SIX DAYS by Jennifer Davis

it made me wonder what the people beyond the door thought we were doing.
    After getting to watch Tosh and Hazel cry and squeal in pain, which made what they’d done to me almost worth it, we showered again. As we dressed, we laughed; repeating some of the vulgar things Ms. Beverly had shared with us. Tosh’s phone rang. She was somehow able to compose herself to answer it. Excited about something, she hung up and looked at Hazel. “She’s in,” she squealed. Then they both looked at me and smiled like giddy little kids.
     
    When we got to Tosh’s, she said our first priority was to find something for me to wear. She snatched my hand and dragged me to a room across the hall from hers. It was filled with racks of clothes and boxes of shoes stacked at least four feet high across one of the walls. There were no less than six hundred boxes. I imagined there were actual shoe stores that didn’t have the kind of inventory Tosh had.
    “My father sends me things when he’s gone—which is always. Sometimes he sends so much that it arrives in crates. I used to have clothes and shoes spread all over the house, but Vita said I have to contain it to this room. I’ve had to give away things I’ve never even gotten to wear before.” She still had so much stuff that I could have spent two full days in that room and not seen everything.
    Tosh stood still and studied me for a moment, chewing on her index finger, seemingly making mental notes. “You’ll need to wear a dress, a nice one. Designer. I know it’s a party, but it’s a very exclusive party. Invitation only.”
    She’d already told me the party wasn’t a plus one sort of thing. It was an individual invitation sort of thing and since I had one now, I could go with Kasey, who’d also been invited.
    “The guy throwing the party, Devan Montgomery, is very particular…” Tosh trailed off, and began examining dresses, thinking. “Some of the girls who’ll be there like to tell everyone who they’re wearing and what it cost them, so it would truly piss them off if someone they’ve never laid eyes on showed up in something they’d have a hard time getting their hands on. Something that would make their jaws hit the floor. Something like this!” Tosh squealed. She pulled a dress from the rack and held it against me. “That’s it! That’s the dress,” she beamed, and then began scanning the Polaroid’s stuck to the fronts of the shoeboxes.
    “Heather Foster is going to be so nauseous when she sees you,” Tosh gushed. Making Heather Foster want to barf must have been something Tosh was looking forward to.
    “Heather Foster’s going to completely ruin her De La Renta draws when she sees you,” Hazel laughed, startling me. “She’s gonna shit big-time.” That girl was crazy good at sneaking up on people. She’d almost made me shit my Target brand draws.
    “Who’s Heather Foster?” I asked.
    “Only the biggest bitch on the planet,” Hazel offered gleefully.
    “We went to high school with her. She’s the type that likes people to worship her for what she has, not who she is,” Tosh explained, and began carefully wiggling a shoebox from the middle of the stack. It was as if she was playing a life-size game of Jenga or something. I held my breath, hoping the other boxes wouldn’t come toppling down on her until the moment she’d skillfully freed the one she wanted.
    “These are perfect for your dress,” she said, before revealing the contents of the box. The first thing I noticed—the label—Valentino. The second thing I noticed; they were sky-high platform sandals. Also, they were the single most beautiful pair of shoes I’d ever seen in my life. Just thinking about wearing them gave me a rush. I slipped into the shoes and sighed.
    “Look at my feet,” I gushed. “My feet have never looked so amazing.”
    “Well, that’s the job of a fifteen-hundred-dollar pair of shoes,” Hazel said. I gasped. I knew they were expensive—just not half