43,520 Words.... Iyiyiy am getting nowhere!

Aaaaahhhhh... my story is proceeding at a snail's pace, but I have all the pieces lined up, and now they will start to fall. I think. Unless I somehow manage to spend the bulk of my word count on describing outfits. Here are a couple of excerpts that I think you will enjoy. I had to include both because I couldn't decide which one to include.

Jackie did not rise from the armchair, but instead took a moment to straighten the doily on the left arm, whilst commenting in a surly voice “can’t you read?”
Alice was a bit taken aback, both by his words and the barely concealed aggression beneath them. “Uh… I did see that you were closed, but I hoped…”
“No! Not that one, the other one!” He said, pointing to a small handwritten sign that was taped to the window at the front of the house. Alice approached the sign, and saw that she would have had to have been standing on the front lawn of the home/bar in order to read it. She could just make out the words as she approached the glass, though she was reading backwards. It said ‘This Ain’t The Hilton.” She straightened up, then bent back down, rereading the words just to make sure she had them right. What a strange place this was!
Jackie was looking at her expectantly, and she realized that he expected her to understand the meaning of the sign. She decided to go with asking the obvious.
“Why would I think this place was the Hilton?” she asked.
“You tell me, City Slicker,” he replied. Alice was indeed confused. She looked down at herself, to see if there was any hint that she might have given that a) she was a city slicker, and b) that she was looking for the Hilton. She was dressed casually, in acid washed jorts, a graphic t, and a fitted red hoodie, artfully faded to add to its casual allure. She had purchased the outfit at a local boutique in Toronto, called “Iyiyiy Am Wearing You!” just for the purposes of traveling incognito throughout small town Ontario. The small blond imp who ran the store had assured her she would blend in perfectly. Perhaps she shouldn’t have taken his second piece of advice, which was that when you were feeling conspicuous, the perfect cover was to pull out your phone and text someone… ‘1-4-3’ being the perfect text to send when words failed you under pressure. Alice knew in her heart that pulling out her phone and texting someone was bad form, and she was reasonably certain that she it would not make her less conspicuous under these circumstances, but she had gone ahead and done it anyway upon entering the bar. Damn her infernal nerves! And damn the blond imp with the adorable dimples! It was the last time she took advice on how to behave socially from a 12 year old.

And the second excerpt...

If there was one thing that Joanne didn’t want to hear about, it was the importance of love. But she had heard what she needed to. They weren’t planning on using the research for their doctoral dissertations. Joanne was sick to death of self-important blowbags coming in here and acting like their doctoral research was life or death. They never wanted to hear about her Master’s thesis, and sneered in the face of her credentials. If there was one thing on earth that Joanne hated worse than people who misunderstood the Dewey decimal system, it was doctoral students. She had heard everything she needed to.
“Okay. You can take the documents.” Jake and Gordon both breathed a huge sigh of relief. “BUT!” Joanne pronounced loudly, her finger raised didactically in the air “…so help me God, if you do not come back here within 24 hours with those documents with you, INTACT,” she issued a warning glare with this word, “I will not hesitate to contact my union president and I will complain bitterly.” Jake and Gordon had no doubt that Joanne had every intention of doing so. Librarians were well known for not being afraid to go straight to the top with their bitter complaints. They nodded vigorously, scooped up the documents, and fled to the elevator before Joanne had the opportunity to change her mind.
Gordon pressed the button to the top floor, the location of the offices of To(Ron)To(!).
“What are you doing??”Jake asked, chagrined. “We need to get to the lobby! We have to get out of here!” he cried. He was truly panicking in his desperation to get to Alice.
“I have a couple of things in my office I just have to grab. It will only take a moment.” Gordon said mysteriously. When they reached his office, Jake was trailing behind him and whining like a sulky child. “Enough!” Gordon said imperiously. “I cannot travel like this.” Jake raised his eyebrows. “I must change.” Jake was slightly grateful for this. Though being embarrassed by Gordon’s gothic creepy demeanour was the last thing he was thinking about, he would feel better traveling with a companion who minimally appeared slightly less insane than the situation they were racing to encounter. He took a seat and waited as patiently as he could while Gordon slinked into his office.
True to his word, Gordon was quick. He must have had what he referred to as his ‘traveling garb’ packed and ready for just such an occasion as this. Strange behavior, but this was to be expected by To(Ron)To’s brilliant but incredible strange editor. His ‘traveling garb’ consisted of a blue tank top (a tank top!?!) with a white triangle pattern and white trim, paired with grey sweatpants that were more tailored and fitted than any sweatpants Jake had ever seen before (and this was saying something, as at one point in his life, Jake had considered himself something of a sweatpants aficionado.) Finally, Gordon was wearing a pair of bright white sneakers that were obviously just out of the box. They had eyelets for laces, but no laces. Must have been slip-ons, Jake mused.
“I thought it best to try something new for this road trip. The cape is a poorly understood item of clothing, and I believe it is our desire to appear inconspicuous. The young gentleman at “Iyiyiy Am Wearing You” assured me that this outfit is de rigeur among the farming communities of Southern Ontario.” Jake highly doubted this, but there was no time to argue. But he made a mental note to check out this boutique Gordon had spoken of. It sounded like the young gentleman really knew his shit. It was then that Jake noticed the leather bound volume that Gordon had tucked under his arm.
“What is that?” he asked, though he had his suspicions that he knew exactly what it was.
“It is my doctoral dissertation.” As always, Gordon pronounced this ‘doc-TOR-al’. “Just in case.” He said, and with that… they were off, to parts unknown and quite possibly to one or both of their dooms.