One Night Stand novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Dress

Callie's POV

"Stand still," Eleanor said. "You're a coat rack. Coat racks don't fidget."

"I'm not fidgeting."

"Your left foot is."

I stood still.

It was Saturday afternoon, and the sunroom had become a dressing room.

A tailor from Walnut Street was kneeling at my hem with her mouth full of pins.

Dottie sat on the wicker sofa with a cup of tea.

Otto lay with his head in her lap, drawing a stegosaurus on the back of an invitation.

"Don't draw on the invitation, baby," Dottie said.

"It's a good stegosaurus."

"It is, but it's still an invitation."

The dress was dark green, with a plain neckline and a skirt that moved when I did.

I had found it myself in a shop on Pine Street on Thursday.

I had paid with Dottie's credit card and promised to pay her back.

Mateo had offered to send me a stylist.

I had said I would rather be arrested.

"It's very plain," Eleanor said.

"It's the nicest thing I've ever owned."

"I didn't say it was bad. I said it was plain. Plain is a dare." She considered me for a long moment. "Turn."

I turned.

"Hm." She lifted her cane and pointed it at the tailor. "Take the waist in a quarter inch. Not more."

Then she opened her handbag and took out a flat black box.

"Pearls," she said.

"Eleanor, I can't."

"They were my mother's. I wore them to the opening of the first hotel."

She snapped the case shut.

"They have sat in a drawer for twelve years."

"I haven't done anything to deserve them."

"You raised a boy who offers his great-grandmother his dinosaur. That's a fair start."

She clasped them around my neck with fingers that did not shake.

Keep reading free with an account. Start One Night Stand from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.