Brittany had long since accepted that her new life meant a lot more people would be seeing her naked than before she'd lost everything. She'd grown used to it in prison, and the perks of her new life were well worth it, but there were still times when it could be a shock to the system.
Watching Angie stroll into the hot tub room in her bathrobe while Brittany was already in the water was one of those. Angie had seen her in the altogether once before, but that had been a fleeting look that had proved to be a final exam of sorts, which Brittany had passed. Spending time together in the hot tub like best friends was very, very different. Brittany didn't feel sure of anything, except that she'd need quite a bit of the wine Angie was carrying.
"Remember, Brittany, you're off duty," Angie said as she set the two glasses on the edge of the tub and poured the chilled chardonnay into each of them. "Don't be afraid to have as much of this as you want, and please try to relax, okay?"
"Easier said than done, Angie. But I'll try."
"I understand." Angie stood up straight and tall, holding the sash of her robe in both hands. "Well. Let's just get the shock over with, shall we?" She pulled the sash and her robe fell open.
Angie looked just as regal naked as clothed, her small breasts standing out proudly and belying their age by years and her small, elegant pubic hair triangle the same striking shade of silvery blonde as her perennially sculpted head hair. Brittany had seen enough new arrivals stripping for the first time in prison to spot the embarrassment and vulnerability behind Angie's determined smile as she stepped into the water, and she longed to put her mentor and friend at ease. "I hope you don't mind my saying so, Angie, but you have a beautiful body," she said.
"Thank you, dear, but I'm under no illusions about being as sexy as you are," Angie said as she held up her glass for a toast.
Brittany clinked her glass. "Well, I did have a lot of help from Winnie, thanks to you!"
"He did a lovely job," Angie agreed. "But let's maybe not tell him you shared his handiwork in that picture, shall we?"
"This wasn't his handiwork anyway!" Brittany declared, proudly patting her ample bush. "He offered to wax me, and I said no thanks. I think the bushy look is really becoming of this Erika gal, don't you?"
"It does give you a certain unique charm," Angie admitted. Another sip of the wine and she was confident and businesslike as ever - until she let a girlish giggle escape. "Believe me, Brittany, this is uncharted waters for me as well," she said. "But given the things I've asked you to do in the line of duty..."
"I don't mind, Angie!" Brittany said. "I've got to confess, it's really been kind of fun. Not as much fun as if I'd brought Mansfield Consulting down and inflicted some serious injuries on Peter Gruber and the rest of those guys, I'll admit, but still."
"You will get there," Angie said. "To bringing Mansfield down, I mean. I can't promise you about the rest." She paused and they each took a long sip of wine. "Brittany, are you comfortable?" she asked.
"I am if you are," Brittany said. "It feels a little weird, but then so does everything since you got me out of that hellhole. And it's worth it, believe me!"
"Thank you," Angie said. "And I'll say it again, you look beautiful. Prison couldn't destroy that."
"Thanks, Angie. "
"Now then," Angie continued. " I promised I'd come clean to you, and since we both literally have nothing to hide here, so I shall. Brittany, I do want you to know I'm very proud of all you've accomplished already, and if I criticized you too much over that, erm, intimate photo of yours, it was only because I've been prone to thinking of you more like I'm your mother than your boss."
"I've noticed," Brittany said. "And I'm flattered, really, especially since my real mother - well, you probably know as much about her as I do."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Angie said. "I do know a lot, but only of a certain type of information. Anyway, Brittany, the reason why I've allowed myself to become so attached to you..." She paused and swallowed hard. "My son, Will, he always..."
"You have a son?"
"Please don't interrupt, Brittany. Will always wanted to follow in my footsteps, since he was old enough to know what Mom did for a living. Always. And I made the mistake of letting him."
"Oh my God, Angie!" All at once, Brittany knew all too well what was coming. She scooted around to Angie's side of the tub and put an arm around her.
Angie nodded and blinked back a few tears, but there were more to come. "Right around the time you first came on our radar - in fact, it was Will who found the proof of how you were framed and why. At a brothel in Berlin. He found the information we needed, but he got excited and he got careless, and -" Angie's voice broke off and she dissolved into tears.
"Angie, I'm so sorry!" Brittany exclaimed. Angie lay her head on Brittany's shoulder and wept openly, and Brittany stroked her back and cradled her, skin to skin, breast to breast, until she'd regained control.
"Thank you, Brittany," Angie said with a deep breath, pulling back. "In any event, now you understand why I always tell you to be careful, and why I worry over you the way I do."
"Of course!" Brittany said. "I'm so sorry, but I'm glad you told me. It's a lesson I certainly won't forget when I'm back out there. And another good reason to go after those assholes, isn't it?"
"Well said, my dear," Angie said. "Of course I know you're not Will..." And at that point they both looked down at Brittany's unmistakably female body and burst into laughter "...but I do feel you have a sort of bond with him, and in a way with me, too. Is that okay?"
"Okay?! It's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me, Angie." She held up her wine glass and they drank to it. "For Will."
"For Will. Let's you and I take down Mansfield."
"Yes, please!" Hoping to steer the conversation into less painful waters for Angie, Brittany asked, "So, any chance the next stop for Erika is someplace warm? After Luxembourg, I'm ready to never see another cloudy day if I can help it!"
Angie's sobs turned to laughter. "Thank you, Brittany, I needed that. As for Erika, officially speaking, Joseph has put the program on hold for the holidays. He thinks things might be a bit too hot after what you did in Athens. But unofficially..."
"Unofficially?" Brittany gave Angie a hopeful smile.
"Unofficially, perhaps Erika would like to accompany her adoptive mother to Hawaii for the holidays?"
"And if there happens to be someone from Mansfield Consulting there..."
"Then Angie and Erika know nothing about it," Angie said, the twinkle in her eye having returned. "But surely they could lend a hand since they're in the neighborhood anyway."
"Is there anything Angie ought to tell Erika about any leads we have in Hawaii?" Brittany asked.
"You know, I just might have been so careless as to leave the file in that Churchill biography you were reading in your room the other night," Angie said, and they clinked glasses and poured another round.
Having not taken a holiday since Will's death, Angie had plenty of frequent flyer points to burn, and they both flew first class. "Try not to be disappointed in it now that you've flown business class to Europe," Angie warned her before boarding. "Even first class on most American lines feels like steerage in comparison."
"Then I'll consider myself lucky to know the difference," Brittany promised. "Remember, I know what it's like to live in steerage."
Angie closed her eyes and sighed. "Yes, of course you do. Silly of me to forget that. I'm sorry, Brittany."
"Don't be. I sure wish I could forget it. But the point is, even the most cramped airplane ride is always going to feel like a magic carpet ride to me, because I'm free." She took Angie by the arm and kissed her cheek, and added, "Even in this silly getup." Rules were still to be obeyed, and no one from her old life was likely to recognize Brittany the Tomboy in a full skirt and pastel sweater. Luckily, she was finally coming to like it. But she still felt like an impostor, and she still envied Angie's ability to wear slacks, as she was today.
"That silly getup is beautiful and you know it," Angie said. "Don't worry, you won't be the only one in a skirt when we get there."
The file had been right where Angie had told her it would be - along with a note saying not to talk about it with Angie at any time, even in a secure location, so they would both be able to say they hadn't talked about it. So Angie spent the six hours on the plane and their overnight layover in San Francisco going over the details she'd memorized about what they knew of Mansfield Consulting in the islands. Strictly high-class, no back-alley dealing here, but probably with reaches deep into the staffs of some high-end resorts. The bigwig was a blond Englishman known only as Brian to date, of whom there wasn't even a confirmed picture yet. Peter Gruber himself, the man who had landed Brittany in prison, had been sighted at the bar of a beachfront resort called the Nawahani Suites. But to Brittany's disappointment, that had been nearly a year before with no sightings since then. So any opportunity to get any personal revenge would just have to wait a little longer.
On the bright side, the Nawahani Suites looked absolutely palatial, and Brittany had little doubt Angie had seen fit to get a suite in the hotel that featured the hottest clue they had. Without having discussed the matter just as she'd been ordered, Brittany could hear her clear as a bell saying it was the right choice precisely because it looked like such a foolish thing to do on paper.
She was right. When Angie told the airport limo driver in Honolulu to take them to Nawahani, Brittany couldn't resist a knowing grin.
"Don't act surprised, Erika," Angie said. "You know I'd only get the very best for us.
"Of course I do, Mom," Brittany said. "I just hope we can afford it."
"Never you mind that, dear."
And through her practiced poker face, Brittany could see Angie was delighted with what she had called her. Brittany found she enjoyed it, too.
The Nawahani Suites was just as opulent as the website had made it look. It was also just as exclusive as Brittany had imagined it, judging from the prevalence of designer clothing she now recognized readily thanks to Winnie. The twinkling lights and the bright MELE KALIKIMAKA banner in the lobby didn't do much in the way of adding a feeling of Christmas for a New England girl in 80-degree weather, but Brittany appreciated the effort and was glad to be out of the snow.
