BELLA'S POV
I want to be clear about the top.
It was linen. Pale blue, the color of something that had been washed many times and was better for it, the particular softness of fabric that has reached its final, best version of itself through use rather than design. I had bought it the summer before last from a market stall between a woman selling preserves and a man selling second-hand paperbacks, and I had worn it to three different outdoor events and one very long afternoon in Jennifer's garden and once to a family barbecue where my father had said you look nice and gone back to his book, which was his highest form of aesthetic endorsement.
It was sleeveless.
That was the entirety of its controversy. Not low-cut, the neckline was entirely unremarkable, the kind of modest scoop that c
