"The doctor in DC suggested therapy. I said no. I thought I could leave it behind, that it was over and done with.
But wherever you go, there you are.
Mostly I watched TV, or lay around on the library sofa reading leather bound classics. There were two fat dachshunds always in need of walking, which I took over from Gladys, Hazel’s housekeeper, once my face had healed enough to be in public.
Poor Gladys tried hard not to look. So wanted to ask, so not wanting to react. The story was a taxi accident. Heard it often enough that I could believe it myself.
My first official function was Hazel’s Fourth of July party after the Potomac fireworks. A very late supper for twenty, I sat next to a curator from the Phillips who introduced me to a woman opening an antiques shop on Dupont Circle after Labor Day who was happy to hire me.
I went to work wearing one of those black suits with the snakeskin pumps, which toned down nicely with a string of pearls. It was then I began dreaming about New York. The winter light in my apartment, the black and white bathroom tiles, all my clothes stuffed into the closet. Maybe I was feeling safe enough to remember.
But there were no real memories; just flashes, glimpses, images."

Abridged version of the next sequence from the J'S GIRLS prologue