Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

‘And it’s incredibly tedious,’ Will said.
I realized he was looking for an excuse not to go. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘If Will
tells me what to do. I don’t mind staying to help.’ I said it almost before I
realized what I was agreeing to.
‘Well, that’s something for us both to look forward to,’ Will said grumpily,
after his mother had left. ‘You get a good view of my backside, and I get a bed
bath from someone who falls over at the sight of naked flesh.’
‘I do not fall over at the sight of naked flesh.’
‘Clark, I’ve never seen anyone more uncomfortable with a human body than
you. You act like it’s something radioactive.’
‘Let your mum do it, then,’ I snapped back.
‘Yes, because that makes the whole idea of going out so much more
attractive.’
And then there was the wardrobe problem. I didn’t know what to wear.
I had worn the wrong thing to the races. How could I be sure I wouldn’t do so
again? I asked Will what would be best, and he looked at me as if I were mad.
‘The lights will be down,’ he explained. ‘Nobody will be looking at you. They’ll
be focused on the music.’
‘You know nothing about women,’ I said.
I brought four different outfits to work with me in the end, hauling them all on
to the bus in my Dad’s ancient suit carrier. It was the only way I could convince
myself to go at all.
Nathan arrived for the teatime shift at 5.30pm, and while he saw to Will I
disappeared into the bathroom to get ready. First I put on what I thought of as
my ‘artistic’ outfit, a green smock dress with huge amber beads stitched into it. I
imagined the kind of people who went to concerts might be quite arty and
flamboyant. Will and Nathan both stared at me as I entered the living room.
‘No,’ said Will, flatly.
‘That looks like something my mum would wear,’ said Nathan.
‘You never told me your mum was Nana Mouskouri,’ Will said.
I could hear them both chuckling as I disappeared back into the bathroom.
The second outfit was a very severe black dress, cut on the bias and stitched
with white collar and cuffs, which I had made myself. It looked, I thought, both
chic and Parisian.