She found a skirt in light brown denim with dark brown fringe on the edges of the pockets and on the hem. With her height, in her waist size the actual hemline was a couple of inches above her knee, with the 2-inch fringe giving it at the same time a more modest and yet a more sexy look. When she saw the reflection presented her with this shirt and skirt, she knew that she would be the equal of any woman at the Cow Palace that night.
But the shoes, and the hiking boots she'd worn last night, just didn't go with this outfit. Thinking how ridiculous it was to buy yet another thing she might never wear again, Laura perused the shelves of women's cowboy boots. Before she could talk herself out of it, because she needed to act fast and get back to the afternoon session at the hotel, she grabbed a pair of boots in a medium tan color, with a flame pattern stitched on the shaft in dark brown threads. She snatched up a pair of the little nylon socks they provided for trying on boots, pulled those on, then slid her foot into the unfamiliar footwear. When her foot reached the bottom of the shaft, she found that she had to hook her fingers into the leather loops on each side at the top of the boot shaft, and tug on those while pushing her foot into the boot bottom. But when she had both boots on, she took a few tentative steps and was surprised at how comfortable these felt. The heels, while high, were not as high as on some of her dress shoes, and the wider base of the heel made walking easy.
Did she dare complete the picture, and rack up even more charges on her Visa card, by buying a cowboy hat? Normally, Laura was very decisive. Having to make choices quickly when she was dealing with a broken computer program in a production environment had given her the habit of making snap decisions. But would it appear that she was trying too hard to look like something she wasn't? Would Monty be embarrassed if she showed up in a Stetson? Would Monty even show up, and she'd have wasted all this money for nothing?
She decided that enough was enough and had the clerk ring up her purchases, without a hat. Although the clerk wore Western wear, she could tell that he was gay so she wasn't offended when he took much less notice of her than she was accustomed to when being waited on by a man. She hoped that her new outfit would spark much more interest than that in Monty.