“Why?” She was startled and then angry she didn’t see the question coming. “Why? Well, I don’t know…as long as I’m in town, you know. Couldn’t hurt, right?”

He smiled at her. It was a perfectly nice smile, not at all the rich promise of lust he’d given Betsy the night before, but she still felt a stab. Lower. “Do unto others, as we monkeys like to say?”

“You’re not monkeys,” she said, shocked. “Well. Jessica and Marc—I mean, I’m sorry.” She was flustered, and even a little shamed…she had obviously been overusing the rude word. “I don’t even think of you as—look, can we get off this? If I offended you, I’m sorry.”

“You’re clueless,” he said, picking up the paper with a rattle, “not sorry. You poor thing.”

She fumed through the rest of her breakfast and bolted as soon as she could.

Chapter 11

Stop staring.”

“I wasn’t,” Jessica whined.

“Yes, you were.”

“Well, I heard you had a bite mark. But I don’t see a thing.”

“Superior life form,” she reminded them. “It’s long gone.”

It was the next night, and they were going through Betsy’s closet, looking for clothes Antonia might borrow. It was all so girlfriend-ish she thought she might puke. But the alternative—shopping—was ever so much worse.

“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, peering into Betsy’s closet and counting at least a hundred pairs of shoes. “Those look expensive. You walk through dog shit in those things?”

“Why do you think she needs so many of them?” Jess asked brightly. She put a rainbow-colored stack of T-shirts on the bed. “Those should work.”

“I’ve got a bunch of leggings and stuff you can borrow, too,” Betsy said, muffled from the closet, “but I draw the line at lending you my panties.”

“I’ll go to Wal-Mart or something later.”

Jessica, who was both rich and a snob, was unable to conceal her shudder.

“Knock it off, Jessica. You’re in no position to look down on anybody. Not if you can’t run a mile in less than a minute.”

“I could if I wanted,” Betsy bragged from the closet. “I just don’t want to.”

“You can’t do shit in those shoes,” Antonia snapped back.

“Hey, there’s a perfectly nice Super 8 over on Grand, if ever you feel the need to, you know, get the hell out.”

“Would that I could,” she grumped, but she was secretly pleased. It was like—like they were friends or something. They were grateful she’d helped Marc. They didn’t pry (much) into her sex life. Nobody was worried about her having a defective cub. Nobody cared that she was running out of clothes and needed to borrow. It was—er, what was the word? Nice.