It was a good thing that Megan called, “YYYYOOOOO HHHHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!” five minutes later, or I probably would have sat there for one whole hour doing nothing.
“Coming!!!” I yelled back. I walked to the merrily to the front door. “Whew!” I thought, “No chairs anywhere!!!” I could tell Cordelia felt the same. We walked towards the hall in silence until we could hear the cheerful light step of Ms. Frist.
“Ah!! There you are! We’ve been waiting forever for you! Now, get seated in the taxi, and we’ll get ready to go,” Ms. Frist hurriedly said.
Before any of us could say a word, she pushed us into the taxi and buckled our seatbelts.
“Off we go to the mall!” she shouted out to the window.
“There we are,” the taxi driver grunted carelessly. “Now gimme my money!”
“Now, Joe can’t you be a bit more polite?” Ms. Frist complained as she handed over his payment. But as soon as he got money in his hands Joe drove off.
“Grumpy as usual!” Ms. Frist muttered. Getting back to her usual self again, Ms. Frist said, “Now, let’s ‘shop till we drop!’”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked softly Cordelia.
“Yeah,” Cordelia responded in a whisper. “Ms. Frist’o are nuts!”
“I wasn’t thinking that!” I protested. I raised my voice a little. “I was thinki–”
“Shush!” Cordelia said in a whisper again.
“Oops, sorry!” I said quietly again, “As I was saying, I was wondering where did Ms. Frist get that phrase and wheth–”
“Girls,” Ms. Frist called, “Please hurry up a bit!”
“All right, coming!” we yelled.
“Why do I keep on getting interrupted?” I muttered to myself as I caught up to Ms. Frist.
“Here we are,” Ms. Frist said.
“Why, how nice to see you, Rosemary!” a voice rang out from the space under the counter of the store.
“How nice to see you too, Lavender!” Ms. Frist exclaimed. I saw a rosy old women rush out to meet Ms. Frist. They hugged and embraced as if they haven’t seen each other for eight years (which is probably true).
“Well, I see you haven’t come here just to chat,” Lavender said, “What are these youngsters here?”
“Why do old people always call us ‘youngsters’?” Cordelia whispered to me,
“I heard that! Old people have fabulous hearing, you know,” Ms. Frist and Lavender said at the same time. They burst into laughter.
“It’s great to be twi–” Ms. Frist and Lavender said in unison. Again, they were stopped by a fit of laughter.
“Well,” Ms. Frist said drying tears from her eyes. “We’re here to ‘shop ‘til we drop!’”
“Ah, of course!” Lavender exclaimed. She pushed us to the center of the store. I saw all kinds of beautiful, beautiful, dresses, too beautiful for me to describe. A green silk dress from China with gold lotus flowers embroidered on it, a pale light blue dress with the sweetest blue birds skillfully hidden in it. I even found a pink, old-fashioned dress with a large red flannel petticoat underneath!
“Now hurry up girls, we’re not getting any younger, you know, so take your pick!” Ms. Frist and Lavender said together. They had gotten used to speaking at the same time.
Delighted, I picked the green dress, the blue dress, and a nice formal black dress with a matching handbag. I also found a shimmering, sparkling ivory colored dress that had a pair of mother of pearl earrings along with it and a yellow sunlight dress that had different shades of yellow on it. It came with a glowing yellow headband and two glimmering jewel bracelets.
We arrived at the checkout place. I saw Cordelia had not picked many dresses.
“That’s all you have? Go get more!” exclaimed you-know-who together.
So, I went and got a gorgeous red dress with a little flounce in it and a feathered jeweled choker and a lovely purple dress with a sash and matching high-heels. I returned to the checkout. After we purchased our items, Ms. Frist let us have some tea in the “Employees Only” room. We just sipped the tea while we could hear the faint murmurs of Ms. Frist and Lavender outside.
