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They left the restaurant in silence.  There wasn’t anything left to do, so they headed for the car, deep in their own thoughts.

“Hats!” said Nick, suddenly.

Abby stopped, startled.  She looked at his head.  He was wearing his.  He hadn’t left it behind.

“Look,” said Nick.  “A hat store.”

Okay, thought Abby.

“Trying on hats is supposed to put you in a good mood.  My grandmother told me that.  It’s sort of a family saying.  Grandma said that whenever you need your spirits lifted, you should try on hats, because you can’t feel bad when you’re doing that.”

You can if they all look awful on you, thought Abby, but she didn’t say it aloud.  She recognized this as Nick’s attempt to get them back on friendly terms and she was grateful for it.  She smiled and shrugged.  “So what’s the saying?”

“Oh, if one of us if pouty or mopey or something, someone will say, ‘oh, go try on a hat’.”  Nick opened the door of the store and ushered Abby through.  There were hats everywhere, on little fake heads and metal stands…all different sorts.

“Is there a manual?” asked Abby.

Nick laughed and recognized that Abby was trying to get over their final moments in the dining room.  “Come on,” he said.  “Pick five.”

“Five?”

“Well, it’s not just grab-anything.  You have to be a little…”  He couldn’t think of the word.

“Discriminating?” suggested Abby.

“There you go,” said Nick.  “That’s the first part of the fun…picking out the five hats.”

Abby had a feeling he was making this up as he went along, but she didn’t care.  “Well, I guess it depends on what I want the hat for…if I want to pretend I’m the Queen of England, I’d want that one.”  She pointed to a pale blue hat with net and feathers on it.

“Or if you’re eighty and going to church,” said Nick.  “What about this one?”  He picked up a felt cowboy hat.  It was cherry red.

“Sure,” said Abby, “if I’m hooking down in the District.  It’d go great with my fishnets and my whip.”

Nick snorted with laughter and then looked mock serious.  “We better not make fun or they might throw us out of here.”

“Here’s one for you,” said Abby, picking up a wide brimmed-straw hat with a rainbow-colored ribbon.  “For the next time you fall asleep on the beach.”

“Or get to play Scarlett O’Hara,” added Nick.

They laughed and talked and pointed at hats.  And it worked.  Abby didn’t even mind that they all looked awful on her because they had made fun of them all before she tried them on, so it was okay that she didn’t look like the Queen of England or a hooker.

“Try this on,” said Nick, holding up a cap.  It was a peaked cap, houndstooth check, like young boys wore in New York in the early 1900’s.  Abby thought it was called a Newsies hat.

Abby couldn’t think of a joke to go with it, so she just pulled it down on her head.

“No,” said Nick, “not like that.”  He took the hat off her head.  “Put your hair up under it.”

Abby blushed.  “But…”

“Do it,” said Nick.  “You have a beautiful neck.  You need to show it off more.”

Said neck was now bright red, Abby was sure, to match her flaming cheeks.  She bunched her hair in her hands and twisted it.  She held it down on the top of her head with one hand and pulled the cap on with her other. 

Nick reached out and tilted the hat a fraction of an inch.  Then he stepped back and crossed his arms.  Abby was embarrassed and started to put her head down.

“Uh uh,” said Nick.  “Head up.”

Abby was so embarrassed she thought she might cry, but she did what he said.  Anything to end this and get the hell out of here.  She took a deep breath and looked at him.  He was smiling.

“Okay,” said Nick, “now undo a button.”  He tapped his fingers on his neck.

Abby undid the top button of her blouse.  Nick reached out and fanned the collar of her blouse out, exposing more of her neck.  Then he stepped back and surveyed the situation again.

“Wow!” he said.  Then he took her by the elbow and turned her to the mirror. 

Wow, indeed! thought Abby.  Well, not ‘wow’, of course.  She’d never be ‘wow’.  But she thought she looked okay.  She did have kind of a nice neck, she guessed.

“Okay, we’re buying this hat!” said Nick.

“Don’t be silly,” said Abby, sliding the hat from her head, letting her limp hair cover her face again as she looked at the floor.  “When would I ever wear it?”

“Every chance you get,” said Nick, taking the hat from her hand and heading for the cash desk.  “It would be a great driving hat.”

It would, thought Abby. 

“Just be sure it doesn’t blow off your head on the straightaways,” said Nick with a grin that made the sales girl weak in the knees.

“I’ll staple it to my head,” retorted Abby.

Nick told the salesgirl not to bother with a bag.  He made Abby put her hair up again and put the hat on.  They walked back to the car, both content with the way the day had ended.  They stowed their purchases on the floor behind the seats.  Abby thought for a moment about asking Nick if he wanted to drive, but she didn’t. 

They drove the few miles in silence.  Conversation isn’t that easy in a convertible anyway, and they both had a lot to think about.

Nick mulled over Abby’s words.  “Then stop eating.”  Simple as that.  He guessed it fit into the same category as ‘suck it up and go on’.  He reviewed his meals of the past few days…and then the past few months.  Then stop eating.  He nodded to himself.  Then stop eating.  And start working out, he added.  Yeah, that was what he had to do all right.  Stop eating so much and start working out.  Especially if they were going to make an album.  Especially if they were going on tour. 

Abby watched him out of the corner of her eye.  He was making some decisions, she thought.  He kept nodding and grimacing.  She regretted what she had said to him the moment it came out of her mouth.  She regretted it because it had hurt his feelings, not because she hadn’t meant it.  She saw that he was unaware that he was still putting food into his mouth.  He just did it out of habit, because it was there.

She grimaced to herself at his response to her.  Point taken, Mr. Carter, she thought.  Let the world see your face, even if it’s not beautiful.  Abby prided herself on not judging other people by their physical appearance, and yet she seemed to believe that that was the only way they judged her.  And that was the way she judged herself.  She needed to think about this.

She pulled the car up in front of the hotel.  They both jumped out quickly and grabbed their packages.  Abby handed the keys to the valet who climbed into the car and drove off, leaving them alone.

“Abby, thanks for driving me.  I had a great time.”

“Me too, Nick,” she said. 

Both were thinking the same thing, that they wanted to be alone now.  But neither one wanted to sever the tiny thread of friendship that they had developed.  And they knew that they were both vulnerable to nuance and innuendo.

“I’m going to take my jam down to the cottage,” said Nick, “and then I think I might work out.  They have a room here, right?”

“Yes, a very good one.  I’m going to go for a walk.  I have some things to think about.”

Nick’s eyes grew wary, but Abby shrugged it off with a small smile.  No, not like that. 

“I’ll see you later, then,” he said, turning away, not knowing what he meant by ‘later’.

“Have a good workout,” said Abby, turning in the opposite direction.  She walked over to the elevator and pressed the button.  She was going to drop off her book and change into some walking shoes.  Then she was going to go for a long walk.  She had two things she wanted to think about.  What did she think of Abby Fremont?  And what did she think of Nick Carter?

This might be a very long walk or a very short one.  But she was going to put some serious thought into her day.

And she was going to wear her hat.