Tipping the book up off the table to read away from the glare of the pendant light, I slowly scanned the words. Definitely close enough.

It felt slightly cathartic, as if things were marginally back to normal. And yet ... they were sooo not. Twenty minutes into this little mystery, and a logical explanation still escaped me. I didn’t have a hypothesis, a theory, or even a guess. All I could claim was a shifty version of the original entry, and it didn’t comfort me nearly as much as I’d imagined.

Thrumming my eraser on the table, I decided to lay a trap. Flipping forward a page, I started with the prompt I’d been offered.

Miss Nicola James will be sensible and indulge in a little romance....

Not with a man, with a dress. A fabulously out-of-character peacock blue party dress, complete with a flirty skirt and a daring neckline that, miracle of miracles, provides just a hint of cleavage.

This was starting to sound a little like a J. Peterman catalog, but honestly, it was just that kind of dress. It was a whim of fancy with an almost audible siren song. It had cut in on my long-standing arrangement with my little black dress and impelled me to buy it—and the matching shoes too. Both were impractical, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

She’ll go bare-legged and carefree, sliding her whimsically painted toes into the cramped but vamped sequined sandals that she miraculously found on sale.

Okay, the whimsical toes were probably a stretch, but if a girl couldn’t live it up in her journal, then what was the point?

Nicola is bravely ignoring the unpredictability of March weather in Austin and will no doubt end up shivering in her spaghetti straps, frozen as a Fudgsicle. At which point her cleavage may just get its big break.... She’s kinda hoping it does.