GROW UP GINGER

A story about leaving and being followed.

Written by Juliana Resende

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No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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CHAPTER TWO — The Dress Shop

By two o’clock we were downtown, four girls and four different opinions about every single dress.

Bonnie was the most efficient of us — she could walk into a shop, scan a rack, and produce three options before you’d taken your jacket off. Olivia was the most dangerous, because her instinct was always to push you toward something braver than you’d choose for yourself. And Megan was the loudest, which was somehow exactly what every shopping trip needed.

I was holding a soft blue dress up to my body in the mirror when something happened outside the window.

A man walked past the shop.

He was tall and blond and moved with the kind of relaxed confidence I associated, vaguely, with people who never had to wait for things. Hands shoved in his pockets. Purposeful stride. I caught him for maybe a full second before he disappeared from view, and something in my chest registered him in a way I couldn’t immediately name.

I lowered the dress. I walked to the window. Stepped outside.

The street was empty.

When I came back in, all three girls were looking at me.

“Wait — was that Paolo?” I said, because his profile had been the only thing I could grab onto, the only blond guy I half-recognized.

The girls stopped what they were doing and looked out the window. Paolo — who lived two streets over from my aunt’s — was walking past now, very much not the same man I’d just seen.

“Oh no,” Olivia said. “That’s not him. Paolo has dark hair.”

“What’s the deal, Anna?” Bonnie grinned. “You got a thing for Paolo?”

“No!” I laughed, shaking my head. “I don’t remember him from Jacob’s party. I don’t know.”

Olivia smirked. She pulled a dress off the rack with a deliberate slowness and threw a knowing glance at Megan, who was suddenly very focused on a skirt.

“Maybe it’s because someone in this room hooked up with him.”

Megan’s eyes widened in absolute panic. Bonnie and I turned to her at the same time.

“OLIVIA,” Megan said, in the tone of someone whose execution had just been scheduled.

“WHAT?”

“Wait — Megan?” My voice went up. “What?”

“It’s not — I mean — it’s really not a big deal, okay?”

Bonnie burst out laughing. “Megan! Paolo? Seriously? Why am I only hearing about this now?”

“It was nothing! Just one time at Jacob’s party. We didn’t even plan it. It just — happened.”

“Oh, it definitely happened,” Olivia said, grinning.

I put the dress down and stepped closer to my cousin, still processing. “Paolo though? How did I not see this coming?”

“I didn’t either, trust me.”

Bonnie smirked. “Well, this just got interesting.”

Megan half-hid behind the dress she was holding while we exchanged amused glances around her, and for a moment everything was easy — just girls in a dress shop teasing each other about boys, the bright window light, the soft jingle of the bell when someone came in or out. The man I’d seen drifted out of my mind. I will be eighteen tomorrow. The afternoon was mine.

I bought a black dress.