She was still waffling. Worse, she was starting to sound like an NHS policy document.
“Er, how was your week at work?” she asked, keen to move the conversation away from herself before she bored him to death.
“All good,” Tom replied. “Same as you, busy with lots of things to do, but making progress.”
“That’s good.”
The easy camaraderie of a moment ago had suddenly vanished and now it felt awkward. Carole’s mind filled with a memory of their scorching kiss, only making her discomfort worse.
“Carole, listen, about last weekend…” Tom said.
But before he could say anything more, Olive ended her phone call and turned around to face them both.
“Everything is all set over at the museum for the fashion show,” she said, keeping up a ferocious pace. “They’re all thrilled that you’re both able to help and have promised to delay the start of the fashion show for a few minutes if necessary to give you time to change, because it turns out that the two costumes still waiting to be assigned are, er, well let’s just say it might take an extra minute or two for you get into them.”
“What does that mean?” Carole asked. “What costumes are we wearing?”
“Well, you see…” Olive’s phone rang again. Once more, she peered over the top of her glasses at the screen. “Oh, that’s another of my museum colleagues. I’ll have to answer this. Come on you two, let’s get moving!”
Olive answered her phone and kept marching onwards. They were turning onto the high street now, and as they navigated the busy pavements while trailing along in Olive’s wake, Carole couldn’t help but wonder at the older woman’s cryptic words about the costumes she and Tom would soon be wearing.
What exactly lay in store for them at this vintage fashion show?
