"He needs three suits," Mai reminded him. "Four might be better." She was curled into a vintage, gray-upholstered chair in the corner of the showroom. The tailor nodded without looking up from his measurements.
Griffen glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked annoyed. Well, he felt annoyed. "I do have a suit."
"That thing? Bought off the rack in a drugstore?"
"A department store!" Griffen protested.
"In any case, it is not black tie, and you only have the one. It is unsuitable for this occasion. Stand still, and do not cause more trouble."
Griffen grumbled but obeyed orders. He had been in a formal-wear shop exactly twice in his life, once when his uncle dragged him there to get a suit for his parents' funeral, and early that summer for college graduation. He felt that he had aged hundreds of years since then. He found the racks of black suits oppressive.
"Isn't it weird that in nature, the male has the colorful plumage and the female usually is drab-colored?" he asked. "The cardinal's bright red, and the female is light brown."
"You want a bright red tux?" the tailor asked, raising his eyebrows with interest. "I got those. They're in the warehouse. I thought you wanted proper black tie."
"He does," Mai said.
"Besides, blue is more my color," Griffen said.
"Bright blue, peacock blue, royal blue, or powder blue?" the tailor asked.
"Powder blue would make me look like I was opening for Liberace," Griffen said. "What about royal blue? I'm the king, after all."
"Black," Mai said. "Don't listen to another thing he says."
"Gotcha, ma'am," the tailor said.
Etienne had been right: There were no tuxedos to be found in his size in New Orleans that late in the season. Nor were there any to be had in Metairie.
"You should have reserved them sooner," Mai had protested after five fruitless visits to other rental shops.
"I didn't know sooner," Griffen reminded her.
Baton Rouge was busy with shoppers on the last Saturday before Christmas. Griffen had had to park their rental car a couple of blocks away in a pay lot. He had not had a car of his own since the destruction of his beloved Goblin. Jerome insisted that he didn't really need one in New Orleans, but it had been a personal attack to demolish the vehicle, all the more so since he had been sitting in it at the time. He had always had a car since he could drive one. He loved the freedom of driving, the ability to escape wherever he was and just go somewhere. He loved the rumble of the engine and the feel of the road that vibrated up through the shocks and the springs into the driver's seat. A small part of him demanded that he satisfy that itch and buy another car as soon as he could afford one, but that was going to be a long time in the future. He had withdrawn the remainder of the membership fee for Fafnir, leaving a balance in his account that was only four figures. He knew he still needed five to get through until March. In the meantime, the bronze-colored sedan reminded him of his curtailed freedom. The occasional rental would help in the short term.
"That's it!" the tailor said. He rose, grunting, to his feet. Griffen climbed down from the pedestal and followed him to the racks. Using a metal pole with a two-fingered hook on the end, the tailor grabbed hangers from the top rack and swung them down into Griffen's arms. "Let's just try these on for size."
Griffen admired himself in the mirror, turning this way and that. He straightened the satin lapels of the tailored jacket. "I don't look half-bad."
"You've got a little style," the tailor said. "Let me chalk up these pants, and you're good to go."
Griffen handed over a deposit of 25 percent against two months' rental of three tuxes plus all of the small accoutrements that went with them, such as cummerbunds, collar stays, and studs. The tailor saw them to the door.
"Come back in five days. Everything will be ready by then."
"Now we will go and buy me a gown," Mai said, taking his arm firmly as the bell on the door jingled behind them.
Griffen halted. "Wait a minute, this was just supposed to be a trip to rent suits for me."
Mai pretended to pout, her small lower lip protruding.
"Fair is fair," she said.
Griffen knew when not to continue an argument he had already lost. "All right," he said. "Where do you want to look?"
She reeled off an address. "I'll wait until you get the car."
"But it's only three blocks from here," Griffen said. "I'll end up parking in the same lot again."
This time Mai did pout. "These shoes are not good for long walks," she said.
"Should I carry you?" Griffen asked, playfully, swooping down on her and hoisting her in his arms. "Or are you going to sprout wings and fly?"
"Ooh!" she said, her eyes sparking just as playfully. "That just cost you a higher tier of designer."
Mai knew exactly what size she was and what styles looked good on her. But that didn't curtail the number of things she tried on. The clerks in the boutique carried dozens of dresses to the curtained-in dressing room. Griffen sat in the main room, on a dainty chair with an oval back covered in gold satin, listening to her comments as she tried on one gown after another, dismissing them in turn with terse remarks. Griffen shifted uneasily. He felt the chair might collapse under him at any moment. He didn't mind being fair in terms of spending time shopping for her as they had done for him, but being unable to see what was going on left him bored. All the magazines in the carved wooden racks were periodicals as thick as his wrist, but all about fashion, hairstyles, accessories, and other details about which he just did not care. The owner, a narrow-faced woman taller than Griffen, ignored him as if he were another chair. She sailed past him with a brilliant green gown on a hanger and vanished into the draped enclosure.
"What a lovely figure you have, sweetheart," she exclaimed. "My goodness, look at that! That is just perfect. Turn and let me see the back. Perfect!"
"Well, not quite perfect," Mai's voice said, thoughtfully, for the tenth or twelfth time. Griffen groaned to himself. "The shade is good, but perhaps it should be lower cut?"
"Why don't you let your boyfriend see it and find out what he thinks?"
"Why not?"
The curtain was thrown back. Griffen almost gasped. Mai came out wearing a bronze-colored satin dress. It revealed a good deal of her modest cleavage, which somehow had been enhanced, nipped in underneath her bosom along her slender waist, then fell in Grecian folds to the floor. When she walked, the skirts parted with a whisper. Her legs from the knees down were revealed at each step. She looked breathtaking.
"What do you think, Griffen?"
Griffen swallowed deeply. "Wow," he said. The ladies of the shop smiled indulgently at him. He goggled at her. She was beautiful, but he had never pictured her looking like a 1940s movie goddess.
Mai walked a few paces and turned to look in the mirror that filled the shop's wall. She tilted her head. "No, I think not. I think the red one was better." She reached around behind her and undid one fastening. The silk dress fell to the floor. The ladies rushed to gather it up.
"I'll get the red one," the owner said. She disappeared into the dressing room. Mai waited, posed like a mannequin in her underwear. Griffen realized she was wearing a strapless push-up bra and a lace thong. Though he found them stunning and intriguing, their import suddenly dawned on him.
"You planned to have me take you dress-shopping?" he asked.
"Of course," she said. "Why else would I have come with you to look for suits?"
"Well, to keep me from renting a blue tux," Griffen said.