I had forgotten it was Labor Day weekend. There was no escape from the all day long church picnic at the Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church. After putting on the blue floral polyester tunic top, the one Gabby referred to as the "mu-mu", a pair of not too beat up jeans, and the cheap sneakers from the discount store that my social worker had found for me in the donations bin, I headed upstairs to wait for the others in the kitchen.

Ann Simmons was next in the room. She gave out a distressed shriek when she saw me.

"Kelsey Mator! Does your disrespect know no bounds? You can't go to a church function in jeans. Go put on a dress this instant."

Ann was so angry that the whites of her eyes showed all the way around the colored part, and her helmet of hair bobbed aggressively as she bit off every word. I lurched to my feet and pushed away from the kitchen table.

"Okay, Mrs. Simmons. But I don't have a dress. You threw them all away."

"I did no such thing! Stop telling lies. Hurry up. If we're late because of you, I won't be responsible for my actions. Pastor Reardon would be so displeased." She sat down with a heavy thump on one of her cute retro red sparkle dinette chairs and started flicking through her phone.

I scurried back down to the basement, where Kim sat on her bed in a cute spaghetti strap sun top and a pair of high rise shorts. She was carefully applying eyeliner and didn't glance up as I came back in.

"Ann says that I have to wear a dress. Church clothes required," I said, then held my breath for a moment to stop my urge to hyperventilate.

"Shit." Kim capped her eyeliner and stripped off the sun top, then reached for a demure length dusty rose skater dress with cap sleeves and tiny sprigs of flowers all over it. She wriggled into it, swearing under her breath the entire time.

"Kim, what am I going to do? Ann threw away all my dresses. She said they were too feminine for someone with my figure."

"Well, what did she give you to wear to church, before you came up with the Wicca excuse?" Kim returned to her makeup.

I wordlessly gestured at the blue mu-mu top.

"Gawd. You're like the clueless younger sister I never had," Kim said after she finished her lip gloss.

Despite my impending meltdown, I was impressed with Kim's makeup skills. She looked fresh-faced, young, and super hot. Although she spent over half an hour on her makeup on this particular morning, it looked like she was barely wearing any. I was convinced that she was some kind of makeup wizard, but didn't dare say so, as she'd punch me and tell me to lay off the dungeons and dragons talk. In her own way, Kim was kind of modest about her various foster kid survival skills. And make no mistake; being able to create a look of fresh-faced innocence was definitely a foster kid survival skill. One that I didn't have.

"Look," Kim said as I stood staring hopelessly into a corner. "I can lend you this."

She rummaged through her clothes rack and pulled out a Wednesday Addams dress, black with a little white collar. Iconic. Kim was shorter than me and a little thinner, but the dress fit surprisingly well other than hitting above the knee.

"Too short," I said with a half-muffled sob. "But thanks for trying," I tacked on lamely while thinking to myself that I'd probably look too goth and witchy in it anyhow.

Kim just grunted and threw a pair of black tights my way. As I sat down on my bed to put them on, she grabbed a piece of my hair.

"Hold the fuck still, you moron," she ordered as she applied her hair straightener deftly to my disordered mess.

By the time I had to stand up to finish putting on the tights, she'd done half my head. She did the other half while I laced on a pair of chunky black loafers that she pushed out from under her bed. I knew better than to complain or struggle about the eyeliner and stuff when she closed in for the kill, but when I finally saw the finished result in her mirror, I wished I had.

I looked like I'd walked straight off of a goth girl clothing website. With the Wednesday Addams dress, my hair coaxed into a credible smooth long bob, and dramatic black eyeliner and burgundy lipstick on an otherwise clean face, I looked like what people expected when I said "Wiccan".

"Ann's not going to like this either," I wailed.

Kim handed me a tissue. "Don't ruin my work. Blot, don't rub, damn it."

I nodded and shoved the tissue into the tiny purse she handed me. It looked like it was made out of the cover of an old Bible.

"Why do you have all this stuff?" I asked her as we trooped up the stairs.

"Duh. I'm going to be Wednesday Addams for Halloween. I just need a black pigtail wig." She stopped and looked back at where I stood frozen just a few treads from the basement floor. "What?"

"I'm wearing your HALLOWEEN costume to the Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church Labor Day picnic?" I hissed in an outraged whisper.

"Black, it's so slimming," Kim explained with a sugary smile on her lips as she faced down Ann Simmons in the kitchen thirty seconds later. "We don't have time for her to change again. Plus, I'm not sure what else I have that would fit her."

"Yes, well, I suppose she fit into this because of my cabbage soup diet, but even that takes time. There are no instant results for a girl like her who's let herself go for so long," Ann said.

If I didn't owe Kim so much for bailing me out, I'd punch her later for talking about me like I wasn't there. With Ann it was standard operating procedure, a thing to be endured until I walked across the stage at graduation. Or got moved to a different foster family. Unlikely, with only nine months left in the system for me. And Kim.

"Which reminds me," Ann said, switching her attention to me again, "Don't over-eat at the picnic. I know how prone you are to stuffing your face, and frankly, it's embarrassing to the whole family."

"Yes Ma'am," I said through gritted teeth. My tone probably wasn't respectful enough, but it was the best I could do.

Ann's attention was immediately taken up by Mary Beth's grand entrance. She was wearing a Candies leopard print spaghetti strap tank top over high-waisted short shorts, basically the expensive and yet more trashy version of what Kim was wearing before I'd warned her about Ann's dress requirement.

"Girls, you're wearing dresses?" Mary Beth said in a surprised voice. "I didn't even know you owned any dresses, Kelsey."

"Yep, well, here I am," I answered.

"You look. . .unusual." Her eyes narrowed. "I suppose it suits you."

"Well, there's no time for her to change. Your dad doesn't want us to be late. Into the minivan, girls!" Ann clapped her hands together and made some shooing motions as she stowed her phone in her bright red Coach bag. It matched her red flats perfectly, and I realized for the first time that she was wearing a sleeveless white blouse over a pair of denim capri pants. I guess the dress requirement was only for us orphans.

In the minivan, Mary Beth huffed because she had to ride in the second row as her dad was riding shotgun instead of taking his own car. Kim and I sat in the very back, as usual, as Mary Beth didn't like to share and have someone in the seat with her, 'smashing' her clothes. It was another dig at my 5' 7", 140 lb body. Mary Beth took after her mother. Not quite 5' 3", never bigger than size 2, petite blonde Anglo-Saxon perfection.

Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church was a small church, but at least it had a proper church building set on the edge of town, unlike some of the small churches that were in converted houses or rickety old storefronts. With only fifty members, its white paint was peeling and the parking lot needed a new load of gravel. But the sprawling lawn behind it, liberally dotted with shade trees, made for a perfect group picnic spot.

The smell of roasting hot dogs and brisket filled my nose as we all climbed out of the minivan. I gave a sigh when I realized that if I were going to eat anything at all, I'd have to do it crouching behind a bush or something where Ann couldn't see me.

"Good, good," Kim said into my ear. "Channel that dark pouting look. Wear it like an accessory. It matches the outfit so well."

She gave me a slap on the rump and then hurried off to stand in a clump under a tree with her subset of popular girls. Mary Beth and Ann were already off schmoozing with the preacher's wife, and Mark had headed straight to the barbecue pit. Ostensibly he was going to help out but in reality, it was to stash the twelve-pack of beer that the barbecue guys would drink on the sly. Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church members were teetotalers in theory if not in practice.

I stood on the edge of the gravel and grass, surveying the scene, holding Kim's tiny black parasol over my head. It was supposed to add to my 'cool' factor, both literally and figuratively. I had to admit that it was keeping me from sweating to death in the black dress and tights in the late summer sun.

There were a lot of people who weren't members of the church milling around the freshly manicured lawn. I vaguely remembered seeing posters for the barbecue around town; it was also a fundraiser for some building improvement or another. That would hopefully make things slightly less awkward.

According to Mary Beth, the Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church members all hated me and prayed for me. I was the only witch they'd ever heard of or met, so I was low-hanging fruit for evangelization. At the moment, nobody was looking at me, or even looking my way. With luck, I could snag something to drink and hide under one of the trees until the Simmons got bored and rounded us up to go home.

And then someone broke off from a clump of kids standing about as far away from the church building as humanly possible. He ambled slowly back, heading straight for me. Even though we were only acquainted for a short time, I had already memorized that walk. It was more of a swagger, really, and why shouldn't he swagger? He pretty much owned the world and was the best-looking thing on it.

"Hey Kel," Kaiden said, stopping close enough to make me blush but far enough away to keep the church chaperones uninterested in us.

"Um, hi," I said. "So, I didn't know you went to Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church," I babbled, and then mentally kicked myself. Of course he didn't. Mary Beth would mention it twenty times a day and thirty on Sunday if he did. She said she didn't like him, but we all knew it wasn't true. Everyone liked him. He really was going to be Prom King.

He just grinned, his eyes crinkling up at the corners and his perfect teeth gleaming in the sun.

"Come on." He took my free hand. "You look ah-maz-ing, by the way."

header photo by Lisa Johnson on Pixabay