Free The Seven Steps to Closure by Donna Joy Usher Page A

the top of the waistband wobbling on when the rest of me had stopped. It was disconcerting.
    ‘Bend over.’ Elaine was obviously curious as to how far we could push the limits of the shiny, disco club material.
    I bent over as far as I could without ripping open the back of the pants, which was not very far. When I stood back up, a small amount of pubic hair popped over the top of the pants. I saw Elaine’s eyebrows shoot up as she started giggling.
    Unfortunately the shop assistant chose that exact moment to join Elaine, and pulled open the door to get a better look. I squealed in horror and held both hands over the offending tuft of hair. Elaine was doing her darndest not to laugh out loud. Her eyes were filled with barely suppressed mirth and her face was turning as red as mine felt. She probably would have made it, if the sales assistant hadn’t chosen that precise moment to say, ‘Mmmm. They look quite nice.’
    Elaine started howling with laughter. She thumped the door with her hand as tears rolled down her face.
    ‘Are you serious?’ I asked the sales girl incredulously as I pulled the door shut.
    Elaine was hanging onto the cubicle for support, struggling to get a breath around her laughter. Finally when she had it under control she asked, ‘Have you got them off yet?’
    ‘No,’ I replied sullenly.
    ‘Why ever not?’
    ‘Tried. Can’t.’
    That set her off again, and I had to wait for another humiliating minute until she had gained enough self-control to come in and help me.
    ‘Tara, how did you get them up?’
    ‘Pure determination.’
    She grabbed the top of my pants and started wrestling them down. Everything was progressing swimmingly, until she got them half way down my thighs. I had begun to sweat and they were sticking to me like the skin on a sausage. One minute I was standing there relatively calmly while Elaine huffed and puffed and pulled and pushed, and the next I lost my balance and started swaying on the spot like a tree about to fall.
    ‘Oohahoohaahoooa,’ I said, sounding an awful lot like a monkey, and then I toppled onto Elaine. We went crashing out the change room door and into the aisle, where I lay flopping around like a fish, with my pants half way down.
    ‘Well,’ said Elaine, clambering up and grabbing the pants around my thighs, ‘you can’t say shopping with you is boring.’
    I lifted my hips off the ground to assist her determined effort. The shop assistant hovered in the entry, watching us with a look of dismay on her face. Elaine swivelled around and smiled sweetly at her. ‘Nearly got them,’ she assured her before resuming her tugging.
    ‘That is why I hate clothes shopping,’ I informed Elaine, as we left the shop.
    ‘Rubbish,’ she said poo-pooing me, ‘you just need to try on the right clothes for your body shape. No more tight pants.’ Which I thought was pretty unfair, seeing as how the pants had been her idea in the first place.
    ‘I think we should start with the shoes.’ My stomach let out a huge gurgle.
    ‘Coffee first?’ suggested Elaine, turning into a café.
    ‘And cheesecake,’ I said, ‘although if those pants are anything to go by I’m going to have to do a killer session at the gym this afternoon.’
    ‘I might join you,’ said Elaine, patting her own perfectly flat stomach.
    We ordered our coffee and cake and then relaxed at a booth while we waited.
    ‘Have you heard from Nat?’ asked Elaine.
    ‘Oh sorry, I meant to tell you. I had a text from her this morning.’
    ‘So, she’s alive.’
    ‘Yep. I still can’t believe she didn’t show the other night.’
    ‘I have a feeling all will be revealed tonight.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because whatever it is, it’s coming to a head. If we were to graph the events we would note that the out of character occurrences are becoming larger and more frequent; a bit like a volcano working up to a full eruption.’
    ‘Or a serial killer,’ I suggested.
    We looked at each other and