A Good Little Girl Like You (A Sample)

Friday, September 7

There's a storm blowing up. Rebecca Moore stared at the

monstrosity with dread. It hung in front of her and seemed

to stare back, laughing, taunting, and challenging her to

action. Evil incarnate, it even had her name on it. Unable to

run away, she clenched her jaw and lunged for it. Her grip

was so tight that she thought, no she wished, it would tear

apart. No such luck.

Rebecca stepped into the changing room to put on the

most hideous bridesmaid dress, ever.

It serves me right. She had been too busy at work to get

involved in dress selection. All the messages and

photographs they had sent her got filed directly without

being read. She had planned to go through it all, but each

new business trip pushed Kay's wedding plans further from

her mind. Now she was stuck.

Gaudy pink, verging on orange, the dress was as subtle

as a baboon's butt. Plus, there was way too much of it-

billowing chiffon down to her calf. Given that there were

two other bridesmaids, both taller than her, Rebecca would

be lost in an endless sea of nauseating pink.

Admittedly, the real problem with the dress was that it

clashed badly with her red hair. Her long locks fell to her

shoulders in great waves that usually looked good. But not

tonight. Not with this dress. Even her freckles were

embarrassed.

At times like this, Rebecca turned to her favorite movie,

a classic from her childhood, The Wizard of Oz. She had a

habit of quoting from the movie, dotting her conversation

with appropriate lines. Her friends tolerated this tendency

and patiently waited for her to outgrow it.

But Rebecca knew. She knew the universal truth of The

Wizard of Oz. Nearly every occurrence in her life had a

parallel somewhere in the movie. She could narrate her

existence with it, and this moment was no exception.

There's a storm blowing up. The warning from Professor

Marvel-the movie's traveling fortune teller-rang out in

her head, accompanied by a dramatic flourish of violins. Of

course, this wasn't a real disaster, merely a minor

annoyance. Still, she imagined a tiny, pink funnel cloud, its

swirling vortex dotted with flashes of red hair. She even

imagined a miniature Miss Gulch-the movie's antagonist

-flying around it on a bicycle.

Wait until Kay sees this. Her best friend had wanted her

bridesmaids to wear these dresses, but she couldn't possibly

want this much garishness. There was only one way to find

out-Rebecca teased up her hair for maximum shock value

and stepped out of the changing room.

When she returned to the main area, the other two