Losing Pieces of Me by Rose Briner

at me.  See, I wasn’t lying to you was I?  “Yes, I understand, Sir,” replies the girl looking at the other one with wide eyes.
       She pulls the phone away from her ear and hands it back to me.  I look down at it, hoping by chance he might still be on the line, but he’s not.  He’s left me to fend for myself on this one.
       “If you will follow me this way, Mrs. Leopold,” she says, gesturing for me to follow her.  Now all of a sudden she doesn’t have an attitude.  The other girl runs to the front door and locks it just as another patron is about to come inside.
        “That isn’t necessary, you don’t have to close the place down just because I’m here.”
       The girl gives me a funny look, “Didn’t Mr. Leopold tell you?  He paid for the place to be closed today.  We are to only service you today and make sure you receive an entire wardrobe.”
       Well, I guess I can’t argue with that, it would look bad.
       “Okay,” I say with a shrug.  “Lead the way then.”  The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can leave this place.
       I don’t end up leaving for another four hours.  In that time, I am measured, poked, and prodded at, all the while being told whether or not what I have on looks right for me.  I feel like a Barbie Doll getting all dressed up and then having to change twenty five times when that outfit doesn’t look right.  I think if I were a Barbie Doll, I would’ve gone through her entire wardrobe at least five times now.
       I can only imagine how much money was spent in this place today.  When we were done selecting all the outfits for me to have shipped home and ones for me to wear for the rest of the week, they asked me how much money I had on me.  When I told them how much money I have, they kindly held their hand out for the money and told me they would charge the rest of the bill to Jayden’s credit card.  I didn’t dare ask how much the bill was.  I had five thousand in the envelope, so imagine how much more went on his card.
       I almost end up telling the girl to return some of the items she’s selected, but I decide that probably wouldn’t be the wisest decision right now.  I don’t know this girl and for all I know if she suspects something is not right with my new marriage, she might call the local paper and sell her story to the highest bidder.  No thank you, I need this marriage to work.  So I just smile at her as I take the bag of clothes for me to wear until I get back to New York and walk out of the store.
       I look back once at the many clothing racks that will be shipped back to New York and cringe.  There’s enough clothing there to fill an entire walk-in closet and more clothing than I’d be able to wear in the next three months.  I bet that was his plan too, since he said I get to keep whatever I obtain during our marriage.  It’s a nice gesture on his part, but I still don’t feel right taking it.  Maybe I’ll talk to him when I see him later.
    That sounds like a good plan to me, only I don’t get to talk to him later.
       The next few days were not as bad as my first day married, but almost as bad. I’ve been to the hair salon where I was given a hair treatment to make my hair look like that of a supermodel, an entire spa day in which I was told it was to make me look young and beautiful-I was a little offended by that comment the masseuse made- and then there was the trip to the accessory store and what I like to call the finishing school.  I’ve been taught things that I thought I would never need to know.  Which fork is used during what course at dinner, how to hold a wine glass properly, and even how to walk straighter.  I didn’t even know there was anything wrong with the way I was walking until right now.  Apparently I’ve been going through life walking and acting completely wrong.  I didn’t even know that acting a certain way made it wrong, guess I was wrong.
       All the