“Of course, I’ll take care of it.” Jackie splayed her hand over her chest as if pledging an oath. “I’m honored that you asked me. This is such an historic beach. It’s where—”
“Come on,” Snakeskin Jeans urged, prodding her companions with a meaningful look.
“The three of you scoot,” Jackie insisted, as if she were playing mother hen to her baby chicks. “I’ll take some pictures, and then I’ll catch up with you.”
“You’re just an ever-lovin’ doll,” Bobbi called over her shoulder as she and her friends scurried away like cockroaches escaping the glare of an overhead light. “We’ll flag you down when we see you!”
Oh, sure. Like that was going to happen.
“I won’t be long!” Jackie waved to their retreating backs before exhaling an immensely satisfied sigh. She stashed her booklet in the outside pocket of her bag, then turned to me, aflutter with anticipation. “Aren’t they the best? I mean, I’ve only known them for half a day, but we’ve already bonded like this.” She twined her middle finger around the knuckle of her highly lacquered forefinger. “The four of us are going to be best friends forever!” Clasping her hands, she steepled them against her heart like a music idol about to burst into song. “It’s so awesome being part of a clique, Emily. Overnight, I’ve become one of the beautiful people—the ones who get immediate seating in restaurants, wolf whistles from construction workers, upgrades to the exit rows on airplanes. It makes me feel so much better than everyone else.” She paused, her eyes suddenly narrowing with a hint of self-awareness. “Do I sound like a snob?”
“Yup.”
She arched her exquisitely waxed brows and smiled. “You’re such a kidder.” Readjusting her minidress over her hips, she struck a wistful pose, as if recalling her life before facial hair remover creams and PMS. “You know, Emily, guys are so clueless about this whole bonding thing. I mean, I’m not knocking the really deep discussions I used to have with my buds about football and beer, but it’s so much easier to bond when you’re talking about really intimate things, like eyebrow threading and breast implants. Not to toot my own horn, but if you noticed the way the girls were fawning all over me, you might have to agree that I’m taking to this bonding thing like a diva to the red carpet.”
Unwilling to break the news that her clique had just ditched her like the butt-end of a stale cigar, I forced a smile. Her gender reassignment surgery might have allowed her to become female, but she was way behind the developmental curve when it came to recognizing cold shoulders. “Yup,” I agreed. “You’re a natural.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that because you always avoid conflict and we used to sleep together?”
I crooked my mouth and held out Bobbi’s camera. “You’re going to need this if you plan on taking any pictures.”
“BE CAREFUL!” She sucked in her breath and rushed over to me. “Bobbi might not like me anymore if you drop her high-end, state-of-the-art camera.”
“It’s a single-use disposable.”
“What?” She lifted it from my grasp as if it were a live grenade and cradled it in her palm, assessing the shiny buttons on the plastic casing. Puzzled, she turned it over in her hand. “Okay, but … it looks like a really expensive disposable.”
Jackie might be lagging behind her female counterparts on the cold shoulder graph, but she was off the chart when it came to denial. “Bobbi probably didn’t want to fuss with any complicated equipment,” I said in a charitable attempt to explain away the woman’s subterfuge.
“Well, if simplicity is what she wanted, she bought the right camera, because this model only has one button.”