Sharon, herself, however, was not thinking about being impressive. She was panicking. Tanks had swung by her office and asked if she was leaving early to get ready.
“Ready for what?” Sharon had asked, going over the latest subject lines in her e-mail inbox.
“The reception tonight. Cocktails with the French foreign minister?”
“Shavings!” Sharon gasped at Tanks. “I have to go to that.”
“And so do I,” Tanks sighed. “I just hope I can get out early so my girls don’t start whining about Mom being gone all the time again.”
“Kira’s fourteen. At that age, I would have loved it if my mom was gone all the time.”
“That doesn’t stop them from whining about it if they think they can get something by it.”
“So how ready do I have to get? I can get away with a suit, right?” Sharon looked at the long list of subject lines.
“The memo from State said cocktail dress, to encourage a social and welcoming atmosphere.”
Sharon sighed deeply. “At least they got that straight. The French don’t mix business and social like we do.” She frowned. “Do I even have a cocktail dress right now?”
“You weren’t expecting to go to any parties?”
“Not right away. I haven’t even been here a full month and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying. I’ve gotten a couple new suits, but that’s it.” Sharon sighed as she looked at the list of subject lines again, and closed the laptop. “I’ll have to look at these at home tonight.”
Sharon left a few minutes later. Karen met her at the Metro stop and the two went straight to Sharon’s place to see what Sharon already had before picking up Karen’s daughters and hitting the stores.
Karen was suitably impressed by Sharon’s house.
“It’s my friend’s place,” Sharon explained. “I’m just renting it from her. It’s a great old house, built by some senator years ago. He even had a secret doorway put in the back so he could sneak his floozies in.”
“Now that sounds like fun. Too bad I’m in a steady relationship. Let’s see your closet.”
Sharon led the way to the bedroom where Karen stood aghast at the open closet doors.
“You’ve only got about eight suits in here. Four day dresses. Good heavens, woman, why don’t you have any clothes?”
“I used to. I just got into simplifying a few years ago. I was traveling all the time, had no place to put things. And I had stuff that had gone completely out of style that I hadn’t even worn yet.”
“That’s normal. You’re supposed to have stuff like that. You go ahead to the mall. I’ll get my girls and meet you at there. This is an emergency. How can you justify not working to keep our economy going by buying your brains out?”
Sharon chuckled, but sighed and headed out again.
It was not a fun outing. First, Sharon couldn’t find anything she liked, then Karen called and said that her younger daughter had a school project that absolutely had to be finished that afternoon and that she (Karen) would instead be haunting the craft stores that afternoon instead because, of course, her daughter, Allie, hadn’t even started yet.
Finally, as the clock ticked off closer and closer to five p.m., Sharon found a dress that she liked. It was an a-line in a shimmery light blue sheer over a light blue lining. The top fabric had little sliver arrowheads flecked throughout. Sharon found some silver dress shoes that were workable, then a bag, necklace and matching earrings and scrambled back to the office to get dressed.
