Dauphine dragged me to several stalls where even I had to admit the dresses were gorgeous. I bought a couple of linen summer dresses at Dauphine’s urging, one in white and one in black, as well as a jade green halter neck bikini. “I’ve never bought a swimsuit without trying it on.” I grimaced, wishing at least Meredith were here to give me advice. Even Andrea. The sizes made no sense, so I held a bikini top up and fitted the strap around my chest. Dauphine grabbed the sales lady’s hand to get her attention and garbled something to her. The no nonsense sales lady gave me a look up and down, then suddenly grabbed my boobs in her hands, letting go before I could even gasp in shock. Then she grabbed me by the shoulders and whipped me around side to side and back to face her. Heat plumed along my chest and cheeks. She muttered something, sounding irritated or unimpressed, and then grabbed my hips and waist.

Dauphine giggled, her small hand covering her mouth.

“What just happened?” I managed.

“She measured you.”

“With her hands?” I whisper-squeaked.

Mr. Pascale stood loitering, dark glasses still on and phone in his free hand. For a moment I thought he hadn’t seen until I saw him sucking in his cheeks, trying really hard not to laugh.

Before I could process whether he was actually laughing at me or something on his phone, since I couldn’t see his eyes, the woman was back. She twisted me around again and nodded.

“Um,” I tried, my eyebrows practically in my hairline.

“Bon,” she said and ripped the original bikini out of my hands, replacing it with another the same color.

“You needed a bigger size, she said,” Dauphine told me.

“Uh, okay.”

The woman rattled off something else.

“She says it’s eighty euros for the dresses and the bikini, but I think you can offer her fifty.”

“Wait. Really?”

Dauphine shrugged. “I think it is okay. Papa always says they charge more to Americans.”

I reached into my small cross body purse to get some cash and timidly handed the woman a fifty euro note. She snatched it out of my hand and then said something terse to Dauphine.

“Okay, she said she’d take sixty. Do you have ten more?”

I dug around and found a twenty. “Here,” I told the woman, feeling bad. “Make it seventy.”

“Bon,” she snapped and took it, looking less than impressed with my bargaining, even though it was in her favor. Then she was off helping someone else.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered under my breath, feeling like I’d just been in some kind of battle where I’d also been violated. “Not sure that was worth the discount,” I told Dauphine. “She wasn’t very friendly.”