* Chapter 26 *

"Mel! Cynth! I need your help!" I yelled after opening the door to the duplex that they shared.

"With what?" I heard Mel’s voice holler back from somewhere in the house.

"I need help with a dress," I replied as I walked into the kitchen and sat at the table next to Cynthia. "And I know that you sew and all," I trailed off while she gave me one of her crazy smiles.

"What’s it for?" she asked happily. "Special occasion?"

"Actually yeah. It’s for an awards show and I want both of you to come with me to it," I exclaimed as Mel walked in and took a seat beside me at the table.

"Which awards show are we talking about here?" Mel asked curiously.

"The MTV awards show in two weeks," I replied sheepishly.

"Oh my gosh! You are going to THE MTV awards show! And you’re asking us to go with you?" she said excitedly.

"Yeah," I said before they both started screaming and jumping up and down with extreme enthusiasm. "That’s why I need help with a dress. I mean, I actually need two dresses."

"Wait...wait...wait. How did you get two tickets?" Mel asked.

"I have a friend...ever heard of Meggie D? She gave me her extra ticket cause she doesn’t’ need it," I explained.

"You know Meggie D?!?" Cynth burst out.

"Yeah," I said like it was no big deal.

"THE Meggie D?" Mel chimed in.

"Yeah! I was just going to give her a call after I got home."

"You...you...you have her number?"

"Yeah."

"Sweet! We’re best friends with Meggie D’s friend!" They both exclaimed.

"Ok, ok...calm down! We need to get working on what we’re gonna wear."

We hopped in my truck and took off to the closest fabric store. After looking through books and books of different sketches of gowns, we were pretty tired and almost ready to give up for the day.

"I’ve found it! It’s perfect for ya Elsa!" Mel hollered from one of the stools a few feet away.

Both Cynth and I strolled over to where Mel was sitting and pointing to a figure hugging, long sleeved elegant dress. The dress in the picture was made of light green sequin material and it was floor length with a scoop neckline.

"That is the ugliest color I have ever seen!" I joked.

"Yeah, but the dress would look great," Mel commented.

"I agree," Cynth chimed in.

"Ok."

I went and found the pattern before returning to look for another dress. This time looking for something on more of the ‘designer’ side of the fashion scale.

"Hey Liz, come look at this," Cynth said as she looked up from what she had in front of her.

Mel was sitting next to her with a pad and pencil in hand. As I walked over to where they were sitting, I could see that Mel was drawing a picture on the pad.

"Wow!" I exclaimed when I saw the dress that Mel had made a sketch of.

"You like it?" Mel asked.

"It’s gorgeous," I replied with a smile. "Is that what you’re wearing?"

"No...I was hoping you’d wear it," she said happily.

"Me? I think you should...it’s your design," I said, totally shocked that she wanted me to wear her dress.

"That’s why I want you to wear it," she responded. "I drew it for you! Besides, I already found what I’m wearing," she said as she pointed to a dress in one of the open books on the table.

"You sure?"

She nodded in response.

"Ok...I’ll wear it then. Did you find a dress Cynth?"

"Yep."

"Great! Let’s go pick out some material then!" I said happily as we picked up the patterns and headed to the rows and rows of material.

"I think I want this one to be made of black silk," I said while pointing to the green sequin dress. "And this one needs to be white...Meg and I decided I’d wear white and she’d wear black..."

"Cool!" Mel said. "Are you two going up together or something?"

"I guess you could say that," I said with a smirk.

I hadn’t told Mel and Cynth that I would be singing with Meg yet, so they didn’t have a clue exactly why I needed two dresses. They just sort of went with the flow.

"This is nice material," Cynth said while rubbing some soft black silk in-between her fingers. "It would look great for the ‘sequined’ dress."

"Sweet," I said as I picked up the bundle of material and put it in our cart.

After picking out material for Cynth and Mel’s dresses, we headed over to the aisles of white material.

"What type of material should it be made of?" I asked.

"I dunno...maybe some sort of thin taffeta...or maybe a light flowing type of material would look best," Mel replied. "We’ll just have to look and see what they have."

We looked for what seemed like a half an hour before we finally found it. It was thin white material, like the material that prom dresses are made of. It wasn’t shiny, but it looked very chic under the lights of the store.

"This is perfect!" Cynth exclaimed.

We picked up buttons, thread, zippers and anything else that we needed before paying at the check stand. After we hurried back to my place, we started working on our dresses right away.

"We’ll start with yours first," Cynth said pointing at me.

"Ok," I replied as they pulled the black material out and unfolded it out on the living room floor. "Do you guys want anything to eat?"

"Sure," they said as they started pinning the pattern on the material.

"Ok. I’ll fix something quick. Here...I’ll play a movie so you don’t get bored out of your mind," I said as I turned to TV on and put in a movie.

"Thanks!" Cynth said happily before I went into the kitchen. "This is going to be great!" I heard her say to Mel after I left the room.

About 5 hours later I walked out of the bathroom with the black dress on. It still wasn’t quite finished, but it looked great nonetheless.

"Come here so I can fix this," Cynth said after I showed it off for a few seconds. "It really looks great! I’m so excited!"

"Me too," I said.

"Me three!" Mel chimed in.

Over the next week and a half, Mel and Cynth basically lived at my apartment between jobs, meetings, and church. It’s now two days before the big show and I’m sooooo nervous!

"Let’s go girls! We don’t want to miss our flight!" I hollered into my apartment.

"We’re coming," I heard Mel yell back as Cynth came walking out of my room with the dress bag in one hand and her bag in the other.

"I called a cab so I wouldn’t have to leave my truck at the airport," I explained as we waited in the elevator.

"Ok," they both replied before the elevator dinged at us to say that it was at the main floor.

We hopped into the cab and were soon on our way to the airport.

"This is so exciting!" Mel said happily as we found our seats on the plain.

"I know," Cynth agreed as we sat down next to each other in our first class seats.

"I’m just glad that we only have to fly to Cali instead of New York," I said with a little smile. "That flight would’ve been horrible...horribly long."

I wasn’t really excited as my two friends were. I mean, I was excited about singing with Meg in front of so many people, but I also knew that the guys would be there and I really didn’t want to have to bother with them. I know it sounds weird cause I got kind of close to them during my visit to O~town, but I really didn’t want to see them now. ‘My life is finally going great and now I know it’s going to get complicated again’ I thought to myself with a sigh as Mel and Cynth chatted happily. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and listened to what they were talking about.

"There are going to be soooo many cool people there!" Mel exclaimed.

"I know! Maybe we’ll get to meet some of them," Cynth said in the same enthusiastic tone.

"I hope we get to meet Meggie D too. I love her music," Mel said.

"Me too!" Cynth added. "Maybe we’ll even get to see Britney Spears...or the Backstreet Boys...or even Alanis Morrissette!"

"Cool cool cool!" was the last thing I heard Mel say before I tuned them out and dozed off.