favourite worst nightmare [JJ MAYBANK]

v. the problem with rafe cameron

CHAPTER FIVE:
THE PROBLEM WITH RAFE CAMERON

[EPISODE FOUR: SPY GAMES]

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"Okay, you ready?"

"Sure."

Rita swipes the curtain rail across, stepping out as her dad does the same from the changing room beside her. The wall across from them is a mirror, and they glance across at each other, then adjust themselves in the mirror.

"That dress is nice," her dad comments, adjusting his bow tie.

"I look like a Jolly Rancher," she says, turning and grimacing at the vivid blue dress. As bright as the morning sky sounds beautiful on the label, but when she's wearing it, it drowns her in the brightness and now, she can't help thinking she looks like a highlighter. The faint glittering details don't help. "That bow tie isn't great, by the way."

"I do look like I'm meant to be in a Barbershop quartet, don't I?" he asks, grimacing. The nude colour of his jacket and pants doesn't help add to the look, either. All he's missing is a pair of suspenders. "Maybe with a normal tie?"

Not wanting to diminish his confidence, Rita grimaces but hides it with a bright voice. "Yeah...maybe."

"Next?"

"Next."

They retreat back into the dressing rooms. In such a large department store (one of the largest in Outerbanks, and of course on the 'Kook side of the island', the changing area is proportionately large, and they're alone at the end of the long corridor of curtained-off fitting rooms, allowing them to speak loudly between themselves without bother.

"So, you're saying Rafe Cameron asked you to go with him to this midsummers fiasco?" her dad asks as she unzips herself and breaks free.

"Yeah."

"Am I not a good enough companion?"

"You're better, honestly," she says, knocking her glasses as she pulls on the next one: also blue (though several shades darker, but made of satin and silk and not cotton, and much shorter than the others). "But he's the closest thing I've got to a friend--" she thinks guiltily of the Pogues, "--I guess."

Her adventure with the Pogues yesterday is mostly forgotten, although she had done some research last night about the Royal Merchant just so she was up to speed. £400 million in British gold — thats what they'd been after. And, well, at first she'd been pissed she was getting an offering of £1000 and that was it; then, guilt had swirled in like a storm. Those kids were after that cash because they had no options, and ten months ago she sure as hell would have done the same thing for that amount of money. But now she has that amount of money. Her share of a thousand bucks would have been good enough.