“Hello again,” I said, popping my head around the screen. “I’m sorry to bother you, but these appear to be all costume party outfits. Do you have anything normal? That is, not meant for a costume contest?”
The woman didn’t even look up from her bottle arranging. “This is not that sort of a shop. We provide costumes for the patrons who did not bring one for the final evening costume party.”
“Great. Just… great.” I turned back to where Mrs. P was struggling to get her gauze tunic off so she could try on what appeared to be a harem girl outfit. “I assume we’ll stop somewhere tomorrow where we can get some clothes. I guess we can just wear what we have—Mrs. P, no!”
I was too late. She’d already shucked her clothes and had donned the blue marabou and sequin harem top. The floofy chiffon pants followed, and she admired herself in the mirror with little noises of satisfaction.
“Yes, that is quite nice. It’s a very… striking… outfit,” I agreed when she asked what I thought. I noticed a glint of gold in her wrinkled belly skin and figured that was just so Mrs. P to get her belly button pierced at her advanced age.
“I shall wear it tonight to the champagne reception,” she said, wrapping a matching blue marabou boa around her waist, hiding the wrinkles, and making the outfit a little less risqué. “Everyone will admire it.”
“That they will.” I refrained from pointing out that the ensemble was not quite suited to someone of her advanced years, since it wasn’t my place to make judgments. Besides, if she was comfortable wearing the costume and she liked it, then who was I to ruin her fun?
There remained the subject of my own less than sterling appearance. I brushed a hand down my badly wrinkled and grubby pants, and tried not to think of how much fun it was going to be to hand-wash my undies each night.
“I really would like to get something else to wear…” I bit my lower lip, trying to decide if I should spend some of my precious money to get a costume or just tough it out and keep wearing what I had on.
The idea of seeing Rowan, the ever cool and collected, while I looked like something that had been dragged around the desert, drove me into action.
“Right. Let me find something that isn’t too obnoxious.”
Mrs. P held up a sexy nurse outfit.
“Not in a million years. Is there something here less revealing?” I poked through the offerings, finding fault with all of them. “No to Cleopatra rig, hell no to the naughty housemaid, the female vampire might have possibilities if it were not for the plunging neckline and thigh slits on either side of the slinky skirt. What’s that? Oh. No, definitely not a catsuit.”
Mrs. P pulled a dark brown leather costume out from behind a pink marabou baby doll and gave it a jaded look. “This covers most of your bosom.”
I looked over at where she was pointing. She was holding what I thought of as a Xena, Warrior Princess outfit, with a leather corset top embellished with decorative swirls of metal around the boobs, the bodice of which did, indeed, cover everything in the torso. Accompanying it was a knee-length skirt made of strips of studded leather, a sword and back scabbard, and a pair of lace-up sandals.
I held the corset top up to myself and examined my reflection. “I’m not sure… a sword? Strapped to my back? Really? That’ll just get in the way.”
“It’ll be helpful,” Mrs. P told me, snagging a pair of stretch fabric slippers with curly toes. “You’ll need a weapon to guard me. There are slave bracelets, too.”
I looked at the arm bracelets she held out, along with a pair of gauntlets. “I don’t think they call them that anymore. But I do admit they might cover any untoward upper arm pudginess.” I eyed my reflection again and decided to the throw caution to the wind. It might be a silly costume, but at least it wasn’t overly revealing, no more so than a knee-length sleeveless dress would be.
Mrs. P took the chakram, a circular weapon that accompanied the outfit, and plopped it on her head with satisfaction, tipping it at a rakish angle, and tying it in place with yet another feather boa. “I’ll take the hat.”
“I’m not sure that’s a… never mind. You can wear it as a weird sort of hat if it makes you happy.”
Twenty minutes later, the passengers on the upper deck of the Wepwawet ceased their pleasant chattering, gossiping, laughing, and in one case, singing along to the tinny song emerging from an aging boom box. All of the passengers, as well as the crew members present, turned to watch with silent amazement as Mrs. P and I stepped out onto the deck.
The captain, a drink frozen halfway to his mouth, stared with unblinking eyes.
“Good evening,” I greeted everyone with what I hoped appeared to be good humor and not a desperate attempt to pretend nothing out of the ordinary was happening. “I’m sorry we’re late. Mrs. P was having some trouble with one of her curled slippers not fitting right.”
The eyes of the twenty or so tourists moved from me to Mrs. P’s feet, then returned.