"How are you?" The six months since we last spoke melted away.

"Fine. I'm in L.A., at a conference." She was excited too.

"Nice. How is it?" I settled in to my chair, grabbed my tea, and watched the snow fall outside my window.

"My god, it's weird, Julie."

"Weird? What's weird?" I dunked my tea bag up and down a few times.

"All these men. They're falling all over me. I haven't bought a drink or a meal yet, and I've been here for two days."

"Well, duh, you're a hot mama," she always had been, "and you're single."

"Single doesn't seem to matter here. And I'm 45. There are young hotties everywhere. I've got wrinkles and gravity issues," she sighed. "I guess it's my charm and personality. I've still got them."

"We're more confident now that we're old. Men like it. Wrinkles don't really matter, and a lot of them actually like real boobs, not fake ones," I wrapped the string of the tea bag around itself, and squeezed it against the spoon.

"I guess. I think I should go to a conference every month or so. It'd be good for business."

"Honey," I laughed, "you'll have more business than you'd know what to do with!" The snow was really coming down. I wrapped my hands around the hot mug.

"You should come with me next time, it'd be fun. I've been at the pool all afternoon. The little umbrellas in the drinks are cute. I'm taking them home to the kids."

"No wonder they like you. You should come to my conferences, and wear your bikini. I'll get more clients."

"We should figure out jobs that pay us to go to conferences. Like, that's all we have to do, just go to the conference. No boring work before or after. We'll pick conferences based on location. It doesn't even matter what they're about, we just show up, put our badges on, and find the parties."

"Huh. I wonder what my husband would say." I carefully sipped my tea so I wouldn't burn my tongue.

"I'd be your chaperone, it'd be fine."

"Right. I'm sure he'd be all for it."

And then we laughed, like old friends do.