A Bad Day for Romance by Sophie Littlefield Page B

comfortable,” the saleswoman had gushed, pointing out the padded platform; on reflection Stella had to admit that she’d been snookered. Back when she’d been expecting tonight to end in romantic fireworks with her boyfriend, the shoes seemed like just the thing. But now she felt a bit like a stork stuffed into a sausage casing.
    “I’m going to wear my coat to dinner,” Stella warned, before venturing around the corner.
    “It’s balmy out!” Chrissy exclaimed. “And that old raincoat of yours belongs on the scrap heap. It was out of date when I was in kinderg—”
    Chrissy’s mouth fell open as Stella rounded the corner. Stella winced at the girl’s reaction. “I knew it! Oh, damn those old biddies.”
    “Holy shit,” Chrissy breathed. “Do a spin for me.”
    Stella sighed and twirled, Marilyn Monroe style. The move didn’t manage to so much as riffle the hemline, however, since it was pulled taut.
    “If you been wondering if it was worth it putting yourself through all them push-ups and crunches and karate and whatever, I guess you got your answer right there,” Chrissy said admiringly. “Woman, you’re hotter than Hades. Why, I don’t believe I’ll come anywhere near you all night ’cause you’ll just suck up all the attention wherever you go.”
    Stella stood a little straighter and squinted down at herself. The dress did showcase her shapely biceps, it was true. And Novella had done a clever little bit of ruching across the midsection that created the illusion of whittling around the waistline. And the bra Stella had bought for the dress was still perfectly serviceable, cradling her assets lovingly even if there was far less fabric to cover them than before the old ladies got to work.
    “Baji quan,” she said modestly.
    “Huh?”
    “I don’t do karate, I do baji quan.” Stella did a quick rake-fist slash to demonstrate. She’d been studying the obscure Chinese martial art with Mr. Hou long enough that the moves came easily, whether she was merely training or delivering a decisive blow to a stubborn abuser’s sternum. “You really think it looks okay? Not too… provocative?”
    “Well, you don’t want to be taking the focus off the bride to be, so maybe keep your shawl on through the toasts. But, Stella, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you look more beautiful, in a do-me-now kind of way.”
    Stella smoothed down the silky fabric over her hips. “Too bad it’s going to go to waste,” she said. “What with BJ laid up and all.”
    “Aw, now, Kam’s got half a dozen groomsmen, why don’t you just see what develops over dinner?”
    On the way down the labyrinthine halls of the resort, Chrissy laid out all the different scenarios Stella might pursue with the much-younger engineers and customer-service specialists and process consultants among Kam’s groomsmen, refusing to listen to Stella’s protests that they were all far too young for her. As they approached the ballroom, the strains of a familiar tune reached her ears.
    “ ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly’!” she exclaimed.
    “Huh?”
    “That song—it’s from My Fair Lady .”
    “My who?”
    Stella was about to excoriate her partner for the sin of being far too young, since she had no memory of any cultural milestone before the midnineties, when she stepped into the party and found herself shocked into silence.
    Several dozen revelers were already in high spirits, clustered around the cheese cubes and the help-yourself bar and playfully batting at the paper wedding bells suspended from the ceiling. Kam was at the center of an enthusiastic cluster of female relatives, all of whom seemed determined to straighten his tie or pick threads off his sleeves or pat down an errant lock of hair, while Dotty looked on with her hands clasped in delight as if she were contemplating a mound of butter-pecan ice cream. Half a dozen young men—undoubtedly the attendants whose charms Chrissy had been touting—clanked beer bottles in a