Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

“Thankfully, what’s right and what’s fair are usually the same thing,” Caroline said.

Kirsty wasn’t so sure. It may have been fair for Lake to take part in the show, but it sure as heck wasn’t right. The women joined the crowd, walking through the cold, dark town to the pub. Chips on special weren’t to be missed.

“Are you going to audition for the fashion show?” Alastair asked Rainne as they left the meeting.

“Don’t be daft,” Rainne scoffed. “I don’t think anyone wants to see me parade around in my underwear.”

“I do,” he said in a voice that made her insides turn to custard.

He reached for her hand as they walked into the cold night air. The streets were dark, but dry. There hadn’t been rain in Invertary in over a week and that was practically a record in the Highlands. Rainne smiled. She could get used to this wee town. Alastair pulled her along into the high street and down towards the waterfront, following the crowd.

“Where are we going?” she said.

“Pub. Chips.”

And his mates.

“I think I’ll turn in early,” Rainne said.

Alastair stopped walking and stood in front of her. He looked at her so long that she lowered her eyes in shame.

“Everybody loves you, Rainbow,” he said softly. “You don’t need to be worried.”

“They think I’m cradle snatching,” she mumbled.

Alastair put a finger under her chin to tilt her head upwards.

“No. They don’t.”

He leaned towards her and kissed the tip of her nose, then kissed her lips gently.

“Don’t be a sissy,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Let’s go get some chips, and I may even let you win a game of snooker.”

How could she say no to those laughing eyes? With a deep sigh, she nodded and let him drag her along to the pub.

The place was packed. It seemed almost everyone who was at the meeting had taken Dougal up on his offer of cut-price chips. As they wove through the crowd towards the back room, Rainne could tell that people were genuinely excited about the fashion show. All around her she heard snippets of plans for the market. One woman was going to make knitted tea cosies with an underwear theme. Another thought painting a board with two people in their underwear, then cutting out the faces so that people could stand behind and get their photos taken was a great idea. She heard about people renaming their prized jam as InverTARTY, Strawberry Kiss. There was someone who planned to print T-shirts with Lake and Kirsty’s faces on them and someone who thought throwing a pyjama party in the pub was a good idea. It boggled her mind. The whole town was throwing themselves behind the lingerie shops. She hadn’t seen support like that since living in the commune. She didn’t know it was possible in “the real world”, as Lake kept calling it.

Rainne tensed when she heard Alastair call out to his friends. This was a disaster waiting to happen. She knew for a fact that a few of his crowd were barely eighteen. That was almost a decade younger than she was. Rainne took a deep breath, plastered a fake smile on her face and waited for the inevitable odd looks that they would give her. She was, after all, the old woman dating Alastair.

When Alastair introduced her, Rainne was surprised to see that their smiles seemed genuine. She shrugged out of her old green duffle coat and squeezed into the bench seat beside two young blond girls who were obviously twins.

“I’m Megan and that’s Claire,” said one of them.

Rainne smiled politely, then didn’t know what else to say. It occurred to her that if this was a new commune she’d just joined, people would be asking her loads of questions by now on her philosophy of life. Here, in a pub with a bunch of teenagers, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to talk about. The twins exchanged a look. Rainne tried to pretend she was invisible. She shrank back into her chair and lowered her he

ad, hoping her hair would hide her face.

“You own the lingerie shop, don’t you?” Megan said.

Rainne felt herself tense even further.

“My brother owns it really,” she said.

“But it’s your shop, right?” Claire said.

Rainne tried to figure out if there was some ulterior motive to their questions, but all she could see were two shiny, young faces smiling at her.

“Kind of,” she said. “Lake owns it, I manage it. Or I was supposed to before he came to town and took over.”