“I’ve brought down some pink lace, satin, and other fabrics for you to look at. With your skin tones, you’ll be beautiful in that color. If I were doing your makeup, I’d use just a hint of pink lipstick and a thin line of blue eye shadow to accent your gorgeous eyes. Has she chosen hats or . . .”

“A circlet of roses with burgundy ribbons.” Tabby’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling again. “She must think we’re still little girls.”

“What if you had the hairdresser pull up the sides of your hair into a crown braid so the flowers would sit right in the middle and then loosely curl the rest of your hair?” Mitzi picked up a sketch pad and quickly drew what she had in mind.

“Wow!” Dixie exclaimed. “That’s beautiful. Can we take that with us to the hair place?”

Mitzi ripped the page off the pad and handed it to her. “Now, let’s talk style. Swing dresses are all the rage. What if we did something like this?” In a few minutes she’d whipped up a picture. “You won’t want to use heavy satin or it won’t flow right, and what do you think of cutting it off right here and doing the top in pink lace?”

Dixie frowned and finally shook her head. “No, make it all the same material, but give us wide straps instead of a high neckline.”

Tabby pulled the neck of her T-shirt to the side. “Wide enough to cover our normal bra like this so we don’t have to wear a strapless. I hate those things.”

Mitzi picked up a thick eraser and redid the top of the dress. “How about some burgundy trim somewhere to tie in those ribbons?”

Tabby pointed at the hem. “Just a hint around there. No, wait! I saw a dress last week at the mall that had a little ruffle of tulle around the bottom.”

If Mitzi had daughters, she’d want them to be just like these two girls—all up in fashion and color. She picked up a burgundy pencil, and with a few flicks of the wrist, she put in a ruffle of soft illusion. “What do you think?”

“Neither,” Dixie said. “Draw what the back will look like. I’ve got an idea.”

Mitzi tore that sheet out and quickly redrew the dress from the back. It didn’t look all that different from the front, except the back had a hidden zipper to give them dressing ease.

“Okay, now draw a burgundy bow right there with streamers that hang to the bottom of the dress,” Dixie said. “And take away that stuff on the bottom. It will draw attention to our legs and we’d rather folks looked at our faces.”