Holding onto Hope: The Complete Hope Trilogy by Alice Bello

Author:Alice Bello [Bello, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

~*~

Bette let Darla drive, so we screamed through town like the Caddy had flaming wheels and Satan himself was at the wheel. Again I had the feeling I was on a roller coaster, and when we finally stopped it took a few beats before my stomach caught up with us. And then it flipped over and played dead, my breakfast suddenly heavy and clumped at the bottom of my gut.

“Maybe I should drive us back,” I said, hand on my stomach, feeling like I’d been literally sucked through a straw and was now splattered over the sidewalk.

Darla looked over to Bette. Bette shook her head.

“She drives like a little old lady with cataracts. We’ll never get home with her at the wheel.”

They shared a smile—okay, feeling jealous again. Okay, feeling jealous and really, really nauseous.

“Come on Cinderella,” Bette called out as she slid out of the passenger side door. “We’ve got to get you ready for the ball.”

Darla followed suit, so I grudgingly followed, swallowing down the bile that threatened to make an encore appearance… and any tattered shred of my pride I had left.

This was going to get ugly.

I just hoped I’d come out looking more like a swan than an ugly stepsister.

I opened the car door and crawled out onto the sidewalk…

And gaped…

I don’t know what I’d expected: maybe a pretentious, over priced boutique, or a glamorous high-end fashion Mecca like Saks…

What we stood in front of was a secondhand dress store. Vintage Elegance sizzled in gold letters across the store’s front window.

I gave Bette a look. “I can afford a new dress!” I wasn’t that far gone.

Well, maybe I couldn’t afford a dress from Saks, but still, a second hand store?

I felt like I was walking into Goodwill.

Which, truthfully I did on a regular basis, to search their used books. But I’d never even thought about wearing or buying clothes that someone else had worn.

It just made my skin crawl.

Bette took me by the arm and led me to the front door. She looked to the right and said to Darla, “Be a dear and grab Hope here a ginger ale over there at that 7-11.”

She guided me in through the front doors—the glass sparkled and shone, so I felt a little better about the place. Not that I’m some OCD nut-job, afraid of every germ and speck of dust… but the thought of wearing used clothing just got to me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, steeling myself. The place smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, and silk, and cashmere, and leather.

When I opened my eyes I was surrounded by tidy racks of high-end clothes. I didn’t know the names of the designers, but I’d seen then on the covers of some of the fashion magazines I’d prowled, looking for inspiration in the fancy photographs used for ads.

The place was wall to wall elegance, just as the name said. There were a few mannequins dressed in silk gowns and tastefully beaded dresses.

I gulped. No matter

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