Evans Creek Book 1: Mister Mayor

THIRTY-FIVE

Photo credits: paper doll-shutterstock, clothes-pinterest

***

This Year, November 3

Arayna awoke with a start as a door shut somewhere. Lifting her head, she looked around, disoriented by the unfamiliar room.

"Good Morning." Jenn chirped making Arayna jump. Arayna's knee smacked hard on the desk.

"Ow!"

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I made up the guest room last night but I guess you fell asleep in here. You...uh..." Jenn pointed to her forehead.

"What?"

Jenn pointed again and Arayna blushed as her hand flew to her forehead and found a sticky note. Yanking it off she tossed it on the desk and frowned at the scattered notes. What a mess.

"Did you figure it out?" Jenn asked as she entered the room and passed a steaming coffee mug to Arayna.

"Maybe. It's so hard to tell which way the wind will blow with these things but Jim and Liz will be—Wait! What time is it?" Arayna asked suddenly looking around for her phone.

"Almost eight."

"Shoot!" Arayna tried to untangle herself and stand but she was too stiff and sleepy to manage without splashing her coffee down the front of her blouse. "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!"

Jenn chuckled.

"Don't worry. Your friends called Bill around five to say they hired a driver. Now, about that outfit..." Jenn waved her hand up and down at the wrinkled, coffee-stained ensemble. "Bill picked out some of my clothes he thought would work for 'the look you need', whatever that means. You're a bit taller than I am, and a little curvier in the hips, but we'll find something that works."

"Thank you for the update on Liz and Jim, Um...the look should be conservative, but also classy, and maybe a little bit sexy. I still don't know that I can manage all of that with an outfit, but Bill was insistent. I need to look modest and sweet, but just sexy enough to get a second look. I am, after all, Graham's equivalent of "Hollywood's arm candy"."

Jenn's eyebrows went up and Arayna chuckled. "Bill's words, not mine. He thinks that the voters are comparing Graham and Daevey right down the line, from looks, to policy, to their significant others. I mean, he's not wrong, but it's a little different being on this side of the looking glass."

"Feeling a little out of your element?"

"You could say that. I'm more like the Wizard of Oz. You know, the little old man behind the curtain. I work my magic from behind the scenes."

"As opposed to Glinda the Good Witch with all of her sparkling radiance."

"Something like that, yeah." Arayna laughed as she followed Jenn to her room.

---

"It's hopeless. I hardly think that Sandy's outfit at the end of Grease is the look Bill had in mind when he said 'a little bit sexy'."

"So, we won't use any of the pant suits. Let's put them aside and try to make one of these skirts work." Jenn was already moving to do just that.

"See, that works." Jenn said as Arayna turned around in the first skirt.

"Sure. Add a leopard print blouse and some big hoop earrings and the call-girl look is complete."

"I guess it is a tiny bit too short on you."