A Little Something Extra

She’d barely taken three steps before Archie piped up, “Now wait a wee minute. You can’t get the Drymen boys to model underwear designed in Invertary. We keep that stuff in-house. After Kirsty and Lake’s fashion show, people expect the folk of Invertary to know about underwear. And we’re no’ ashamed to be part of a local endeavor, are we boys?”

There was a chorus of agreement. Swallowing her smile, Betty turned back to them. “I don’t know. The Drymen boys are a wee bit younger. They’ll probably sell more underwear.”

James frowned at her. “I thought you said this underwear of yours was aimed at folk our age. Ones in their seventies and eighties?”

“Aye,” she said.

“Then what the hell are you doing going after younger models?”

“To be fair, the Drymen boys are only in their sixties. Which means they can probably pull off sexy a wee bit better than you four can,” Betty said.

“I can do sexy.” Findlay struck a pose that she assumed was meant as proof of his claim. It just looked like there was something stuck in his dentures and his tongue was working it out.

“You’re right.” Betty kept a straight face. “You’re definitely what I need. And it would be good to keep it local. Those Drymen boys are awfy full o’ themselves anyway.”

“Wait a minute,” Archie said. “How do we know you’re telling the truth about the Drymen Team wanting to model for you?”

The men nodded their agreement.

“If you don’t believe me, go catch Charlie. He’s at the pub. He’ll tell you.” There was no need to pull off another innocent look; for once she was telling the truth. Charlie would indeed back up her story.

“She wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true,” James said.

&n

bsp; “You really do have Drymen interested in this?” Hamish said.

“Well,” Betty conceded, “they’ve no’ signed on the dotted line because I wanted to ask you lot first.”

They shared a look.

“We cannae let Drymen best us,” James said.

“No,” Archie said, then looked at Betty. “You’ve got yourself some models.”

“Great,” Betty said, “I’ve got a photographer all lined up. Be at this address at seven tonight.”

She put a piece of paper in front of them on the table, and Archie picked it up.

“That’s the cemetery,” he said, looking even more confused than usual.

“Aye, what better place for a fashion shoot aimed at oldies than their next destination?”

“I don’t see what’s sexy about a bunch of graves,” Findlay said.

“Just be there on time. I know what I’m doing, and I brought in some experts to help.” With that, she tottered out of the room.

As soon as she was through the swing doors and out into the street, she spotted Charlie MacDonald.

“How’d it go?” he said.

“Mission accomplished. Got them all signed up.” Betty grinned at him. “Guess that means I owe you a pie and a pint.”

“That you do.” He chuckled.

It was dark in the cemetery, but you wouldn’t have known it from the amount of light coming from Betty McLeod’s memorial statue. The one she’d had commissioned for when she died. It showed Mel Gibson from Braveheart carrying a replica of Betty in his arms. The statue had cost an arm and a leg but was worth every penny.

“Is this what you wanted?” Claire Donaldson said as she finished setting up the lights that they’d hired in Fort William.