Chapter 2
Shopping with Tia Christie was the most fun thing in the world to do. Plus she was rich, so that helped, too. I was generally broke, so I couldn't really buy anything myself. That's where Tia came in. She bought me new clothes, saying that in these 'sexy thangs' that I'd blow Justin's mind away.
Christie had many different personalities. And if anyone asked which personality was the real her, she'd be very offended, because they were all the real her. She was flirtatious, wild, polite, Goody-Two-Shoes, and mysterious all rolled into one. The day we went shopping she was wild. Or rather, went wild. With her credit card.
We can all thank God that her husband was a plastic surgeon and made tons of money. And that he was very kind and generous. And carefree, most of the time. I'll recant. He is carefree when he is not working on faces. Sorry, Tio, if that lost you some business. Katie, my blessed sister, as I mentioned before, did not care to go shopping with us at Jockey and went to Claire's next door before we embarrassed her. Tia Christie said, however, that hot underwear always helped, especially in cases involving difficult men like Justin.
And so we went inside the store, bent on buying hot underwear.
The minute I saw the pair of black underwear laying on the table, I fell in love. The little butterflies embroidered onto the dark looked almost like they glowed against the black background. There was sort of a mysterious look to them, and when I ran my fingers over the fabric I was surprised that they were soft and smooth, like silk. And when I saw the red "Three for ten dollars" sitting atop the table, I nearly went wild.
Tia Christie was fingering a pink pair, but I was fixed on these butterfly-adorned underwear. And what a shame they only had one pair in my size. Just figures. So I pick one pair of those and went on to buy a pair of green striped ones and a pair of purple heart-covered ones. Not my style, but my size. I couldn't help it, and I had to get three. As I sat in the car marveling over my new clothes and underwear and Katie over her new pairs of earrings, I told myself that I would wear my butterfly underwear to youth group the next Sunday.
The phone rang. Kristen saying that her friend was in the hospital and she couldn't do youth group. Was it a sign from God?
Of course, in my lovesick mental state, I was contributing every little sign to God. I got new underwear and new clothes… and looked great in them, too. God wants me to impress Justin. There is no youth group. God doesn't want me to see Justin and impress him. Too confusing for me, really. I needed the help of an elder.
I really was a shy schoolgirl with a crush, and I needed help. I was a junior-to-be! I didn't need to deal with any petty crushes. No, Justin was my soul mate, even though he didn't know it. Oh, here I am again, being sentimental and emotional. One would think that I really belonged in a world filled with Shakespeare and drama and passion.
Ha.
"Bella, you want to go down to Starbuck's with me? I need caffeine." That was Tia Christie, sitting across from me at the kitchen table and tapping her feet obnoxiously.
It was five o' clock at night. "It's five o' clock at night, Tia." She was going to be bouncing off the walls if she had any sort of coffee or chocolate. Or anything in general that contained sugar.
"Mama mia," that was Christie's way of swearing. With my knowledge of Italian (which was not really a lot) I figured it meant 'my mama'. Then she giggled. "Your mama is gone, Allie. We can disobey her caffeine rules for one night. It isn't as if I'm some strict babysitter that won't let you talk on the phone for more than five minutes at a time because the parents might call."
I took a deep breath. "Well the last time I had caffeine it was when we went to a show in a big theatre with the youth group and we were all sipping Starbuck's and giggling and talking during the whole entire thing and we got in trouble by the guards and Kristen and the next morning when Kari called she told me that I was the only one that got sugar-high off of my drink and that I was the only one that got in trouble and that everyone thought I was weird because I thought I was cool because apparently the caffeine had screwed up my mind because I thought that everyone else was being giggly and talkative and wild while I was actually the only one and that's why I don't want to have caffeine right now because what if I ran into Justin and he'd think I was crazy and you know I don't want that."
Christie smiled at my run-on sentence. "Don't they teach kids punctuation in school anymore these days?"
"You sound like an old lady wondering whatever happened to the modest days," I observed, and with a tug on my arm she told me to go get changed so we could go to Starbucks.
I, of course, had put on my butterfly underwear. I had no occasion to save them, since we didn't have youth group that night. With a sigh, I let Christie pull me into Starbuck's for a five o' clock iced French vanilla mocha. My favorite, especially when it was hot.
And the minute that Justin walked in with two of his friends, oh man did the room get hot. It was probably only me because I could feel my cheeks start on fire the minute he noticed me. And came over.
I sipped my mocha as he said, "Alliebelle!"
"Justin," I replied, embarrassed at the public use of my nickname. What else was I supposed to say? I was hoping the little pieces of ice in the drink were cooling down my cheeks and I instantaneously began wiping around my mouth to kick out any dabs of stray whipped cream. Luckily there were none.
I was just waiting for him to say something sarcastic. He sort of laughed and said, "You sure you need caffeine?"
"If you're referring to my previous caffeine episode, then—" I was quite proud of myself for my superior use of my vocabulary. Ha.
He laughed fully now and introduced his friends as Nick and Michael. Michael, though, I already knew from a few nights at youth group. "Well, see you Sunday."
"Yeah," I said dumbly. Christie was just sitting there with this silly smile plastered onto her face, and I knew that the teasing was coming. Nice, Allie. You handled that well.