"You looked amazing; I knew that dress looked awesome." Sharpay said leaning back with a smug look on her face. She was wearing a pink summer dress with cowboy boots, her blond strands free and flowing in the wind.

Gabriella felt like she was underdressed with a pair of wore jeans and an orange V-neck, she's braided her hair to the side in what she thought was a cute ponytail. But upon meeting Sharpay she learned that braids were for cleaning house and hence undid her braid and shook it out letting her curls take over. Gabriella looked down at the picture in the tabloid of her and Troy embraced in a kiss on aisle 8 of Bed Bath and Beyond. Her lips tingled in memory of the touch, it seemed like of all the things he did to make her skin crawl that kiss was the one thing she didn't mind at all.

"Look at you, so in love." Sharpay picked up her dink and took a sip. "I swear one day I'm going to find a prince and we're going to get married and I'll be filthy rich." She said twisting her hair a in her fingers.

"Why do you want to be filthy rich?" Gabriella asked putting the tabloid off to the side. "Seems like you already have everything you want," she reached for own cup. It was a salted caramel chocolate from Starbucks where they had agreed to meet for lunch. Today she was going to go with Sharpay to a few china shops to get dishes and place settings for the living room, however Sharpay had other things in mind.

"You can always have more of the finer things in life which also reminds me when we were hanging up clothes the other day and putting things away I noticed you don't have anything for fun?" she said in a roundabout way.

Gabriella nodded she also remembered spending and hour after she left moving all her things from Troy's room to her own. She'd have to talk to him about that later. "Fun?"

"Yeah," Sharpay sat up more and leaned in, "You know undergarments? Lingerie? Sexy wear?"

Gabriella eyes widen and she leaned back a little embarrassed. "Oh," well that wasn't what she was expecting.

"I mean come on, how am I going to get my niece if you don't jazz it up a bit," Sharpay wiggled her shoulders. "Mom said she would met us at the boutique,"

"Mom?" Gabriella felt some of the caramel revisit her mouth and quickly swallowed.

"Yeah mom has the best taste," Sharpay picked up her purse, "Come on we're gonna be late she's even treating us to a spa day."

"Spa?" Gabriella said sounding as though the wind was knocked out of her and mostly because it was. She only met Mrs. Bolton a few times before, when Troy announced at a party that he was to be married, again during the engagement party but had been too busy with her own parents to have an actual conversation and again in passing at her wedding. Now she was going to shopping for underwear with her? She didn't even go shopping for underwear's with her own mother, let alone some one else's.

Gabriella sat in the red leather chair in the boutique as Sharpay and her mother-in-law sat on either side. They were waiting on the owner to help them. "So how's married life working out for you, I've seen the tabloids you both can't seem to keep your hands off each other?" Lucile asked over her own cup of coffee.

"Good," Gabriella said nodding her head and keeping her eyes off the pages of the store catalogue that Sharpay was looking through. She could see a woman wearing crotch less panties and alongside was a bar of various colors the panties came in.

"Relax, dear, after all you're a married woman." Lucile's hand came over her hand and Gabriella noted the word dear leaving her lips. So that where he got that word, Gabriella nodded in Lucile's direction and then turned back to the things around the shop hanging on the walls. Nurses outfits, mask, small black dresses that had see through fabric.

"You guys must come here a lot, I mean isn't it a little risqué?" Gabriella asked looking around for any camera men.

"Not at all sex is part of life and the Bolton men have very high sex drives, besides it's fun trying things on and bring home a surprise every one in a while." Lucile said with a smile. "I come here all the time; they have tasteful lingerie nothing too trashy."

"Right," Gabriella said taking a breath, did that make a difference? Looking back over at Sharpay she was now circling things. God this is weird. Her own father didn't talk to her for weeks once she started wearing training bras. Sex was something no one in her house talked about, in fact once you crossed the threshold of the doorway to her parents house sex didn't exist.

"So how many children do you want to have?" Lucile asked with a smile as she turned a bit to face her. The woman was remarkable for her age, no lines, no splotches, and no marks at all of worry or stress. Gabriella had to use concealer to block out blemishes or small pimples and she had worry lines that seem to go on for miles. "Jack and I can't wait to be grandparents."

Gabriella shrugged and gave out a nervous giggle, her lips were moving but the sound was foreign to her own ears. "Two or three maybe," she heard herself answer. She paused as she started thinking about her dreams before all this happened. The goal was a small house with three or four bedrooms a family dog, maybe a fence? Nothing white or picket, right? She was willing to compromise and boy, did she ever, giving everything up so she could marry a senator and go shopping for underwear with her mother in-law.

Four hours later she was laying in chair getting her eyebrows waxed and her nails done all at the same time. A challenge if you've ever had the searing pain of wax while being told to stay perfectly still. This was part of reinventing herself. This was part of running away, of being someone else?

"So what do you think?" Sharpay's voice sounded and Gabriella glance over to see she was now sitting in the seat next to her to get her nails done as well. So far they asked her about her family, her education, her job history, her childhood, her diet and her measurements. She sat through long tales of Troy's basketball team, his trophies, endless awards and his views on family values.

"About?" Gabriella said with a weak smile.

"Making this an every Wednesday thing?" Sharpay said with a smile, "I mean not the underwear shopping although you are like a goddess, I wish I had half your curves. But you know the spa?" Sharpay smiled and leaned back in her seat to get more comfortable. "I think mom really likes you."

"Right," Gabriella nodded and the lady grunted reminding Gabriella not to move.

"So are you and Troy going to that nomination ball, Dad's making us go," Sharpay said leaning back to be more comfortable. "You would look amazing in that little off shoulder black gown we brought, Troy would wear black, he only wears his black suits for special occasions, and the grays are for business."

Gabriella smirked and then jerked as the woman ripped the hair from her face and Gabriella let out a gasp in pain. She hated the spa.