“Come on through, I’ll let you into the break room,” he says.
I go behind the bar and through a door there. I’ve been coming here for years, and this is the first time I’ve been back here. He leads the way down a short corridor with a closed door marked manager’s office, then a door with a cartoon of a person sitting on a toilet, which I assume must be the staff toilet, and finally, a locked door that Peter unlocks.
“All yours,” he says. “Sandra’s cubby is the second one down.”
He heads back to the bar. I open the door to the staff break room and slip inside, closing the door behind me. The faintsmell of coffee and bleach greets me. In the center of the room is a table with four plastic chairs around it. A small kitchenette lines the back wall, with a few cabinets and a sink. A kettle and a microwave sit on the counter. The cubbies are to my right, beside a small fridge.
I rummage through Sandra’s cubby. Her work uniform – a branded t-shirt with the Mason’s bar logo on it, and a pair of black slacks hang neatly to one side. Beneath them is her schedule and a battered paperback copy ofThe Shining. And then, to my horror, I see the flash of shiny red rubber.
What the hell kind of costume is this?
I envision some devil outfit, horned and utterly inappropriate, but I quickly realize that image is nowhere near as bad as the reality of the situation. When I get it right out and unfurl it, I see it is a long, red dress, but not just any long, red dress. It’s a skin-tight Jessica Rabbit dress, complete with long gloves. A pair of red heels that were rolled up inside the dress fall to the ground as I shake it out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I gasp in horror.
It’s every bit as scandalous as I remember it from the movie. The thigh slit climbs so high up the dress that my underwear is in mortal danger of showing, and the neckline is designed to hold exactly nothing in. I stare at it in despair. I’m not just going to be flashing cleavage. I am going to be showing my belly button.
Still, a forfeit is a forfeit.
I sigh. Maybe it won’t be so bad when I have it on. Ten long minutes later, I’m squeezed into it. I tug desperately at the fabric as if an extra inch might magically appear. My breasts are practically spilling out, and the slit up my leg looks like an embarrassing accident waiting to happen. It’s alright for Sandra, who is taller, so the split wouldn’t have looked so bad. Her breasts are also cute little perky things that would havecomfortably fitted in this dress. A direct contrast to mine, which look like they are frantically trying to escape from it.
I catch my reflection in the cracked mirror on the wall and groan.
“I look like a stripper at a children’s birthday party,” I mumble.
The only good thing about the whole get up is that my red, wavy hair looks the part without me having to wear the wig, which was under the dress. I hate itchy wigs, and even Sandra won’t be able to claim I need to wear it when my own hair is perfectly right.
Perhaps the dress will look better once I get the gloves and shoes on. I pull on the gloves and step into the scarily high heels, but neither helps. I just look a fright! A ridiculous fright. Sucking in a breath, I step into the corridor and call out for Peter. I need him to get Sandra. I can’t go out there dressed like this. I’m sure once she sees the state of me, she will surely see reason.
Peter appears from the bar, wiping his hands on a towel. He stops dead when he sees me. His jaw literally drops. For a second, I think maybe he’s choking.
I cross my arms across my chest, but realize that only makes my breasts even less stable. Scarily so. I quickly drop my hands back down to my sides.
“Stop staring like that,” I say, irritated. “You think I don’t know how ridiculous I look?”
He blinks, then clears his throat, but the tips of his ears are red. “Sorry. I’m just … just … wow. That’s not what I expected. And you look anything but ridiculous.”
I glare at him, mortified. “Get Sandra. Now.”
Chapter Three
Pippa
Sandra appears in the doorway like the devil herself, her grin so wide, I’m surprised it doesn’t split her face in half. She takes one look at me and grins with satisfaction.
“Oh, darling. You look phenomenal.”
I look at her with amazement. “What?”
Her eyes glitter with excitement as they move all over my body. “You look absolutely stunning, Pippa.”
“No, I don’t. I look ridiculous.”
I tug at the Jessica Rabbit dress for the millionth time, which is pointless because there isn’t actually any extra material to tug into place. The neckline, if you can even call it that, is already hanging on for dear life.
“I’m not going out there dressed like this,” I say firmly.
Sandra rests her hands on her hips dramatically. “Oh yes, you very much are going out there. You look great. Much better than I did in it.”
