The DeFiorini Sisters

The Good Girls

The DeFiorini girls - RosaMaria, the eldest; the twins Francesca and Michaelina; and Magdalena, whom everybody calls "Puff" - were ecstatic. They'd won an "all expenses paid" vacation! Six days and seven nights on board the cruise ship with dinner and dancing every night, plus two more days in the old port town where they were booked into the Contessa Suite at the Hotel Garamond. Romance might actually be in the air.

Shipboard Gala


The DiFiorini girls were the belles of the ball. It was a costume affair, and they decided to go as the four elements. Fire suited RosaMaria's temperment, and the twins were perfect as Earth and Water. Puff, of course, went as air.

That Age

Puff checked and checked again. The moon was moving through the inky blackness outside her cabin porthole; the hours of night were turning into the hours of the morning. And still her sisters had not returned.

 

At last, she could hear the giggling and whispering that marked the return of the twins to the cabin. But where was Rosa Maria?

 

Puff seethed. She felt as if she were breathing through a green fog of jealousy. Resentful envy sat like a stone in her chest. Rosa Maria - Rosa Maria the eldest; Rosa Maria the responsible, Rosa Maria who counseled Puff to patience, respectability, and chastity endlessly, Rosa Maria the FRUMP - Rosa Maria was out having an adventure while Puff waited out the night.