“Definitely,” my nasty roommates agrees.

“Or maybe I should try on one of the other dresses…” I take a more conservative-looking black gown off the rack. “This looks much more—”

“Safe,” Nikki ends the phrase for me.

“I was going to say appropriate. Come on, Nikki,” I protest one last time. “This is not me.”

“That’s exactly my point.”

“What do you mean?”

“This dress was totally made for the new you. If you can go to jail, you can wear the dress.”

Mandy is looking at us as if we’re crazy. “You went to jail?”

I jump to reassure her. “It was a bureaucratic misunderstanding. I wasn’t really arrested.”

Her expression relaxes.

Nikki pushes her point, “There must be something on your not-to-do list of things you have to do that forces you to wear this beauty.”

I mentally scroll through the items and smile devilishly. “Always dress appropriately…?”

“Then it’s decided!” Nikki’s smile is almost as wicked as mine.

Mandy nods her approval, but it’s Chevron’s bark of endorsement that seals the deal.

Nine

Never Confide in Strangers

I shouldn’t be so early. Simple as that. There are a million reasons to keep a decent buffer when traveling, but I should’ve kept it practical. Three hours for a domestic flight is an eternity. Even the monstrous departures board of JFK informs me I’m definitely too early. No gate info yet.

I need to find somewhere cozy to wait. The only place with seats in sight of the board is an airport bar, so I drag my suitcase along and sit on a stool at the counter.

“Hi,” the bartender—a friendly looking blonde-hair-blue-eye type with a warm expression—greets me. “What can I get you?”

“Something to drink, please,” I say.

“Cocktail, beer, a soda?”

“No thanks. Do you have any organic juices or a relaxing tea?”

The bartender’s blue eyes twinkle. “Let’s see.” He squats behind the counter to open a fridge, I assume. “On the organic shelf, there’s OJ, Honeycrisp apple juice, carrot beet ginger juice, or mango tea.”

“The carrot ginger, please.”

Mr. Friendly & Cute shakes the bottle and pours the juice into a tall glass. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” I take a sip and check my watch.

“Waiting for someone?” the bartender asks.

“Yeah.”

“Are they late?”

“No, I’m early.”

“Better safe than sorry. When does your plane leave?”

“In three hours.”

He raises an eyebrow. “International?”

I shake my head.

The bartender lets out a low whistle. “That’s a big buffer for a national flight,” he says, and then pours me some tortilla chips.

The poor guy hasn’t asked why I’m so early, and Mr. Cute here probably doesn’t care, but I don’t know why I start spilling out all the details of my personal life. “Truth is, I have to go on a business trip with my boss. We’re going to LA for the weekend and I was nervous about this whole away-with-the-boss thing. So I came to the airport super early. Just in case. One never knows when traffic will go crazy in this city.”