"Oh...what's this?"

Rebecca McCurdy was reading a book while lounging in the living room, when an off-duty Tawny approached her with a decorated card in her hand.

"It's an invitation," said Tawny. "You -- Professor McCurdy and yourself -- have been summoned to attend a dinner party."

"Is that so?" Rebecca gently took the card from Tawny's hands and read it.

Sara had dropped Tawny off at the McCurdy residence. After an intense afternoon of brainstorming, it was decided that their first order of business would be to make invitation cards for the esteemed guests.

"The invitation has to be perfect," explained Sarah. "Both in presentation and execution. I don't want you to just hand them the cards as they pick you up. So I'll drop you off and you can make the cordial announcement properly."

Tawny, Maddie, and Audrey were hard at work handcrafting the perfect cards, down to the most intricate lacing and beading trim. Though it was far from hard labour, it was still labour-intensive work, so much so that Tawny felt like her hands and eyes would fall off by the end of it.

But it looked to have paid off, for Rebecca was still marveling at the card. "Eugene? Did you hear? We've been invited to something wonderful."

As if out of nowhere, Professor McCurdy emerged in the living room. It looked like he had just finished working out; a towel was draped around his shoulder, he was wearing a white tank top and navy blue shorts, and both his clothes and his body were drenched in sweat.

"What's that, Rebecca dear?" McCurdy asked, approaching them both. "And Miss Matthews? I didn't expect you home so early."

Tawny went momentarily catatonic.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, dear," explained Rebecca, handing the card over to her husband. "Looks like Bryce will be back in a few weeks to commemorate the untimely passing of his wife."

"I see..." said Professor McCurdy, examining the card with the same exacting scrutiny as his wife. "Then this is indeed a momentous occasion. But why are you still dressed as a maid?"

"Sarah....uh....Sarah's orders," Tawny said, when her brain finally decided to work again. "She wanted the invitation to be proper, so I had to present the invitation while in uniform. I'll go change now."

"Actually..." said Rebecca standing up from the loveseat, "Perhaps now would be an opportune time to try on some dresses for the event. I just ordered some outfits from Milan that came in today. Tawny, dear, would you care to join me?"

Tawny shook her head. "I'll be on-duty during the dinner, so I won't be able to dress up..."

"Just for fun, dear, just for fun!" coaxed Rebecca, tugging on Tawny's arm. "Sometimes it's good to try things on just for the simple pleasures of feeling satin on skin!"

"You'll have to forgive my wife," Professor McCurdy said. "Luxury fabrics is one of her vices."

"Please indulge me, Tawny," begged Rebecca. "If only for a moment. The satin, the seersucker, the silk...it calls to me...!"

"Uh...okay," Tawny was thrown off by this seemingly sudden change in Rebecca. It had been like a switch had been thrown on and she went from a classy, elegant, mysterious woman, to a giddy effervescent teen.

The power of clothing compels her, I guess, mused Tawny wrily.

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Tawny followed Rebecca to the McCurdy bedroom, where Rebecca made a beeline for her walk-in closet. Tawny hesitated at the doorway. To her, it felt like an invasion of the most intimate degree. After all, Professor McCurdy slept here...

Rebecca smiled expectantly at Tawny. "Over here, you must see these dresses, they are simply to die for..."

At Rebecca's request, Tawny steeled herself as she crossed the threshold. She purposely avoided eye contact as she passed by the McCurdy's lavish four-poster bed, still undone this late in the day.

When she reached the walk-in closet, Rebecca was already deep inside, swirling around with a long red dress in her hands.

"This feels divine...." said Rebecca, rubbing the dress to her cheek and humming. "What do you think, Tawny dear?"

"Uh..." Tawny was still taking in the sheer vastness of the space; each wall was filled to the brim with hangers that held beautiful outfits, each more stunning than the last, which seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Rather than wait for Rawny to respond, Rebecca plucked another hanger; attached to it was a blue dress still wrapped in plastic, unopened.

"Hmm..." Rebecca said. "I may have purchased this a size too small...but this would look lovely on you."

Tawny put her hands up. "Oh no, I couldn't possibly---"

"I insist," said Rebecca, handing the dress over to Tawny and forcing her to hold it. "I think it would suit her just fine, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes, I think it would look spectacular on her."

Tawny looked up and past Rebecca to the entrance of the walk-in closet, where Professor McCurdy was leaning against the doorway. "I was just checking in to see if you girls needed anything before I head to the shower."

"Actually..." Rebecca said, placing a finger on her chin, "I'd love to do a photoshoot. All these beautiful new outfits have gotten me inspired. I want to preserve this moment. We'll get changed. In the meantime, you take your shower and then afterward find your camera, the one I had gotten for you for your birthday."

McCurdy nodded. "Very well. See you both soon."

When he left, Rebecca put her fingers through Tawny's hair. "I think curls would really enhance the look...how would you like a makeover?"

----------------------------------------

An hour later, a freshened-up Professor McCurdy had ushered Rebecca and Tawny back into the living room.

Both Rebecca and Tawny had changed into the red and blue gowns, respectively. Rebecca had also taken the time to do the teenager's makeup and curl her brown hair. When she glanced at herself in the mirror, Tawny was taken aback. She barely recognized the person staring back at her; she seemed more mature and poised, the red lipstick and curls made her feel like she was cosplaying as a wealthier version of herself from another multiverse.

Both she and Rebecca posed on the same loveseat from earlier as McCurdy, camera in hand, took professional photographs. Every so often he would approach the loveseat and move their arms and take shots from different angles.

For Tawny, the whole ordeal felt strange. She wasn't used to playing model, and while she had no doubt in her mind that the photographs would be brilliant, she couldn't reconcile in her mind the lie that would have been told in the image. Two gorgeous women, pulled straight out of a Victorian vampire gothic novel, with faces clear but minds intent on what their grooming had prepared them for: Ease. Freedom. Dominance.

No, Tawny thought inwardly. This isn't me at all.

To distract herself, Tawny's eyes flitted upward to the portrait above Professor McCurdy's head. It was the one of Rebecca at which she had upon the first night she visited the McCurdy household.

For her, it was still surreal to be sitting next to the virtual goddess portrayed in the painting. Did McCurdy paint this as well, wondered Tawny. Is he a skilled artist as well as a teacher? How little do I truly know about these people...?

Tawny's mind wandered again, this time to the beautiful sadness of the the picture of the Westinghouses over the matriarch's grave. Such beauty captured in such tragedy...it made her angry to think of the photographer who was so lucky and perverse to capture such raw, elegant emotion in a single frame...

The loss of their mother led her to think of the state of her own mother, and she worried what would become of her in her illness. Her, lying weak in a hospital bed, while she lounged in a luxury that she felt she didn't deserve...

Professor McCurdy lifted Tawny's chin upward so that her face met hers. He set the camera down and looked at her, concerned.

"Miss Matthews..." Professsor McCurdy said, "Are you alright? Your eyes are watery."

"Uh-huh..." Tawny wiped the tears from her eyes with her arm...then immediately regretted the action, as it left an unsightly black streak of mascara along the sleeve of her arm.

"Tawny, dear, what's wrong?" asked Rebecca, sitting up. Professor McCurdy sat at her opposite side. She was overcome with emotion and confusion about her current situation and could bear the incongruity of it all no longer.

"I need to take five..." Tawny announced, suddenly standing up and walking , then running toward her bedchambers. As soon as she closed the door, she ripped off the grown, where it stayed on the floor as a glossy, unwanted second skin. Then she threw herself on the bed and divulged into a fit of sobs.