I opened one eye to regard Shirley. She'd been nice enough to give me an entire makeover on the nine-mile bus ride to Kriens, so I probably owed it to her to stay out of the sun. I owed it to myself, too. She'd plastered so much makeup on me, if it got too hot, I'd have serious meltdown.

But I looked good. Really good. With a few strokes of the proper pencil and brush, she had given me eyebrows like Catherine Zeta-Jones, lips like Angelina Jolie, and cheekbones like Bo Derek. My eyelids wore a sooty smudge, my mouth a gleaming polish, my cheeks a blushing glow. I was gorgeous. I felt taller, thinner, more confident. I was sporting the kind of face that caused men to stare, or walk into walls, or off cliffs. I eyed the guardrail that was perched at the lip of the hotel terrace and worried it might not be high enough.

Shirley extracted a pair of dark glasses from her Triangle Tour bag and slid them onto my face. "I always carry an extra pair. Maybe the sun will stay out long enough for you to wear them a while."

Dick Stolee approached, panning his camcorder from right to left. "Top of Mount Pilatus. Hotel on top of Mount Pilatus." He angled the lens into my face. "Swiss babe wearing a red raincoat on top of Mount Pilatus." He held the camera in the same position for several seconds before adding, "Correction on the Swiss babe. It's Emily wearing sunglasses and too much makeup."

Ordinarily, a comment like that would have ruined the moment, but today, it rolled off me like water off a duck's back. I figured it had something to do with the altitude.

Shirley, however, took exception. She snatched a small automatic camera out of her bag and aimed it at Dick. "Top of Mount Pilatus." CLICK. The film advanced. She aimed again. "Rude old geezer wearing a cheap toupee on top of Mount Pilatus." CLICK.

"Cheap toupee? I paid three thousand dollars for this rug!" Dick bristled. "And who are you calling rude? Hell, I'm being honest. She is wearing too much makeup."

"Emily's face is a work of art," Shirley fired back. "And applying makeup is an art form."

Shirley was probably wasting her breath talking about art. From my experience with men, it was obvious they knew only two things about art. During their college years, they knew all the bottles in their beer bottle pyramids had to match, and later in life, they knew the wood grain on their big-screen TVs kinda had to match the wood grain on their coffee tables.

Shirley seized my arm. "Come on, Emily. I don't like the view from here anymore." She whisked me away, and when we were out of earshot, she said, "That man is just like my first husband. Criticize, criticize, criticize. As if any man in all creation ever knew the first thing about what kind of makeup best enhances a woman's features."