Re: The Flibbertigibbet/The Pilot
Lili wasn't a romantic. Not for all the tea in China. She had believed in it once, which gave the whole playacting thing some soul, a tear welling, that kind of thing. But she wasn't a sentimentalist, not for things or places or particular people. She was keen on herself, who wasn't? But romance was the fastest way to come second in your own life, because nobody, but nobody was going to put you first if you lost yourself in them. But she knew the difference between the kind of alone you wrapped around you like a blanket listening to the rain outside, and the kind of alone that crept up on you, breathed down your neck like an unpleasant man in a raincoat.
"No, but that's the best kind," she said, simply. The air sounded romantic, and Lil imagined it wasn't. It was like movies, dreary once you got to the practical stuff. For a moment, every so often she lost herself and it felt a little like heaven. But it wasn't, when she remembered. That was how something worked. Her best movies, she didn't remember anything other than in moments.
She watched Carter sift through the garments and pick out a skirt. It wasn't just a skirt, it was fitted through the hips and it made a girl walk with a delightful wiggle. And it was lavender. It was about the most ridiculous skirt with pants that Lili had seen, but she thought maybe the blouse and the leather jacket made it roguish, dialled it down. With a little red lipstick, Carter could make it work. Lili twined a stray strand of hair around her finger.
"Oh I don't say I don't," she said, sweetly candid. "There's probably one around more your color but I think the style would suit you. If you wear skirts, do you?" A moment of faint trouble, and than Lili smiled, effervescent and untroubled and the world moved on. "It's a different kind. But it's the kind men don't notice you take, most of the time. They expect it. And I look ravishing in that skirt," she said, laughing, and rolled onto her stomach, with her bare feet waving somewhat behind her.