“How do I look?” asked Charlotte as she stepped out of the cubicle, posing in a seductive manner, hands on hips.
“Fabulous darling” a rather bored Nikki replied.
Charlotte did a little twirl and then stopped dead, the chiffon dress came to a stop on her legs.
“Ugh. Look at my cellulite, it’s really showing today.” She said disgusted, trying desperately to pull the delicate fabric down just an inch more. It was never going to give though, not without making the dress go from being worth over two hundred pounds to less than two pound by ripping it to bits.
Nikki knew this ritual well and simply rolled her eyes; she was prepared for this, and knew the script off by heart.
“Where?” she said, over emphasising the ‘where’ a little too much, quickly she recovered with “You have outstanding legs that even I envy, and you know how good I look in a pair of hot pants.” She mouthed the words ‘up to there’ while gesturing with her hand.
Nikki, only being an inch or two above five foot, certainly did not have legs up to there, they barely went to there, let along up to there.
“Thankfully” Charlotte said through a grin, “I do not. You and your sordid secrets are exactly that, secrets.”
Amid the clutter left from other customers a member of staff walked in casually gathering up garments, and then she noticed Charlotte and Nikki.
“Is everything ok, do you need any assistance at all?” She had asked politely enough, but it was getting close to closing time and they both knew she wanted them out of there.
“I’m fine thank you, we were just leaving.”
“I think you’d better change back into your clothes Charlotte, it’s a tad too cold outside for that” Nikki reminded her “I’ve still got mushy snowflake meltage in my hair.”
Stepping back into the cubicle and drawing the curtain Charlotte popped her head out and corrected Nikki, “meltage is not a word Nik” and then disappeared again.

Both in their late twenties Charlotte and Nikki had grown up together since they were little, only to have both sets of parents want to move away from the area and they had been separated at the age of ten. By some strange co-incidence both of their families moved again nine years later only this time they ended up in each others neighbouring town and having not kept in touch, neither of them knew they were living so close to each other until they meet up by sheer luck at the same coffee house.

Charlotte and Nikki had both been tomboys when they were younger and it was how they had gotten to be such good friends. They once had a climbing competition up a tree they called ‘Old Oak’. Nikki had beaten Charlotte to the top, but was the slower of the two climbing down and as she was losing she had decided to jump the last ten-foot or so and ended up landing on Charlotte. She did aim a little for her as she thought it’d be funny and almost sixth sense like, Charlotte had turned round at the last minute and had tried to catch Nikki. Between them they managed to break Charlottes left arm, and fracture Nikki’s right. They did everything together even getting plaster casts at the same time. They had tried to keep in touch for a bit after moving, but distance and new friends slowly dried up the correspondence between them.

When they met up again nine years later, they hardly recognised each other. Both had changed so much. Nikki had always been scrawny and hardy looking, while Charlotte back then was known as Charlie and as she had her hair cut short people always mistook her for a boy whenever the two of them were outside mucking about. She had been kind of pudgy too and it hid her girlish looks. But now both girls had changed. Nikki was no longer scrawny, she had a nice curvy figure but being barely over five foot she looked slightly bigger than she was, her face still had that impish look about it though and it was what gave her away to Charlotte.
Charlotte had changed too, back then Nikki was about a half inch taller than her, although back then they had had many a banter over who was taller, but now Charlotte easily towered over Nikki. She had grown to a full six-foot tall, and the short boyish style had been replaced by a shoulder length bundle of curls.

They had squealed and giggled madly for two minutes before staff asked them to quieten down, but they were so happy to see each other they couldn’t stop firing questions at each other and ending up leaving to sit in the park, where they caught up and made promises to keep in touch, which they both kept this time.