The end of February was a wet and miserable affair, drearily cold in that in-between fashion: too hot for winter coats, too cold for anything less. The trip to London had been kind of fun, attracting odd looks from Southampton Central (unused to the finery of evening wear amongst the hoodies and Chinese students) and slowly shifting, the farther the train went, until by the time they reached London Waterloo, nobody apparently found them odd at all.
Darren found Rachel odd. Awkward and gangly, she apparently did actually know how to clean up, and had donned a well-cut suit and pale-coloured blouse that hid the odd angles of her shoulders and smoothed out her long limbs until she looked elegant instead of lanky. She looked pretty, even, and slightly fierce in that woman-in-the-boardroom way
