And they would return to their room and unbutton their outfits and laugh about the width of a fellow diner or the waiter’s haircut. And, again, it felt glorious to be out in the world and allowed to be silly.
And they would play cards. And Kathryn would voice the need for a cigar, and would threaten to go looking for one, and Tahira would find her—in Kathryn’s own words—positively naughty. And in three weeks, not once did they finish a card game. A hand here, a hand there, but never to completion. Yet Kathryn had never laughed so hard, not at any of the county tournaments she had entered over the years.
