‘Who says “thinking caps”?’
Simon pretended to be offended. ‘I do.’
I turned to Ray and smiled brightly. ‘Do you have any thinking caps?’
‘I’ll leave you kids to browse,’ he muttered, wandering off to the back room, no doubt in search of more bourbon.
The first costume I tried on was a tan leather jacket and chaps combo, complete with gun belt and cowboy hat.
‘Who’s that?’ said Simon.
‘Calamity Jane,’ I said. ‘She’s cool.’
‘Agreed,’ he replied. ‘But something about the leather and all those tassels screams naff extra fromNashville– not what you’re trying to project.’
Annoyingly, he had a point.
Simon tried on his own cowboy outfit, which he somehow managed to pull off without looking like a country music reject. He was all set to go with it when another outfit caught my eye.
‘Si, how about this one?’ I held up a pair of brown leather trousers, cream shirt and leather hat.
‘Is that Indiana Jones?’
I nodded. ‘How cool would that be?’
‘There’s a whip too,’ he said. ‘Kinky.’
I hadn’t noticed it, and now I found myself blushing.
‘We can find you something else,’ I said, pushing the hanger back onto the rail.
Simon’s hand was warm on my arm. ‘Not so fast, Frixie.’
He gave me a look that sent even more blood to my face.
‘Why don’t we concentrate on you?’ he said. ‘I saw a rather lovely Catwoman outfit a couple of rails back.’
‘That’s just a black rubber catsuit.’
‘You say it like that’s a bad thing.’
This was not the time to mention how it would probably set my cystitis off, or be horribly unforgiving to the couple of extra pounds I carried. I needed to respond with something flirty.
‘I do like cats.’
Oh God. I’m so out of practice with this.
Simon laughed. ‘Very true.’
We carried on searching through outfits, but as time went on, the niggle of guilt that had felt like a pebble in my shoe was starting to feel as big as Indy’s boulder. I needed to talk to Simon, but didn’t want to do it here, so on impulse I decided to just go with Dorothy fromThe Wizard of Oz. Not the most exciting of outfits, but the ruby slippers sort of made up for it.
Ray rang up our chosen outfits and Simon offered to pick everything up on Saturday morning.
‘There’s something I want to talk to you about,’ I told Simon as we stepped outside. ‘Have you got time for a quick drink?’
‘That bourbon’s gone straight to my head,’ he said. ‘Maybe a coffee would be better.’
Another drink would have given me an extra dose of courage, but an Americano would have to do.
