Begin Recording

Girls' Night

Recording by Scribe Ellison

Another thing, first we had to find a place to hold this peace conference, where everybody would be safe from everybody else. We'd just cleared the Sunshine Tidings Co-op for a new settlement but nobody had moved in yet and we were still in the middle of rebuilding, so it seemed like a good place. So we applied the second, unofficial motto of the Minutemen: Raise a Barn at a Minute's Notice. A barn with a conference table—round—and all angles visible from all other angles. Everyone needed secure housing as far away from everyone else as possible so everyone could have their own guards. It was sweet, the Minutemen suddenly proud of their hospitality wanting to show that they could build houses that were both secure and comfortable enough to impress people who lived on an airship and underground.

Then there was another, unexpected question: what was I going to wear? Before the war it would've been one of my business suits, but none of them had survived. I missed my tailored jackets and heels, but not the calf-length pencil skirts that made stairs a challenge. But in this new world… I needed fashion advice. I needed my girlfriends.

I had Piper, and I convinced Scribe Haylin to visit Sanctuary. Allie Filmore wanted a trial run at visiting the surface so she didn't have to do something important on her first time outside.

So she figured out how to relay herself to Sanctuary. "It's so bright. And… dusty. And whooooooah." Allie covered her eyes and looked down. "That's a lot more… more than it looks through the watchers."

Round-eyed Piper muttered, "...never seen the sky..." I could just see that Piper's mind was full of headlines—Institute Scientist's First Time Outside!—but she managed not to immediately pounce.

Poor Allie risked another glance up. It was a beautiful day, bright blue sky with pillowy clouds unstained by radioactive dust. She stood a little straighter. Then Dogmeat came over to greet Haylin then Piper then the new arrival.

"Oh wow, it's a dog. I thought they'd be bigger. All right. Nothing I just said should be repeated."

Haylin laughed. "Who'd we tell? I think there's a bigger dog around here too. And cats. Have you ever seen a cat? Cats are beautiful."

We did indeed have cats, and Piper fetched one and brought it into my house and we petted the cat and raided my closet.

I have lots of clothes, things I'd bought or picked up. Half a dozen vault suits in different stages of falling apart and being patched. Wasteland leathers, prewar stuff when I could find it in good shape. A sequinned dress Imogene Cabot gave me because she was tired of seeing me underdressed in the Third Rail. Bits of armor in various styles, and drifter rags for going undercover as not myself. Coats and boots for winter. Not as many clothes as I had before the war but I was surprised at how many things I'd accumulated.

With Allie much more comfortable under a ceiling my friends turned to the task at hand. Haylin had a great time pulling things out of my closet and holding them up to herself, confirming my suspicion that Haylin was pretty girly before joining the army. "Well I've never seen you in anything but those vault suits. it's like your uniform. But it's not very dignified."

"Got anything else blue, Blue?"

"I've got… where'd it end up?.. we found this in storage in the Castle. Preston said it's the traditional General's uniform. Only it's..." I shook out the jacket, dark blue with a double row of big silver buttons.

"It's perfect!" Haylin said.

"I look like I'm doing historical reenactment." but I put it on and did up a few of the buttons. In the whole Commonwealth I hadn't found a mirror big enough to show me how it looked.

"Looks fine to me Blue. What's historical reenactment?" Piper was lounging in a chair, petting the cat.

"When people dress up like historical figures and fight old battles with fake guns. Older battles, from three hundred years before the great war."

Haylin asked, "...why?"

"To understand the past I guess. And for fun." as I said the words I wondered how strange this would sound to these women who lived in a world where the last war was still here in every part of life.

Piper just said, "That sounds like a waste of time."

"But understanding the past is important."

"Is that fun to do?" Allie asked.

I shrugged. "We had a lot of time before the war, I had a dishwasher and a clothes washer and Cogsworth to do my chores. We didn't have to grow all our food either." Saying it like that was disorienting. And I didn't really have more free time before; I spent it all doing case reading. There was no way I'd be able to explain what a lawyer does all day. So I just held up the matching hat. "This came with the coat, but I'm not sure about copying Hancock's hat fashion when he's going to be there."

Piper laughed, grabbed the faded leather tricorn and plopped it on my head. "Is this thing older than you are?"

I hadn't thought of that and now I laughed too. "Maybe? I think Hancock got his out of a museum so it might be the real thing. I think if this hat really was that old it would have fallen apart by now. I'm not wearing the hat, but what do you think of the coat? I need to look that'll make people listen to me without looking like I think I'm in charge. I knew how to do that before the war but not now."

Allie's gaze sharpened. "Not white, and not anything that looks like a uniform. You don't want to look like a member of either side. But clean. You don't want to look like a wastelander."

Piper, whose beloved red leather coat was tattered and very wastelander, made a face but didn't argue. Haylin added, "I like the blue coat. You look official. Masculine. Since most people in the room will be men I don't think you want to go too feminine."

I wished I'd been able to get Desdemona out to this 'Girls' Fashion Night' that we were having, but she wouldn't come out of hiding. I'd never seen her in anything but her armor and her favorite scarf anyway.

So we discussed the pros and cons and in the end I went with the official General's coat and another vault suit because I'm famous for wearing vault suits.