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She tugged at the zipper on her black jacket and put her hands on her hips, black leather pants feeling appropriately tough and awesome against her skin. Then she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and waited on the already-way-too-warm-for-these-clothes tarmac for Ferro to arrive so she could board his private plane.
Clothes really did do something for the way she felt. She’d doubted that when she’d first been thrust into the public arena. Monochromatic had always been her strategy. Black helped her match and blend in. And especially after the assault she’d stopped trying to fit in and just gone with baggy T-shirts with funny sayings and baggy pants with too many zippers.
She didn’t wear color. Especially pink. Not after the prom dress.
You’ll look so pretty in it, honey.
The image of her standing in front of the mirror at the department store, her mother behind her, beaming, flashed through her mind. They’d spent hours dress shopping after Michael had asked her to be his date.
That same dress had been torn, destroyed by the end of the night. And when she’d taken it off, let it fall to the bathroom floor before stepping into the shower to scrub the blood and pain and shame away, she’d vowed she would never wear that stupid, insipid color again.
At first, her publicist and stylist had tried to push her into softer clothes, but eventually, they’d figured out a style that kept some of her edge while giving her polish.
It was armor. It made her look more like she wanted to feel. Tougher, more in control. Like she had mastered that silly girl looking desperately for acceptance. Like she was tough enough to take on the world. She still felt like a shivery mass of Jell-O inside half the time.
But hey, at least she looked the part, even if she couldn’t be the part.
“All ready for snowdrifts, I see.”
She turned and watched Ferro stride toward her, with a fully appropriate level of female appreciation for the way the man looked in a pair of dark jeans that rode low on lean hips, a white, button-up shirt with sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a leather bag slung over his shoulder.
“And you’re not.”
“Well, I thought I might change on the plane. It has more bedrooms than the hotel suite you booked us.”
“Aha. Ha, ha. Cute, Calvaresi.”
“But it is true.”
“Well, I’ll find out soon, won’t I?” She picked her suitcase up from the ground and looked at him. “Give the order, or, whatever you have to do to get this show on the road. I don’t want to linger on the runway. I’m sweltering.”
He smiled and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket.
“You know, there’s a faster, better phone than that on the market,” she said. “OnePhone. To rule them all.”
“Better is a generalization and is also subjective. Also, your phone is only faster when it’s able to hook up to your special cell towers which is in…remind me, Julia, ten percent of cases?”
She smiled. “Twelve. But we’re expanding.”
“Right, right.” He pushed a button on his phone and the door to the plane opened, the stairs lowering. “In the meantime, my phone continues to be functional. And it makes calls without dropping them.”
“Yeah, super functional. I bet all the people with private planes want your phone. Meanwhile, the masses who want to fling birds at pigs, really like my phone.”
“A waste of tech.”
“No, it’s not.” She started climbing the stairs and ducked her head when she entered the plane. “Nice. Bigger than mine,” she said, sitting on one of the plush leather sofas. “Anyway, when I was in high school, we were all starting to get phones. And they did one thing, they made calls. Great. The screens were black-and-white, the ring tones were monophonic. Really rich kids got a laptop, too. Now? Now a whole computer is available on your phone. Web browsing, videos and, yes, games. Accessibility. There’s a price point, not just for phones, but for all technology for almost everyone now. Information, entertainment. All in your hand.”
“I’m going to skip the potential double entendre inherent in comments about handheld entertainment.”
She curled her lip. “Please do.”
