Love @ First Site by Jane Moore Page A

outfit from the night before. Decision making isn't my strong point at the moment, but at least the outfit's fairly smart. You see, there's no just pitching up for Sunday lunch in comfy jeans and a sweater. Not with my mother anyway.
    As children, Olivia and I were always dressed immaculately with matching frocks, highly polished patent shoes, and frilly socks. Think Minnie Mouse on acid.
    Our mother was very slim and trendy, the Jackie O of Surbiton. She stood out a mile amongst the suburban crowd, quietly setting her own personal standards, oblivious to the astonished stares of those around her. "Never forget, girls," she used to intone loudly. "Life belongs to the pretty."
    Consequently, at school dances, when the rest of the year was wearing the latest tight top with Hunny Monster shoulder pads and polka dot crop trousers, Olivia and I stood sullen-faced in midcalf floral dresses, our hair relentlessly brushed into a silky ponytail.
    Olivia was the first to rebel, though she wasn't brave enough to let Mum in on the secret. With a hidden-under-bed stash of clothes bought from thrift stores, she would leave the house looking like Pollyanna, retrieve a carrier bag from a hedge down the road, and arrive at the disco looking like punk queen Polystyrene.
    It took me another three years to pluck up courage to do the same, but neither of us ever had a hair out of place in mother's eye line. Consequently, one of our shared greatest joys in life is to slob around the house in sweats, hair unbrushed and wearing no makeup.
    But I know when I show up at the parentals, Olivia will also be wearing something smart. At thirty-four and thirty-six, old habits die hard and we're still indoctrinated to be on parade.
    "Darling! How very . . . black," my mother falters, scanning my outfit up and down. She leans forward and sniffs my shoulder. "Do I smell smoke?"
    A dilemma. Do I let her think, incorrectly, that I have puffed my way through twenty fags on the journey down? Or do I tell her the truth, that her daughter is such a slovenly disgrace that she's still wearing last night's clothes?
    As she's Chief Constable of the fashion police, it's difficult to gauge which scenario will prompt the greater disapproval.
    "I wore it last night to Richard's party and ended up staying there. So it was this or his Carmen Miranda Mardi Gras outfit." The sleepover lie is inspired, I think.
    But mother seems unimpressed. "Jess, you simply
cannot
sit through lunch in yesterday's clothes."
    I open my mouth to protest that I had only worn them for a couple of hours the night before, but she doesn't let me speak.
    "No buts. Go upstairs to the little wardrobe in the spare room. There's a clean outfit there I keep for such emergencies."
    World famine, motorway pileups, droughts, monsoons--all bona fide "emergencies." In Mum's world, add faintly unkempt daughters to the list.
    By the time Olivia arrives twenty minutes later, I'm sitting at the lunch table in a pale pink twinset with tiny, embroidered flowers around the neckline and a beige, A-line skirt. The "emergency" shoes were too small, so I'm still wearing my black stilettos with strict instructions from Mother to keep them firmly wedged under the table.
    "Ah, the emergency outfit," smiles Olivia, once Mum is out of earshot. "What have you done to deserve that?"
    "I turned up in last night's clothes." I sniff sullenly.
    "Good one. I had to wear it once when Matthew spilled orange juice down my front just before Mum's lunch guests arrived."
    She sits down opposite me. "So, the sleepover. Anyone nice?"
    I raise my eyes heavenward. "I wish. I was at Richard and Lars's for their first anniversary party." I lower my voice even more. "I didn't actually stay. I just fell back into the same clothes this morning and they smelled of smoke . . . so, bingo!" I tug the twinset.
    Mum arrives back in the room, clutching a steaming tureen of vegetables. "Where
is
your father? I sent him for some fresh strawberries about an