@outrageous-spectacle
"Don't get me wrong, you look amazing, it's just that your outfits don't look remotely comfortable, but if you like dressing like this then who am I to judge - "
Evelyn could tell she was speaking too fast, she tended to ramble when she was nervous and probably wasn't making any sense. She gave a short sigh and tried again.
"Basically what I'm trying to say is, do you dress the way you do for your enjoyment or for other people's? For Orin's?"
Evelyn looked into Audrey's eyes and hoped she understood.
"Because I don't ever want you feeling like you have to be someone that you're not. Or be who people expect you to be."
Audrey's hands compulsively smoothed her skirt in response to the attention on her clothes. She was used to getting comments on them, but not of this kind. And Evelyn's direct questioning put her on the hot seat, even if the kind look and reassuring words helped to comfort her.
Audrey was going to brush off the concern. A gal did what she could to look nice and that was just what she was supposed to do! And dressing up for others was dressing up for herself, if it meant others would think better of her. Right? But then she thought of her magazines full of full skirts and spring colors stacked at the bottom of a closet filled with skin-tight black (She liked her black, didn't she...? Black was classy!). She thought of the night Orin woke up next to her, found her reading Better Homes & Gardens by lamp light, and laughed at the way 'those stiff, starched dames' gussied themselves up, and of how she'd nodded and smiled in agreement but while biting her tongue.
She glanced at Evelyn sidelong, tentatively, and murmured without the confidence the words called for, "Sure I dress for my enjoyment... I mean, fashion isn't supposed to be comfortable. It takes effort to look good. ... What's so wrong if I want my guy to think I'm pretty?"












