“Let me change out of this wet shirt. I’ll be back in a sec.”

When she returned, debating between tucking the shirt in and wearing it untucked, she caught Alie and Emily looking at her with mouths half-open.

“What? That bad? C’mon tell me,” she tried to coax them. “Tucked, right?”

“Um … “ Alie started, then paused.

“You’re chesty,” Emily pointed out. She handed the soft blazer over. “Shirt’s tight around the chest but loose around the waist. Didn’t expect that. Like you have no tummy at all. The loose shirt you had on earlier really hid things.”

“Brook” slipped her soft Vicuna wool jacket back on. “I think the cut of this shirt just makes it look that way.” The loose, unstructured jacket hid her figure completely from view.

Emily frowned. “Aww, you’ve covered up …”

“Those headlights?” Alie asked with a quick wink at “Brook.”

“Yeah, and the clever pun written on the shirt, silly,” Emily continued.

“Brook” chuckled. “I saw it – not my style, though.”

A lounge attendant walked up and interrupted them. “Miss? Your flight to Montana is boarding.”

Both Alie and Emily looked at “Brook” clearly surprised.

“I thought you were flying to or from Paris …” one started to ask.

“Yeah, I saw the airline tags, too. And from how we were talking earlier, I thought you were heading East,” Alie added.

“Miss?” the lounge attendant interrupted firmly.

“Brook” stood, motioned to the attendant that she would follow her out, but was surprised by a sudden, quick hug from Emily and then from Alie.

“Have a good time in … Montana?”

“Brook” chuckled and slung her travel bag across her body, and pulled on her roller bag.

“Yup, Montana. Thanks for the shirt, girls. Til next time!”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Something was happening to her, she was getting hard, inside. Ever since Kansas City, and the violence there, her wrenching grief over losing her best friend, the abrupt manner with which her life had suddenly been turned upside down, she was changing. She was losing the rose-colored glasses with which she’d always viewed the world. She wanted the old Bette back.

But she couldn’t afford to live like the old Bette. She was a new person out here.

She used to hate confrontation, preferred to calmly discuss disagreements until things went her way, and, while out in public, she rolled with a passel of friends who could deal. Getting down and dirty was not her thing, so her friends dealt with the nasty stuff for her.