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Buffy had seen the sapphire blue, silk dress swaying in the shop window every day for the past two weeks. Some enterprising clerk had trained a fan on the hem so that the skirt did an inviting little sashay. Even though passing the dress meant adding an extra ten minutes onto her work commute, Buffy didn’t mind. Seeing it was sometimes the best part of her day. It was good “Anywhere but here” fodder.

She’d picture herself wearing the dress on a white sand beach while the volleyball game from “Top Gun” went on in the background. As she passed, Iceman would stop mid-leap to stare at her and that stupid Kenny Loggins song would stop playing. Buffy was convinced the dress would look so good on her that it would momentarily turn the cast away from homosexuality, at least for the few minutes she was striding by.

Then they’d go right back to homosexuality, which would comprise the rest of the day dream until she got to the Double Meat Palace.

She’d worked a month of double shifts, and her dad’s last three support checks had finally come in for Dawn. Since they cut out the cable, cut back the newspaper to once a week and started clipping coupons things were looking up. At last she’d paid off the plumbing bills and the electricity was definitely staying on.

Giles had been writing letters occasionally with small sums of money enclosed. It was so like him to correspond with pen and paper; at least his missives weren’t sealed in wax. Buffy always let Dawn open the Giles letters. She told herself it was because her little sister liked to read them, but part of her knew that wasn’t true. Buffy felt a stab in her chest just seeing his familiar spider-web handwriting on the envelope; she didn’t want to put herself through the act of reading an entire letter.

Between her dad’s contribution, Giles’ little gifts and her own efforts, they actually had extra money in the checking account that week. It was just a tiny stash for the inevitable emergency. And there would be an emergency.
On her way back from depositing her paycheck at the bank, Buffy walked past the dress shop and stopped. The object of her fantasies was on sale. That was not the emergency she’d been saving for, even though she dearly wished it were.

Buffy stood on the sidewalk. She didn’t know how long she’d been hovering when a bell clanged and a sales girl came out. The girl had on a silver name tag that read Tawnee, and she looked remarkably like Kendra. Thinking about the other slayer made her breath catch in her throat. Buffy couldn’t get the memory of finding Kendra’s body on the library floor out of her mind as she gazed at Tawnee.

“You OK?” Tawnee asked. She had a slight California accent, not the impenetrably exotic dialect that Kendra spoke. The girl smiled at her. Her eyes were gold, different than her fallen friend’s, and Tawnee’s chin was a bit rounder, too.

“Yeah, fine. I just wanted to try on the blue dress in the window,” Buffy said, putting on a smile.

“I’ve got to warn you, that dress is what we in retail call a glass slipper. It looks beautiful on the dummy, but there are three, four women on the planet who can actually pull it off. I’ve seen ladies that looked like they stepped off the cover of Vogue look kind of dumpy in that dress. When I tried it on, this decolletage looked like a side order at the International House of Pancakes,” Tawnee said, sweeping her hand across the low neckline of her red shirt.

Buffy laughed.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Well, because my manager put that dress up there to lure in women, systematically destroy their self esteem and then get them to ease the pain with retail therapy. It’s my job to make you buy clothes you can’t afford, and I’m getting pretty sick of my job. Do you still want to try it on?”

“I’ll risk it.”

“What’s your size?”

Buffy told her. The girls went into the store and Tawnee strode over to a sales rack that was groaning with the dancing blue dresses. She roughly pushed the hangers against the metal rack, making a screeching sound, until she found a Buffy-sized silk confection. Buffy glided to the changing room reassured that at least if the dress made her look bad, the temptation to buy it would evaporate. She’d been having trouble giving into her impulses lately.

Even standing in her ankle socks, Buffy knew the dress was perfect. She’d never looked better in anything, ever. A year ago, a find like that would have made her happy; at that moment tears started to spring up in the corners of her eyes. Where would she wear this dress? To work while she flipped burgers? In the graveyard where it would be covered with ancient vampire dust and demon gunk? Spike’s crypt?

She was startled by a knock.

“So, how bad is it?” Tawnee asked.

Buffy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and opened the door. When she saw Buffy, Tawnee’s smile widened.

“I think our glass slipper has finally found its Cinderella, you look stunning,” she said.

“Stunning, really?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Tawnee said.

“I’m not, it’s just kind of a lot and right now I’m only pulling down Double Meat money, that sounds kind of gross, but you know what I mean,” Buffy said.

“Sorry, but you have to buy that dress, no matter what. I’ll take up a collection for you, but this needs to become part of your wardrobe. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Um, sort of, not really,” Buffy said.

“Um, sort of, not really? No. You show up in that dress tonight and Mr. Not Really is going to become Mr. Right,” Tawnee said.

The other girl put her hands on Buffy’s shoulders.

“Turn around, turn around and look at that mirror,” Tawnee said.

Buffy was not the type of person to let just anyone touch her, but part of her felt numb and vulnerable enough that she allowed the other girl to move her.

“Look at you. Really look in that mirror. You’re a knockout, girl. Plus, we’ve got lay-a-way,” Tawnee said.

Buffy looked. The dress made her nostalgic for memories that weren’t ever hers. It was a very non-slayery outfit. It made her wish things were different, that she was different. Buffy wondered fleetingly if the silk was inlaid with a spell, like the cursed gown she bought at Ethan Rayne’s costume shop. Maybe if she wore this dress, she’d become the girl who had picnics with her friends and walked on the beach with her non-vampire, entirely human boyfriend.

Would that be so bad?

“For someone who doesn’t like her job you’re pretty good at it,” Buffy said.

“Guilty!” Tawnee said, and then threw up her hands and laughed. She gave Buffy’s reflection a bright smile in the mirror, then left the changing room.

Alone, Buffy twirled, watching herself in the mirror. The motion made the skirt of the dress flare out like a pool of blue, blue water. She stopped and felt the silk sliding against her bare legs. Slowly, Buffy unzipped the back and then untied the halter at the base of her neck. The dress fell, shimmering as it went. She looked at herself standing naked save her white, cotton underwear and felt incredibly diminished without it.




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