JACK OF DIAMONDS, REDUX

Chapter 16, proposed edits

CHAPTER 16

Sonia checked her look in the compact’s small mirror.

One last time, she told herself, before turning the key and shutting the engine down. She pulled up on the handbrake before looking in the compact and touching the corners of her lips and, wiping a small smear of lipstick she’d missed the first two times she checked. She sat back, and had to ask herself if it even mattered anymore.

Really, just who am I trying to impress? she wondered.

There were no men in her life anymore—and hadn’t been for a long time—which only made it things sadder when you stood on the outside looking in, she realized. She pushed her blonde hair back into place the small bun she’d hastily tied up before leaving home and before picking up her hat and carefully setting it in place. and She pushing pushed the few stray strands back under the rim of her hat. She looked in the compact to make sure it was all in place. She pushed up on her breasts as well, making herself appear look larger, fuller, firmer, for all of one second she thought, and then laughed at herself.

She was nervous.

Admit it.

And yet, there’s no reason for her me to be nervous, she knew, and she told herself that as well. She’d I’ve been in many more nerve-wracking situations than this, in her life, she reminded herself. Her father had taught her a great many things over the course of her life—more than he would’ve taught her had her mother lived longer—and one of the most important things he’d taught her was to believe in herself self-confidence. It was a trait that would get you through anything, she knew.

Like the War, for one thing.

But this is different, isn’t it?

She felt like a nervous little schoolgirl child entering a new school for the first time, rather than the new police station she’d just been assigned to. She’d felt the same way on her wedding day, she remembered. But that was a different nervousness, she reminded herself, thinking how she’d looked forward to finally being alone with Gerald for the night. She missed him, there was no denying that, and told herself she had to move on with her life. It seemed that was the problem.