Chapter 11

Maura had been excited to give Natalie her Christmas gift, a thin, old Atlas from 1910 she had found in a used bookstore. It was yellowed and smelled of ink and the look on Natalie’s face as she reverently turned the pages was sexy and gratifying and not a little silly. Natalie had gotten her a little silver key charm to hang on Maura’s favorite choker. They had both bought Camilla clothes and a stuffed unicorn. Things were kind of perfect.

In fact, the rest of vacation was almost suspiciously pleasant, and Camilla even had the good sense to fall asleep on the plane ride back to Washington, D.C., on the morning of December 31st. Natalie had been sent off with packages of cookies and well-wishes from her aunts and uncles, and calls for Maura to “come back soon” so, as Zoey put it, “we can show hustlers exactly what it’s like to get a dart through the knee”.