whenshewasnice | The Mainland, Tuesday Afternoon

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The Mainland, Tuesday Afternoon

Natalie had not specifically asked for help. Of course not. What she had done, though, was ~~handwavily, natch~~ dropping by the Devil's Nest to idly talk to a certain Ms. Holloway about, among other things, the dance, and Valentine's Day, and her birthday.

Joan, being the smart lady that she was, had somehow inferred from all of this that Natalie had nothing to wear to said occasions, nor had she any idea what to get because she just wasn't concerned with girly things like that, on the whole.

And that, then, explained why they were now on the mainland, in front of a clothing store with dresses in the display window.

"So... Does this look like a good place?"

[ooc: NFB due to off-islandness, and for that one redheaded mentor of a sort!]

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Joan was eyeing the dresses critically, head tilted to one side. "It might just be perfect," she decided, tapping her chin with a gloved finger. "Now, this Valentine's dance -- you're wearing red, right? I'm not sure you're a pink kind of girl. It might wash you out, and that's the last thing we want to do."

Joan was fairly obviously prepared to railroad right over any objections, albeit gently, for the most part. Because of course you wore red to a Valentine's anything, particularly if you were in possession of as much bombshell-potential as Natalie was, even if Joan was still pushing her to see.

Natalie gave her a mildly raised eyebrow. "Isn't red for Valentine's a little cliché?" Not that she knew. She didn't tend to wear a lot of bright colours as it was.

She would've liked to blame that on her black and white source material.

"Natalie, honey, you need to learn the difference between cliché and classic," Joan said, shaking her head and adjusting the little hat she was wearing. They were out in public, after all, and some things didn't change with the passage of forty-odd years. "It would be cliché to wear something with little red hearts all over it, or demand that this boyfriend of yours get you some sort of little bear with a saccharine message about loving you beary much."

She tsked, because that idea was sort of nauseating, and stepped closer to the window to consider the dresses. "But it's classic to wear a red dress that shows you off. It's attention-getting. And it shows you know what you're doing with yourself."

Natalie allowed herself to look dubious. And eyed Joan's gloves and hat. Natalie was wearing gloves too, but they were comfortable fingerless ones, currently shoved way into her jacket pockets along with her hands. And said jacket was well-worn, as were her jeans.

She didn't get self-conscious as such, but she did note the difference.

"Mmhmm," she said, non-committally, as she turned her attention more towards the window as well. "Suppose you'd know better."

And she didn't necessarily disagree about the bears and the hearts.

"Let's just say I have a fair amount of practice," Joan said dryly. "We're looking for your birthday, too, right? How old, this year?"

"Seventeen." Which seemed to surprise some people. She supposed her mild manners sometimes gave off an older vibe, or something. "On the fifteenth."

Right after Valentine's was an interesting time for your birthday when you were involved with someone.

"Mine's the twenty-fourth," Joan added a little absently, though she raised a brow at Natalie's age. She'd attributed at least another year to the girl. "And you have a date for it?"

"Sam's planning stuff," Natalie replied, with a little shrug, eyeing one of the dresses in the window. "My boyfriend."

That was probably the first time she'd actually used that word about him to anyone who... well, wasn't him.

"Nothing big but there was mention of a suit."

"Good job, Sam," Joan said with a tiny trace of a smile, before purposefully moving towards the doors of the shop. "Then if he's bringing out a suit in this day and age, you'd best knock his socks off."

Pause.

"And they better be black. Nothing worse than a man in a suit with white socks." She actually shuddered.

Natalie gave a quiet snort as she followed along, one corner of her mouth tilting upwards. "I'm not sure Sam would know something like that."

She was not sure she herself would care, to be honest.

"Then you should educate him," Joan advised, pausing as soon as they were in the store to peruse a rack of thin dresses before dismissing them. The fabric was far too synthetic, ew. "You probably don't want me doing it. Or calling up a male colleague of mine from 1961 to do a little time-traveling."

She wouldn't hate the idea of Roger or Don visiting, but she did the bar's books -- she frankly wasn't sure the island's liquor supply could support them.

"That might scare him." A funny thing to say about necromancer, but then he was her lame boyfriend first and a necromancer second, in her eyes.

She glanced at some dress racks, though she'd pretty much given Joan the reins on this one. "He wears a lot of dark clothes, though. I'm sure black socks will just happen on their own."

As much as she was amused by crossovers.

Joan slanted a look at her with a slight, knowing smile. "Do you like him?"

While the answer might have been easy for most people, Joan had dated enough men for brief amounts of time -- and not dated the one man she really cared about for longer -- to know that just because he was your boyfriend didn't mean you knew that answer right away.

Besides, she was curious as to what Natalie might say.

Natalie shrugged a shoulder, lightly. Nonchalant. "Yeah."

It was not a hard thing to know the answer to. She was pretty sure she'd crossed that particular semantic barrier when she'd been crying all over him after getting him back from the Nothing. She could admit that much, and she could do it easily.

"He's a good guy."

"Then you should shine for him," Joan replied with a wider smile. "He's taking you to the dance, too, I assume. So we'll have to keep it different."

She gave Natalie a scrutinous once-over. "Do you have a particular color you'd like to wear for your birthday? I'm curious."

As long as it wasn't something terrible, like yellow.

Natalie glanced down at herself, and her utterly comfortable if not particularly stylish clothes. So nondescript.

"I like dark colours," she offered with another little shrug. "Like... purples and greens."

Joan nodded, plucking up a couple of dresses in jewel tones. "Strapless sweetheart necklines like these," she advised, "will be really flattering on you. Me, I can't wear them for fear of showing everyone what I've got on underneath, but you've been blessed with the ability to wear things like a hanger."

That was sort of a compliment. She meant it that way, anyway.

Edited 2012-02-08 17:07 (UTC)

"Meaning I'm drawn like a stick figure."

Hey, she still took it as a compliment, she just happened to have a certaintendency for snark. Around people she liked, anyway. She looked the dresses over, then reached for the berry one for a closer look.

"What's with the sweetheart thing, anyway?" she wondered, though only mildly curious. "Is it the... top-half of a heart thing?"

"That's why it's called that," Joan assured her. "But more importantly, it's cut that way to give the illusion of curves and cleavage for the more stick-figure-inclined. And a slightly flared skirt like that also gives you hips and a little bit of a backside. It'll all hang well without clinging unflatteringly." She made a face. "Something the less stick-figurely of us struggle with."

"I didn't know I was in need of cleavage," Natalie drawled, examining the dress. She was maybe a little unsure about the bare shoulders, and how much leg she'd be showing.

But she was also doing Petey Sci-Fi. Might as well get used to it.

"The back looks pretty."

"The ruffle's an old trick we kept from the Victorians," Joan said with a light smile. "Gives you a little bit of a behind without making you obscene, or unflattering. Pair this dress with a little jewelry and maybe some tights -- if you're feeling modest, or cold -- and you'd be set." A pause, as she examined Natalie critically once again. "Hair up would be nice, but I doubt you'll want to. Leaving it down would be lovely as well."

Natalie and basic ponytails were kind of an OTP. "We'll see." Yeah, her hair would probably be down to compensate for the shoulders. Had to have something to (pretend to) hide behind.

She glanced around. "So, I should probably try this on," she said. "But might as well find something red first."

She was smart and efficient like that.

Joan bit her lip as she headed over to a red dress that she couldn't wear without some kind of herald calling out a warning first -- but it might work for Natalie. "And how do you feel about deep cuts like this down the front?" she asked, trying to phrase it gently. "I think it'd look fabulous on you, but I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

Well, it... did go over her shoulders, at least. Without still managing to be like anything at all that Natalie was used to.

She looked at the dress for a moment in silence, with an unreadable expression. And then she decided, "Well, I guess I can try it on."

Couldn't hurt, could it?

Joan actually clapped as she handed the dress over. "I'll make sure to look for options for you, too. In case. Oh, and shoes," she added. "Because you'll need heels."

Need. Yes.

"... Need?"

Yes, she was going to question that. Because flats. Flats were great, weren't they?

Never mind that she'd rocked insane heels over that one weekend she'd been some kind of a spy for Peter's evil Bavarian empire.

"Well, I suppose you'd be fine in flats, but why would you want to?" Joan asked with a slight frown. "It'd be doing your legs such a disservice."

"I haven't really ever worn heels," Natalie replied, by way of explanation. "Except for one weekend where Fandom put me in six-inch ones."

And she'd still managed to be shorter than Sam, though she suspected that had been a genre thing.

"Then there's no time like the present to start. You're so tall, you probably don't need anything too challenging, anyway," Joan declared. She looked around a moment before selecting a black shoe. "Kitten heels. They're barely more than flats, anyway."

"I can probably live with those," Natalie decided after a thoughtful pause. "And Sam won't have to crane his neck."

"You want to be on eye level with him, if you can," she said with a nod, expression turning slightly wistful. "The last man I was seeing was just about three to four inches taller than me. Perfect for heels. But you never want to tower over him. Most men take that a little to heart."

"It's kind of a stupid thing to get upset about." Well, she thought so. No surprise there, she had such little care for stuff like that.

But, she was looking for the sign for the fitting rooms, now. "So, I'm gonna go try these on."

"Go with your gut when you see it on you," Joan said, absently eyeing dresses for herself. "But let me see before you reject it entirely."

Natalie nodded, and made her way to the fitting rooms. Once there, she decided to go for the red dress first. Why put off the inevitable, right?

She didn't really look at herself in the mirror while she was slipping her regular clothes off and the dress on. And once she, did... well. It was definitely a different kind of sight. Not a bad one, as much as it felt unfamiliar to see herself like that. It went well enough with her colours, for one, though her lack of make-up felt more noticeable, suddenly.

After a moment of taking the sight in by herself – and putting the shoes on as well – she slipped back out into the store, to find Joan. For her expert opinion.

"Well?"

Joan didn't smile at first. She surveyed Natalie carefully, tapping her chin. "Lovely," she decided after a moment. "You need lipstick, I think, and a touch of mascara, but you're lucky enough to not need much. Well done, if I do say so myself."

Natalie may have smiled a little. She hid that by looking down at herself, though.

"Sam's going to have a heart attack." A beat. "I need to buy lipstick."

"That's okay, darling. Auntie Joan's here to walk you through makeup, too," Joan said with a grin. "Now, that wasn't so hard, was it? Giving Sam a heart attack is a good thing."

Figuratively speaking, considering the state of Joan's last conquest.

Edited 2012-02-09 20:00 (UTC)

Natalie brushed her bangs aside and exhaled a quiet laugh. "Probably only figuratively." She should hope. Sam had enough problems without a freak heart attack. "I still feel pretty strange in a dress."

She just had some natural skills at hiding that feeling, for the most part.

"You should, still," Joan replied. "It's something new and special. You're not used to seeing yourself like this. Let yourself feel strange. Wanna try on the other? If we're two for two, I'm going to feel obligated to treat myself to a cocktail tonight."

As though that was a rare occurrence.

"Sure."

With that little word, Natalie vanished again, to try on the other dress. That was an interesting experience too. She'd never had one without anything in the way of straps, before. Still, it seemed to work.

She came out to show this dress to Joan, too, but it seemed like a formality. The way she moved in it seemed to already suggest that she was slightly more comfortable with things.

"How do you feel without straps?" Joan asked, but she was already smiling a little. This one might be even more suitable, if possible.

"A little exposed," Natalie replied, with something approaching matter-of-factness. Hey, it was a factual answer. "Otherwise fine. I can get used to it." She rolled her eyes. "I'm in Petey Sci-Fi, I should get used to it."

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The Mainland, Tuesday Afternoon

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