Page 41 of This Time Around (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #3)

She cleared her throat. Still nothing. She glanced at the little gold bell next to the cash register, but felt rude ringing it like she was summoning a butler.

“Hi, there,” she tried at last.

The woman spun around, flipping her glasses off her face and onto the counter in front of them. Paige stared at them.

“Sorry to startle you,” Allie said. “We have an appointment with Eleanor for a bra fitting.”

“éléonore,” the woman corrected, snatching the spectacles off the counter and situating them on her nose once more. “Not Eleanor, éléonore . It’s French.”

“Right,” Allie said, glancing down as Paige took a step closer and gave Allie a skeptical look. “We have a four-thirty appointment with éléonore .”

“I am éléonore,” she announced the way someone might declare herself to be the Queen of England. “And you are?”

“Allie. Allison Ross. And this is Paige Carpenter. We have an appointment to be measured for a?—”

“Brassiere?”

She pronounced it with a heavy French accent, even though the rest of her speech—save her name—was perfectly American. It took Allie a moment to figure out what she was saying.

“A brassiere,” Allie repeated. “Right. We need proper measurements for a brassiere.”

She felt ridiculous pronouncing it in her own fake French accent, but éléonore seemed satisfied with the request. She eyed Allie up and down and made a little tsk-tsk noise. “Yes, I can see you need a little help.”

Allie frowned and resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest. “The fitting isn’t for me. It’s for my—for—for Paige here.”

Paige gave a small giggle and stepped on Allie’s toe. Allie fought to keep a straight face as éléonore shifted her attention to Paige. She peered at the girl over the top of her glasses, frowning.

“I see,” said éléonore. “How old are you, Paige?”

“Ten,” Paige replied, glancing at Allie. “I’m ten, but I’ll be eleven in June.”

“Hmmm,” éléonore replied, now eyeing Paige. “And I suppose this is your first brassiere?”

Paige glanced at Allie, then back at éléonore. “Um, I think so?”

“I’m going to be taking a lot of measurements today,” éléonore continued. “I trust you are comfortable with this?”

“Well, sure,” Paige replied. “Are your hands cold?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My friend, Emma, said when she went to get her bra, the lady had really cold hands. So I was just wondering if your hands were warm or cold.”

“Here,” Allie offered, thrusting her paper mug of tea into éléonore’s hands before the woman could object. “This might help.”

éléonore scowled, but didn’t set the cup down, so Allie considered it a win. The woman looked back at Paige, still assessing.

“A good brassiere is like a fine Bordeaux,” éléonore said. “It’s well-structured, elegant, and supremely smooth.”

Allie gritted her teeth, wondering if she should have just taken Paige to Victoria’s Secret.

At least there they had some cute things, and they wouldn’t be subjected to the palpable disdain of éléonore.

Clearly the woman was going out of her way to use words Paige couldn’t possibly know, and that pissed Allie off.

But Paige just smiled and tossed her braid over her shoulder. “A good Bordeaux has notes of chocolate cupcake and Colgate toothpaste,” she announced. “Do you have any bras with those things?”

Allie snort-laughed in a most unladylike fashion, causing éléonore to swing her gaze back to her.

“Will you be joining us in the dressing room for the fitting?” éléonore asked.

“Oh, um—I guess that’s up to Paige.”

“Yes,” Paige said, reaching out for Allie’s hand. “She’ll be joining us.”

“I see,” éléonore said. “You do understand that bra fitting is an art and not a science?”

“I like art and science both,” Paige replied. “But writing is my best subject.”

“Just like your dad,” Allie said, squeezing the girl’s hand at the memory of Jack, bleary-eyed and rumpled, as he slaved over essays for college scholarships. “He used to love writing essays in high school. Everyone else hated them, but your dad?—”

“And how does your mother feel about things like padding, push-up, and underwire?”

Allie blinked and glanced at Paige. Paige looked back at her, seemingly at a loss for words for the first time since Allie met her. The girl gave a tiny shrug, so Allie looked back at éléonore. “ My mother is in prison, but she strongly favors all of those things,” she replied.

“And my mother is dead,” Paige supplied. “So I don’t think she cares.”

Allie squeezed the girl’s hand and leveled a look at éléonore. “Why don’t we just go with whatever Paige would like to have on her body?”

éléonore looked alarmed for a moment. Then she sniffed and spun on her heel. As she marched toward the dressing room, Allie leaned down to whisper to Paige. “Are you okay? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”

“I’m fine,” Paige answered. “I want a bra.”

“I know, but that woman?—”

“éléonore?” The girl pronounced the name with a dramatic flair, rolling her eyes as she said it.

“éléonore,” Allie repeated as the woman turned the corner into the dressing rooms. “She’s a little intense.”

“I can handle intense.”

“I can see that,” Allie said, more impressed with this kid than she’d been with anyone she’d ever met.

Paige glanced toward the dressing rooms, then back at Allie. “What’s a brassiere?” she whispered.

“It’s a bra for snobby people.”

“Can we tell her I just want a regular bra?”

“Definitely.” Allie put her arm around the girl as they started toward the dressing room. “And for the record, I don’t think you need padding or push-up or any of that stuff.”

“Okay. But maybe not just plain? Maybe one with stripes or lace or something.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged. Only instead of stripes, we’ll have to call them rayures . And instead of lace, we have to say dentelle. ”

“ Dentelle ,” Paige repeated, trying it out. She reached up and plugged her nose, then tried again. “ Dentelle ,” she tried again, sounding a lot more authentic than Allie had after four years of college French.

“Perfect,” Allie said, and guided her young charge toward the dressing room.