Armor

She wasn’t much like anybody Mona’d seen before; Mona couldn’t place her on the style map at all, except she must’ve had some money. The hair was European; Mona’d seen it like that in a magazine; she was pretty sure it wasn’t this season’s style anywhere, but it went okay with the glasses, which were insets, planted right in the skin. Mona’d seen a cabbie in Cleveland had those. And she wore this short jacket, very dark brown, too plain for Mona’s taste but obviously new, with a big white sheepskin collar, open now over a weird green thing trussed across her breasts and stomach like armor, which was what Mona figured it probably was, and jeans cut from some kind of gray-green mossy suede, thick and soft, and Mona thought they were the best thing about her outfit, she could’ve gone for a pair of those herself, except the boots spoiled them, these knee-high black boots, the kind bike racers wore, with thick yellow rubber soles and big straps across the insteps, chrome buckles all up and down, horrible clunky toes. And where’d she get that nail color, that burgundy? Mona didn’t think they even made that anymore.

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Mona Lisa Overdrive ch 27