Buy a Whisker by Sofie Ryan

Author:Sofie Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Charlotte and Avery had their heads together at the cash desk, but Avery bounced over to me before I could cross the floor to them.

“Sarah, can we do KISS in the front window?” she asked. She was like a puppy in her enthusiasm, and Elvis made a wide berth around her and headed for the back room.

“Do you mean candy kisses or people kissing?” I asked.

“Number one, no. And number two, ewww!” she said, making a face. “I mean the retro band. You know, the guys in makeup.”

I looked over at Charlotte. “You said you wanted something that wasn’t the typical hearts and flowers,” she said with a completely straight face.

“What exactly do you want to do?” I asked warily.

“We want to do the band in the window,” Avery said, making a gesture in that direction with one hand. “We could use those mannequins we got from Doran’s.”

I’d known that trip would come back to haunt me. When we bought the huge chandelier from the lobby of the Portland department store, we’d also purchased several old-style glass-front wooden display cases and six mannequins.

“You can’t let these go to the dump,” Avery had insisted when she’d come across a row of the plastic people. “These are art.”

The vintage figures looked like giant Barbie dolls. Mac had come to stand beside me. “It’s not the worst idea,” he’d said quietly.

“Okay,” I said. “Have you lost your mind?”

Mac had given me an enigmatic smile and held up his phone. “People collect just about everything, including store mannequins from the 1960s, which I’m almost certain these are.”

We’d ended up buying six of the dozen figures, disassembled in three large cardboard cartons, for five dollars apiece, and then we’d turned around and sold two of them for two hundred and fifty dollars to a collector in Florida who had stowed them in the back of his Winnebago RV. As he’d driven off, it had looked like one of them was waving out the back window.

“What are you going to do for costumes and wigs?” I asked.

“That’s why this idea is so totally brilliant,” Avery said, throwing her hands into the air. “It’s not going to cost anything, if that’s what you’re worried about, and I know it is.”

“Nothing?” I said.

“I swear,” she said, pressing one hand to her chest with a melodramatic flourish. “Mr. P. said that Sam and the guys in his band dressed up as KISS for some kind of charity thing and we could probably use their stuff if we asked. So could we ask?”

Before I could say yes or no, she waved her other hand. “And I can borrow whatever makeup stuff I need from Phantasy. I already called Elspeth and asked her. Could you just please say yes so we can get on with it?”

A life-size KISS re-creation in my front window for Valentine’s Day? It was just plain weird.

I looked over at Charlotte, who smiled back at me. I looked at Avery, who looked like she was going to bounce out of her skin.

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