"Why spend our whole vacation with this hanging over our heads, right?" Kathy asked with false lightness. "Sure, yeah, why don't you go first. I mean, if you don't mind." Without her realizing it, she clasped her hands together, right thumb making small circles on her left palm; a self-soothing gesture she didn't even know she had.

"We're--we're still friends, right?"

That just slipped out.