Broken Promises and Ripped Dresses

I Like to Take Photos, Not be in Them

Chapter 14. I Like to Take Photos, Not be in Them

 

Sometimes I worry about how idiotic I am. Like this one time I accepted the offer to eat a couple of brownies at a party in college... let's just say that didn't end well. And then there was just now when it was clearly obvious that the man standing in front of me was the famous wedding dress designer that belonged to this store.

He was the one telling the girl in the store what to do, which obviously meant he had some work related authority over her. He was the one surrounded by professional looking photographers. He even looked like the type of Italian man who would design wedding dresses.

 I was completely speechless and embarrassed at my stupidity.

"Sorry about my friend here," Andrew said, laughing and patting me on the back. "She's just become a little out of it ever since we came to Italy."

"That's quite all right, most women who meet me have the same reaction," he said chuckling. "They all are so ecstatic to meet a male wedding dress designer I guess."

"Yeah well, Angela here is not a woman," Andrew joked.

That got me back to life. "Shut up Andrew, I'm as much a woman as anyone else," I said, punching his shoulder.

"It worked, you can speak!"

I ignored him and turned to Augusto. "Sorry about that. I'm just really embarrassed that I didn't realize it was you, I always seem to put myself in awkward situations like that."

He shrugged. "Really it's no big deal. An old man like myself is the last type of person you'd expect to be designing dresses for younger women," he chuckled.

"No, I... I didn't mean it like that," I said flustered.

"Honestly it's fine," Augusto said, shushing my insistent blabbering. "How about you just tell me what you need? But first I'm going to go put these things in my office."

"That'd be great," Andrew said, smiling and turning to me when he left. "Should I do the talking? Because you seem to be a little out of it."

I nodded. "Yeah, you probably should before I throw up on him or something," I told him, and he responded with a laugh. 

Augusto left us to put the bags he had been carrying in a room to the right of us. The group of photographers followed him, and a minute later he walked back out.

"So," Augusto said, leading us to an arrangement of chairs by the front desk. "How may I finally help you two today?"

Andrew and I both took a seat at a small leather couch, sitting comfortably next to each other. "We're here about a certain wedding dress, one of yours obviously," Andrew said as Augusto took a seat  across from us.

"Saw one of mine in a wedding magazine, did you?" Augusto asked. "People always seem to come here after they see them printed in those. Quite good for business I might add."