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still costs $510.00 . That is a freakin’
boatload of money.
    The saleslady tells her that the dresses are
a bit tricky to try on because their slips are sewn into one
shoulder seam of the dress. “You must put the slip on first, then
the dress,” she tells Isabella. This is more difficult than it
sounds and Isabella is all thumbs trying to first get the slip on.
She is a tangled mess when the saleslady checks back in with her.
Isabella asks if the lady could help her dress, which she gladly
obliges. Her first choice is beautiful: the knit dress has an Art
Deco Fleur de Lis design, in cherry, teal, and black. She has never
seen such a gorgeous dress. The saleslady admires how pretty she
looks in it. Isabella says, “I think it makes me look fat. I wish I
would have worn my Spankx.”
    “Do you want me to go next door to the
lingerie shop and see if I can borrow a girdle for you?”
    Isabella says, “They’d let you do that?”
    “It’s worth a try,” she answers.
    Wow! This store is a whole other shopping
paradigm. They’d never do this at Kohls . While waiting
for the girdle, Isabella tries to put on the other dresses. Once
again, she gets tangled up in the slip straps and can’t figure out
which hole to put her arms and head through. The saleslady comes
back with the girdle and sees Isabella struggling with the dress.
She offers, “Would you like me to take the dress and detach the
slip for you?”
    “Sure. You’d do that?” Isabella says in
amazement.
    “Yes. I’ll sew it back on later if you don’t
want to buy it.”
    “Okay. That would be great.”
    The saleslady asks, “May I get you some
bottled water while you try on your dresses?”
    “Sure.”
    “Would you like Perrier or Evian?”
    “Perrier is fine, thank you.” Wow! This
must be what it’s like to shop in Beverly Hills.
    The lady brings back some bottled water on a
silver tray. (Isabella feels like a princess). Then she brings the
detached slip and dress back for Isabella to try on. Isabella says,
“Are all your customers as inept as I am trying to put these
clothes on?”
    “You’re not the only one. That’s why our
customers detach the slips once they get home. We just keep the
slips sewn on so that they don’t get lost from the dresses they
belong to.”
    Isabella squeezes herself into the borrowed
girdle and tries on all three dresses. She loves each of them; it’s
hard to choose which one she likes best. She can’t even afford one,
let alone three.
    She tells the saleslady, “I can’t decide. I
can only afford one. I don’t usually pay this much for my clothes
and I want to be sure that it’s exactly what I want. I look at it
as an investment.”
    The lady agrees, “It is an investment. You
will have this dress for a very long time.”
    They decide that they like the first dress
she tried on the best and Isabella takes the plunge and spends more
money than she’s ever spent on clothes in her life.
    What have I just done? she asks
herself when she leaves the store with her shopping bag and walks
back to her car.

Chapter Eleven
     
     
    Before getting into bed that night, Isabella
makes sure to set the alarm. She’s going to need some extra time to
put herself together tomorrow morning for her big lunch meeting
with Detective Sterling.
    When the alarm goes off the next morning, she
has trouble dragging herself out of bed. She didn’t sleep well the
night before; she was too busy scolding herself for paying $510.00
for a dress. I hope this investment pays off , she tells
herself. She showers, does her nails, and fixes her hair into a
stylish French twist. Just when she gets her hair fixed the way she
likes it, she realizes that she should have put the dress on first.
If she puts it on now, it’ll mess up her hair when she’s pulls it
over her head. She gives it a try anyway. She squeezes into some
Spankx, rearranges the fat bulges, and puts on the slip and the
dress over her head. Miraculously, her hair doesn’t get