“So, you’re here to get something to wear.” Bobo eyed me a minute more. “And you don’t like to shop.”

“Right,” I said disconsolately.

“Got to go to a shower?”

“I have a list,” I told him, aware of how bleak my voice sounded.

“Let’s see.”

I handed him the sheet of stationery.

“A shower… two showers. A dinner. Then the rehearsal dinner. The wedding. You’ll be a bridesmaid?”

I nodded.

“So she’s got your dress for that?”

I nodded again.

“So, what do you need?”

“I have a nice black suit,” I said.

Bobo looked expectantly at me.

“That’s it.”

“Oh, wow, Lily,” he said, suddenly sounding his age. “Do you ever have shopping to do.”

That evening I spread out my purchases on the bed. I’d had to use my charge card, but everything I’d gotten I could use for a long time.

A pair of well-cut black slacks. For one shower, I’d wear them with a gold satin vest and an off-white silk blouse. For the second, I’d wear them with an electric blue silk shell and a black jacket. I could wear the shoes that went with the black suit, or a pair of blue leather pumps that had been on sale. I could wear my good black suit to the rehearsal dinner. For the dinner party I had a white dress, sleeveless, that I could wear in the winter with the black jacket, in the summer by itself. I had the correct underpinnings for each outfit, and I had bought a pair of gold hoop earrings and a big gold free-form pin. I already had diamond earrings and a diamond bar pin my grandmother had left me.

This was all thanks to Bobo’s advice.

“You must have read some of Amber Jean’s girls’ magazines,” I had accused him. Bobo had a younger sister.

“Nah. That’s the only shopping wisdom I have to offer. ‘Everything has to match or coordinate.’ I guess I learned it from my mom. She has whole sections of clothes that can be mixed and matched.”