The Bauer/Douglas Family (bauerandcompany) wrote in weddedto_sonora, @ 2013-10-25 15:30:00 |
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Current mood: | uncomfortable |
Robe Shopping
As she moved across the shiny wood floor with small steps and breathed in the smell of new clothes all around her, Julian also did her best to ignore the strange sideways look one of the robe shop’s departing other patrons gave her and her mother. Or, more accurately, she suspected, the clothes they had worn in. She realized she had her arms crossed defensively over her blouse and forced her hands back to her sides. Her skirt was, of the two garments, in worse shape anyway.
Neither was, of course, in really bad shape. They were completely sound, had no stains or worn places, and fit her well enough that she did not look ridiculous in public – not like John sometimes in Stephen’s old clothes at home, anyway, though he didn’t really seem to notice. Her parents believed it was ridiculous to spend a lot of money on clothes, but also that it was equally improper to let their kids go out without decent clothes, even if the ones they had were old or out of fashion. In the secondhand clothes and robe shops she was used to, Julian wouldn’t, she was sure, have felt self-conscious at all – she never had before. Here, though, around all this, she just felt…out of place. Conspicuous. She couldn’t help but notice how much shabbier Mom’s old housedress was even than her own outfit, never mind the clothes the other ladies here were wearing, and that made her feel both ashamed of herself for being self-conscious about her own wardrobe and even more uncomfortable about being here with her mother at all.
A witch who gave the appearance of bustling at all times approached them, smiling cheerfully. “May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mom said, smiling back and not seeming in the least bothered by how her dress compared to anyone else’s. Julian resolved to skip her afternoon snack when they got home. “Here are the specifications for my daughter’s school robes….”
Julian was led to a stool, where she turned when poked, stood as still as possible when not, and so finished up her measurements fairly quickly. While her mother paid, she wandered over into the dress robes, enjoying looking at the fine things even if she couldn’t afford them and letting herself pick up a blue flowered one with a lace collar on it and hold it up under her chin in front of a mirror.
“That brings out your eyes,” Mom’s voice said behind her, and Julian jumped a little as she turned around and hastily put the robe back on its hook.
“It looks like a frilly nightgown,” she joked, even though she had briefly thought of wearing it at Easter – a silly thought, since that was an occasion for Muggle dresses, not magical ones. “I was just being silly, sorry.”
“No, it’s all right,” Mom said, reaching out and smoothing Julian’s hair on the left side. “It’s natural for you to be interested in – in clothes and things now, I guess. You’re nearly fourteen.”
“Mom, I’m not,” Julian lied insistently – sort of. Technically, it wasn’t true, since right now she was thinking about clothes, but just in general, she didn’t care any more than she always had. She wasn’t some silly, airheaded girl like some of the ones at school – Gemma sprang to mind, though she knew that was unkind – who couldn’t think of anything but what she looked like, or even like Charlie, who really did think about it far too much. She took a sort of pride in that, honestly. She wore her brothers’ old clothes in public, to classes, a lot because it was practical. She didn’t care about this sort of thing at all. “Really.”
She thought she saw something almost like guilt in her mother’s eyes as Mom smiled. “Well, let’s go, then,” she said. “I’ve got your school things here. I swear, if you keep growing at this rate, these’ll be above your ankles by midterm, too.”
They stopped at the apothecary to pick up some eel eyes and then went home, where Julian went into her room and sat on the edge of her bed, rubbing the ends of her fingers against the heels of her hands. She could still feel the fabrics of the dresses she’d touched against them, as though she had them here, and picture what she might have looked like in some of them. Inaccurate images, she knew – when she pictured that sort of thing, she was always taller and slimmer, with fuller hair and straighter teeth and better eyebrows and all – but she couldn’t help but like them.
The door swung open, and Julian jumped as Joe barreled in, then stopped, apparently surprised to see her, too. “Julian, did I leave my – “ he started to say, but she cut him off.
"No," she said irritably. "Go away."
Joe looked very surprised for a moment, and then his face crumpled. "Oh, Joey, I'm sorry - " Julian started, but he had already slammed the door and run down the hall.
She fell back on her bed and pulled a pillow over her face, wishing she had just put another extension charm on her old robes the last time and never had this day happen at all.