan froze in his seat, his face started heating up and he looked really uncomfortable.
"Um... I... what?" Juan asked looking horrified, "What makes you think I have any sort of feelings towards her?"
Judy rolled her eyes, "Is everything a good enough answer? The way you look at her with a clear love-struck face? The way you do everything for her without complaining and how you are around her almost 24/7? Don't deny it, you clearly like her a lot."
Juan sighed and looked hurt, he faced the floor and almost had tears falling from his face. That Judy read his emotions off his face so easily was not a nice pill to swallow.
"Urgh... you're right Judy... I've had a crush on her for quite some time now. This is why I felt honoured as she employed me three years ago to work for her. I've never had a different job and I like working for her." Juan smiled, "But... well I've never had the guts to ever tell her how I feel about her."
Judy blinked, "Why? She is clearly single, has a strong and stable job and is good looking. Why wouldn't you ask her out?"
Juan hung his head down, "Because I'm just a simple secretary worker and she is a famous actress. She is good looking and I just look like an average guy, I don't have anything to offer her other than the fact I love her."
"Oh come on." Judy chuckled, "You're kind, protective, smart, honest and good looking yourself. I'm sure if you'd just tell her how you feel she might return the feelings too."
"Please don't tell her though, I want her to know later. But for now, it's too early." Juan sighed.
Judy snickered, she nodded her head to keep it a secret.
After they finished the dish, all three left the mall and Victoria headed home with them.
Quanktumspirit: "Please review."