Dressed in a sleek black ensemble of straight-legged jeans, fitted leather jacket, short leather boots and patchwork scarf, Blume carried herself with the poise and confidence of someone who has spent decades in the public eye writing and talking about herself.
Then, in some trick of the light, or because she sagged her chin into her wrinkling neck, or her too short trousers rode up above her ankle socks as she was sitting cross-legged, Ally saw for a moment the old woman she would become, vulnerable and stubborn, cut adrift.