LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Ash!”

      Ash raised her head as she heard her mother’s voice from downstairs.

      “Your ladyship, please come down here.”

      She lay back down. She was never talking to Laila again. How could she have humiliated her in the store like that? In front of Jessica and that other girl. She was sure word of her mother yelling at her about being poor would get around school before lunchtime.

      “Ashmitha, it’s a surprise. You will like it. It’s for your prom.”

      Ash was out of her bed in three seconds. Her mother had gone back to Rebel and bought the dress. She knew it. She knew her mother couldn’t be so cruel as to deny her oldest daughter her only wish for her senior prom.

      Ash flew down the stairs and came to a landing in the front hall, where her mother stood holding...not the Dreamsicle.

      “What’s this? Where’s the dress?”

      “This is.”

      Ash looked over the boxy, beaded two-piece tunic and skirt. It was about the furthest thing from the dress possible. “What are you talking about?”

      “I’d like you to wear this to your prom.”

      Ash almost fell over. “What do you mean?”

      “I told you you could go to the prom if you could keep within the hundred-dollar budget. Now you can. You will have extra money now for that nice dinner before.” Laila genuinely looked pleased with herself.

      “Mom, that’s like some Indian costume. I can’t wear that out of the house, much less to the prom!”

      Laila’s eyes narrowed. “This is not a costume. This is what I wore on the last day of my wedding. It was a gift from your Glamma.”

      Ash’s heart hurt at the mention of her Glamma. She was the one who related to Ash the best and understood her desire for pretty, fun things. Ash still missed her every day.

      “This lehenga is what you call a ‘vintage’ garment. It’s better than anything you’ll find at the store,” Laila added.

      Oh, God, her mother was going to get all 1950s Indian on her. “Mom, I’m pretty sure even girls in India don’t wear these things to the prom.”

      “There is no prom in India. Or in England where I was a girl.”

      “No wonder you don’t understand. You really do want me to be a freak,” Ash muttered, hoping her mother wouldn’t hear, but also hoping she would.

      “I’m telling you, at this rate and with your remarks, you are not going to your prom, either.” Her mother hung the dress on the coatrack in the front hallway and stalked past Ash. “I’m feeling quite regretful I’m even allowing you to spend money on a dress that you’ll wear exactly once!”

      Ash knew she’d hurt her mother’s feelings, but she wasn’t going to be the laughingstock at school with some garish costume. It was bad enough that she wore someone’s old clothes every single day. Not for prom. She wouldn’t be a hand-me-down girl for the prom, too.

      She heard the faint sounds of the television and a keyboard clicking.

      “Dad!” Ash spun around into the living room.

      “I heard nothing. I saw nothing.” Josh Montague was in his usual position, laptop on his lap, parked in front of the television, which played another rerun of Project Runway.

      Her parents were polar opposites, and Ash thought it was a miracle that they’d even met, much less had been crazy-in-love married for twenty years. Ash loved telling her friends the story of charismatic Josh Montague, who had won a scholarship to study music abroad at the beautiful University of Granada in Spain. He had been in awe of his beautiful orientation leader on the first day: the no-nonsense Laila Ray.

      Apparently, Laila had been a lifesaver for non-Spanish-speaking Josh, and he had promptly fallen in love with her and convinced her to take a train to Madrid with him for the weekend, and they had eloped before the semester was up. They’d spent a few years in London while Laila had gotten her law degree, and Josh had pursued computer science when he realized a music degree wasn’t going to take him too far in supporting his new bride.

      Ash still couldn’t believe her practical lawyer of a mother had left England behind to follow Josh to Seattle so he could make his software dreams a reality. Till this day, he was the one who could charm her into anything.

      “Dad, seriously. You need to talk to her. Where am I going to get a prom dress for a hundred dollars? And I’m not wearing that lehenga thingie.”

      “I think it’s important for you to learn some negotiation strategies that don’t involve yelling,” a voice piped up knowingly from the corner of the room.

      Ash shot a “get lost” look to Sonali, her little sister, who was in her usual position, hiding behind an easel that was bigger than her entire body. Ash caught a glimpse of Sonali’s face.

      “What did you do to your hair?” she demanded. Her sister had some sort of tangled bird’s nest-looking hairdo on top of her head, very different from the satin sheet of black hair she’d left home with that morning.

      Sona ducked back behind the easel out of Ash’s line of sight.

      “You better tell me, Sona. Right now.”

      Ash marched back to where Sona was hiding and grabbed her arm to make her stand. Gods. All of her hair was in a tangled, knotted mess. Ash couldn’t even get her fingers through a lock of it. It was like someone had superglued it into a knot.

      “Ow, stop!”

      “Who did this to you?”

      “Let go!” Sona pulled away her arm and sat back down. “I did it myself.”

      Ash glanced at her dad with an are-you-hearing-this look.

      Josh shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me, either.”

      “Tell me what happened.” Ash lowered her voice. “Did something happen at school?”

      “I just wanted to do something different with my hair.” Sona was the worst liar in the world. “That’s not illegal.”

      Bad enough that the eleven-year-old was some sort of artistic genius, but was also in the progress of becoming a bully’s target, apparently. The only person who was allowed to mess with her sister was her. Ash vowed to figure out who and why, and would resort to spying on her sister to do so.

      “Let it go,” Josh murmured. “She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

      Ash disagreed. Sona was like a timid baby deer outside the house... That was one of the main reasons their parents sent Sona to a very small private school for gifted artists.

      “Why don’t you come to the mall with me? You’ll see what I’m talking about.” Ash turned her attention back to her father. “Please? Please, please, please? I’ll write the band’s next song.”

      “Your mother’s the decision maker on this one, love. I’m sorry.”

      “Next two songs.”

      “No.”

      “Daaaaaaaaaaad.”

      “Some cheese with that whine?”

      “Dad! Come on. Why don’t we have a gig and charge cover this weekend? We can play the new stuff. I swear I’ll learn it fast. We’ll earn enough for the dress in a night.”

      The best thing about having Josh Montague home full-time was that there was more music in the house than ever before. He and Ash had started a band with a few other neighbors and were in the process of working on their first real set to play at the next neighborhood barbecue.

      “I can pretty much assure you that giving people

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