Teaching Mr. Graham

    Tatiana dragged a brush through her hair and fluffed out her curled ends. Then she turned around to face Kenya, who was on the other side of their dorm room, strapping her feet into cute wedge sandals. "All right, I think I'm ready."

    Kenya lifted her eyes and surveyed her friend in the span of five seconds. With a shake of her head, she said, "Nope. You're nowhere near ready."

    Tatiana turned back to the mirror. "What are you talking about?"

    Kenya stood up from her bed and the skirt of her tangerine orange sundress swirled around her ankles. She approached her best friend and gave her another lookover. "Well, for starters," she began, reaching out and touching Tatiana's floral print dress, "we're going to a party. A party. As in, not church. So this...get-up you've got going on is not going to work."

    "I like this dress," Tatiana protested.

    "So does Jesus," Kenya said, wearing a tight smile. "Which is a part of the problem." She walked over to Tatiana's closet and rifled through her clothes. "Wow. I've always known that your wardrobe lacked range, but...I never realized just how bad it was until now. Then again, you've never been allowed to go to parties with me, so that could be why, but...yikes." She held out another floral print dress.

    "My mother got that for me," Tatiana explained.

    Kenya sucked her lips in and eyed the dress. "Yeeeeeah...yeah, I guessed that. Without you even telling me. She definitely wanted you to stay a virgin until you were well into your forties." She hung the dress back up. "Are they going to be sending you allowance money? I mean...they have to, right? If they do, you and I have major shopping to do. Your entire closet, other than your casual clothes, is like...a fashion emergency."

    "They're going to be putting money in my account for food, and stuff," Tatiana said, still frowning down at her dress. She didn't see anything wrong with it. It was a nice, short-sleeved dress that fell down to her knees. Not too long, no ruffles. None of the usual fashion faux pas.

    "You're still wondering what's wrong with the dress, aren't you?" Kenya asked her.

    "Kind of, yeah."

    "That floral pattern looks like it belongs on a tablecloth," Kenya said, gesturing towards the dress. "Or it looks like it belongs on the wallpaper of an old farmhouse or something. It's dated. The cut of the dress is also ugly. Especially at the collar. And are those pleats? Pleats? On the skirt of a floral print dress? You look like you're about to go twirling out of the room, singing about the hills being alive. I can't. With this entire dress, I just can't. And shit, you and I aren't the same size and the party is going to start any minute, so we're on borrowed time." She tapped her cheek in thought. Then she turned and started rummaging in Tatiana's closet again. With a dissatisfied grunt, she crossed the room and went into her own closet.

    Tatiana followed her across the room. "What are you looking for?"

    "A dress for you," Kenya said, sliding dresses on the closet rod.

    "But...like you said, we aren't the same size."

    Kenya hoisted a look in her direction. "We aren't the same size, but anything in my closet would still beat out anything in your closet. We're going to have to improvise. Make something fit. There are ways, trust me. It's better for the dress to be too big on you than too small. We can work with too big." She pulled a teal-colored sundress out of the closet and held it up to Tatiana. "Hmm. I can do better than that." She hung the teal dress back up, and continued her search. "Ah. This." She pulled out a pink and white ombre tube top dress. It looked to be floor-length.