“We’ll pin the blue skirt up here in the front so the white shows underneath. That gives everything a little more fullness too.” She produced some safety pins and showed me what she meant, gathering up the front of the blue skirt in a few different places and pinning the fabric up by each hip. Then she pulled the bodice down a little more snugly around my hips to cover the pins.

She stepped back to survey her progress. I was starting to feel less like a person and more like a doll she was putting into a costume. Ren Faire Barbie.

“Okay, let’s tighten this for real now. Hold up the girls.”

“The . . . what? Hold up the what?”

“The girls.” Stacey cupped her own breasts over her T-shirt, hiked them up dramatically. I let a nervous giggle slip out because wow, she was not a bit self-conscious. “They’re gonna be on display for six weeks this summer, we have to strap ’em in properly.”

“Okay.” My dubiousness showed in my voice. “You know there’s not a lot here to work with, right?” Hell, most days it was a toss-up as to whether I felt like wearing a bra or not. It wasn’t exactly necessary.

“You’ll be surprised. Now, hike ’em up and brace yourself!”

“Yes, ma’am!” I snapped to attention at her commanding voice and reached down into the bodice, under the chemise. Treating my palms like a push-up bra, I pushed my breasts together and up, and Stacey started tugging on the laces again.

Everything got tighter. So. Much. Tighter.

“Jesus, Stacey!” I planted my feet a little wider. I couldn’t exactly see what she was doing because the whole process hiked my boobs higher up my chest and those things were pretty opaque.

“Nope!” Her voice was far too chipper, but she wasn’t the one getting all the oxygen sucked from her body with each pull of the strings. “Not Stacey, remember? We have to start using Faire names!”

Another pull, and I grunted again. “Right, sorry, Beatrice.” Did it really matter? Apparently so, since everyone had started using their character names in conversation a week or two ago. Which frankly sucked, since I’d just started learning people’s real names. So I was going to be lost all over again.

“Thank you, Emma,” she replied. Then she sighed. “You put so much effort into picking a name.”

“I’m guaranteed to answer to it, at least.” I’d made that joke more than once whenever anyone called me on my uncreative Faire name. She snorted in reply and pulled on the strings again. I oofed again.

“Almost done here . . . one more good tug . . .” I couldn’t tell if Stacey was talking to me, to herself, or to my bodice. But sure enough, she tugged once more and then I felt her fiddling around with the front of it, tying the strings in place. I didn’t want to move my hands yet; better to wait until she was done before making sure I was, well, tucked in properly.

While she finished up, I looked down to the front of the auditorium, where a clump of high school kids sat on the floor in a rough circle, their skirts billowing around them. Caitlin, resplendent in pink brocade and elaborately braided hair, giggled at something one of her friends said, and her hand flew to her mouth to cover her toothy smile. She was like me in that respect: a girl who laughed with abandon. Except she was also like April, slapping her hand over her laugh, stifling it to not stand out as much.

But she was having a great time, and that was all that mattered to me. That was why I was here.

I was so distracted looking at my niece I didn’t notice Stacey and I were no longer alone until I heard a voice behind me.

“Wenches. How are the costumes coming?”

Fuck. Simon had joined us, and I was standing there holding my breasts in my hands like some kind of pervert.

To his credit, he froze when he came around to where he could see me properly. His mouth closed with a snap, and the tips of his ears got red fast.

“Um,” I said.

“Sorry.” He immediately spun around, turning his back to me, even though I was completely covered.

“No, no, we’re good here.” Stacey stepped back. “How does that feel?”

I extricated my hands from inside my dress and made sure I was tucked in before taking a breath, but it stopped about halfway through. Deep breaths were apparently off the menu. I tried smaller sips of air, breathing from the top half of my chest instead of from my diaphragm. Much better. I gave her a thumbs-up before adjusting the chemise until it sat even in a ruffle over my breasts.

And damn, said breasts looked pretty good. The tight lacing of the bodice had sucked everything in and pushed it all up, and . . . damn. I should look into wearing these all the time. Well, maybe not all the time. Breathing once in a while would be nice.

Stacey tilted her head to the side and surveyed my completed costume. “I like it. Just need to get some boots. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” I tried to look down at myself, but all I could see was cleavage cushioned in blue and white. “It feels okay. Kind of tight, but I think I can get used to it.” I looked up at her again and realized she wasn’t talking to me at all. Her gaze was to my right, where Simon turned back around to survey my completed outfit.

While he inspected me, I inspected him right back. He was usually so put-together, not a wrinkle in his clothes, a hair out of place. Not a single muscle relaxed.

Today he looked . . . slovenly. Instead of the meticulously put-together guy I was used to, he looked like he’d woken up late and thrown on the first clothes he’d found in the dark on the floor. Leather boots under faded black pants that had seen better days. They looked like sweatpants cut off at the ankles so they hung loose around the tops of his boots. A heathered gray-green T-shirt hung untucked over the pants. There wasn’t a neatly ironed garment or a vest to be seen. His hair seemed longer too, or maybe it was just a little mussed, and he had a few days’ growth of stubble on his face. For a split second I wondered if he was okay—had he been sick? I shook off the thought before I did something stupid like ask.

He chewed on his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes on my bodice, and I was starting to feel insulted. Couldn’t he drool over my cleavage a little bit? But I wasn’t a person to him. I was a cog in his Ren faire machine. We’d hardly spoken since that day in the bookstore.

Finally he nodded, a short jerk of his head. “It all looks fine. Hair?”

“Yes. This is my hair.” I gestured to the wavy brown mess in its usual ponytail, and Simon didn’t smile. Did he know how to joke? At all? “Okay, sorry. We haven’t talked about hair, but . . .” I pulled the elastic out of my hair and shook it out. “It’s long enough to pull back; I figured something like . . .” I gathered it all into a sort of knot at the base of my skull in illustration.

He nodded again, his eyes lingering on my hair for an extra moment or two. “That works.” He turned to Stacey, and I was dismissed in that moment. “How about you? Same costume as last year?”

“Yep, I haven’t had time to get anything new. Oh, but I bought a necklace from a vendor at the end of Faire last year. I was planning to add it.”

“What kind of necklace?” He looked skeptical, because jewelry was apparently a crime. “Wenches aren’t flashy, you know.”

“Aren’t flashy?” I would have laughed out loud if I’d had the lung capacity. But my laugh came out more like a wheeze. “I’ve got my boobs out for everyone to see. How is that not flashy?”

Simon kept his attention on Stacey, who answered his question as though I weren’t there. “It’s a pewter Celtic knot on a cord, nothing fancy.” Her fingers went to the base of her throat and tapped her collarbone. “It feels like I should have something here, you know? Like Emily says, we’re kind of out on display here, and it feels like a blank canvas.”

He cracked a smile, but only for a second. “I see your point. That’s fine. Names are finalized, right? Not changing them?”

“Of course not.” She smiled at him. “Sean gave me that name. I’m not changing it.”

“I didn’t think you would.” By the time he turned to me his smile had vanished, which was too bad, because he looked much better when he smiled. “How about you?”

“Still going with Emma.” For the first time, I sort of regretted my flippant response to this assignment. But I squared my shoulders and owned it. The girl who wore this outfit was Emma, and if he didn’t like it he could suck it.

He didn’t like it. His mouth twisted. “Are you taking this seriously at all?”

His vitriol was startling. “What do you mean?”

“Did you put any effort into picking out a name?”

This again? When Stacey had said it, it had been kind of funny. But she had been teasing. Simon sounded like I was working his last nerve by choosing a name that was so close to my own.

But now rage bubbled in my chest. “Not taking it seriously?” I spread my arms. “I’m standing here with my internal organs squeezed together. I’m pretty sure I can’t bend enough to sit down. And you’re going to give me shit about picking out a name?”

He practically flinched when I cursed, and his eyes darted around us. Ah, crap. I’d forgotten we were in a room full of kids.