Message-ID: <48624asstr$1090962603@assm.asstr-mirror.org> X-Mail-Format-Warning: No previous line for continuation: Wed Aug 14 16:30:23 2002Return-Path: <gmwylie98260@hotmail.com> X-Original-To: ckought69@hotmail.com Delivered-To: ckought69@hotmail.com X-Originating-Email: [gmwylie98260@hotmail.com] From: "Gina Marie Wylie" <gmwylie98260@hotmail.com> X-Original-Message-ID: <BAY7-F336fiPcQVjriL00045959@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 27 Jul 2004 16:24:47.0067 (UTC) FILETIME=[3B80EAB0:01C473F6] X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 09:24:46 -0700 Subject: {ASSM} Laura Alban Hunt Ch 13 {Gina Marie Wylie} (FF, Ff, inc, con) Lines: 860 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 17:10:03 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org> Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2004/48624> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, newsman _________________________________________________________________ Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ <1st attachment, "Laura Ch 13.doc" begin> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The following is fiction of an adult nature. If I believed in setting age limits for things, you'd have to be eighteen to read this and I'd never have bothered to write it. IMHO, if you can read and enjoy, then you're old enough to read and enjoy. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ All persons here depicted are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly a blunder on my part. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Official stuff: Story codes: FF, Ff, inc, con. If stories like this offend you, you will offend ME if you read further and complain. Copyright 2004, by Gina Marie Wylie. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I can be reached at gmwylie98260@hothothotmail.com, at least if you remove some of the hots. All comments and reasoned discussion welcome. Below is my site on ASSTR: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Gina_Marie_Wylie/www/ My stories are also posted on StoriesOnline: http://Storiesonline.net/ And on Electronic Wilderness Publishing: http://www.ewpub.org/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chapter 13 -- The Ogre's Lair I learned something new in the next few minutes. I'd done most of my driving up in North Scottsdale; I'd never lived in this kind of suburb before. Oh, there were a lot of stores where we lived in New York, but they were older and smaller. In Scottsdale the stores were neither small nor old. Further, just about any store you could imagine was within a mile or two. In spite of all the stores, the traffic moved much better than traffic ever had in New York. I had gotten spoiled in just a couple of months. As I got closer to Phoenix, I learned that not all traffic jams are created equally. It took a lot longer than I'd figured to get to the CPS office; I was ten minutes late. I had just gotten seated when a short, thin Hispanic woman appeared. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Hunt. We are just so busy..." "I just walked through the door," I told her. "Traffic," I explained. "I'm Lydia Sanchez, please, come in." We went into her office and we talked for a few minutes in general terms, then more and more specific. She was obviously eager to recruit a new foster parent, "We never have enough," she told me. She was less pleased when I said I had someone particular in mind. "We do that, but usually when a child first enters the system." After an hour, I was sick and tired of hearing about "the system"; only the memory of Amy's smile and the thought of her foster mother's plight kept me there. The Sanchez woman was mildly disbelieving when I told her my husband had died on 9/11; more disdainful that I told her I wasn't working, but was thinking of starting a business. "And your net worth?" "With the stock market trending steeply down, it's not what it once was, but I bailed early." Well, my father-in-law had seen to it that I bailed early. "Low 90's." "Ninety thousand isn't very much." "Million," I told her. She looked at me, disbelief clear on her face. "We'll check, of course." "Of course." I wrote down a phone number, and my father-in-law's name on a slip of paper. "The phone number is the main switchboard at Citibank in New York; Phillip Hunt is my father-in-law. Tell his secretary you're calling about me." Otherwise sweetie, you will never, ever get past the secretary. "We'll check." She handed me a thick wad of paper, started going over what each form was. "This is a request for criminal background investigation, you give it to the Department of Public Safety..." "I just did that last week, can I use the same one?" "Of course. They send you the original, you just copy it and give the copy to me." "I'm volunteering to help with the Scottsdale High cheerleading program. I asked DPS to send it there." "Well..." "Just a second," I told her. I dialed Nancy on my cell phone. "Nancy, Laura. Sorry to bother you again, but could I ask a favor?" "You're never a bother, Laura. What do you need?" "I told the DPS to send that form to you. Could you let me know when it comes in? I need to make a copy." "Oh gosh! I was so busy I forgot all about that." "About what?" "Promise you won't get exercised." "About what?" I asked, curious. "I got it Thursday. They sent an officer to hand deliver it. I laughed and told him that it usually takes weeks; that I'd never had one hand delivered before. He told me that there wasn't a policeman or fireman in the country who wouldn't go out of their way to do something, anything, for someone who lost family on 9/11." "Can I get a copy?" I was choking back tears. "Sure, Laura." "Thanks, sorry to be a pest." "You're not." I looked at the woman. "I'll have a copy for you tomorrow." I hefted the papers. "I will have all of this for you tomorrow." She looked at me. I looked steadily back at her. "I'll stop by your home tomorrow at 1:00 pm," she told me. "We can get the first inspection out of the way at the same time." Her grin was supercilious. "Unless it's the maid's day off and you'd like a little more time to prepare." "I don't have a maid, I've never have had one. If you like, we can drive over now. Early bird gets the worm." I'm the early bird, lady. Guess what you are? "Oh, I'd like to combine things; I really am busy. I have other appointments today. Tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 pm." "That's fine," I agreed. "Until then." We politely shook hands and I left, mildly furious. Don't do anything to queer this, I thought. That broke my mood; I laughed for a couple of seconds in the privacy of my car as the air conditioning worked to overcome the afternoon sun. I'd used that expression a million times before today; I would never use it again. It took hours to fill out the forms; there was a lot of redundancy. Still, by six I was finished. A bit later, Sherrie and Ann came in the living room. "What's your schedule for tomorrow, Sherrie?" "My last class gets out at 11:30. I'm coming home to fix lunch. Ann will be over around 1:00, we're going to study." "A social worker is going to stop by around 1:00." I grimaced, which got Sherrie's curiosity. I explained about Amy. "That's really nice, Laura! Gosh, I thought it was nice you letting me stay... But that's beyond nice." "Sherrie, she just wants to fuck the girl," Ann said, her voice rising in tone and volume towards the end of the sentence. Sherrie turned to Ann, obviously upset. "Ann, I talked to Jackie, I talked to some of the other girls on the team." She waved at me. "Laura is nice, everyone likes her. She even went to bat for one of the left's -- when was the last time anyone did that?" "Another fuck," Ann's voice was bitter. I saw Sherrie's face suffuse red. "Sherrie, chill," I commanded. She looked at me. "Please," I added. I turned to Ann. "You're right... and you're wrong. I like some girls in a way that most people, including you, think is wrong. I do like Amy, and I do want to be with her. I like Fred, but I'm less sure about her; there are some issues there. "I told you why I've applied to be a foster parent. For Amy. Not for me, not so I can have someone to fuck besides my daughter or some of the other cheerleaders who come to visit. "I helped Fred because you guys, all of you who've gone before, have created a Frankenstein monster of a system. I told Nancy off about it, too. Right to her face. It's unconscionable to have girls show up at an event like last weekend, knowing they have zero chance of making the team, and telling them about their wonderful opportunities, their future in cheer. Yeah, sure they have opportunities -- so long as they go to another school. "That sucks; so I told Nancy that I was going to try to change it. "And you, Ann. Tell me, have I hit on you? On Sherrie? Has anyone bothered you in this house? Have I told you what to do or how to do it? Has anyone?" "We're too old," she sniffed contemptuously. I laughed. "Nancy is older than you, I spent most of Thursday evening in her bed. Marybeth taught me how a finger fuck is done; I can't wait until we can be together again. Yet last weekend I told them what to do, over and over." "Ann," Sherrie sounded despairing. The anger was gone from her voice, replaced by pain. Ann looked at her. "Laura would be totally justified asking you never to come back, because of what you just said." "I don't have a problem with that," Ann said with finality. I knew where this was going. "Please, both of you, me too! Let's declare a moratorium on this! Let's think about other things! Please!" It had gone too far, though. "Ann, I'm going to be here. I like Laura, I wish my mom was like her." Sherrie told her lover. "You want your mom to fuck you like Laura's fucking her own daughter?" Ann was red-faced, barely able to think rationally, striking out all around her. "I want to be around people I like, people I respect," Sherrie said with as much gravity as she could muster, tears draining down her cheek. "Ann, please..." Ann simply shook her head, grabbed her things and stalked out. "I never meant..." I told Sherrie, wishing I could just sit there and not talk. "I know." She looked at me. "In truth, it's been going bad ever since I got kicked out. Ann is totally paranoid that my parents are going to talk to hers. For the last two weeks, she's been getting more and more distant." Sherrie took a breath and held it for a second. That seemed to calm her. "For the first couple of years in cheer, we joked about the girls who wanted to be with one of the adults. It seemed crazy to us." She looked at me. "It still seemed crazy until I met you." She waved at the door. "At the end of our junior year, at the retreat... Ann spent the weekend with Marybeth. I didn't see Ann hardly at all, not for the weekend, and then not for most of the next week. "She came back and apologized, finally. She told me it was something she had to get out of her system. I just let it go, happy to have the love of my life, back in my life. Now, I wonder if she's feeling guilty. When she decided to drop out a few months later, I didn't mind." "I never wanted to come between you two," I told her. "I know; we both know that it was Ann that scored the own goal just now." She waved at the door to her room. "I'm going to lie down for a while. I promise, tomorrow I will be a proper lady when the social worker is here, back to my bouncy cheerleader self." Susan came home just before dinner. She seemed to understand that Sherrie wasn't in a mood to talk. About the only good thing about PMS, I thought, is that you quickly learn to recognize the symptoms -- even if PMS didn't cause them. Later, Jackie showed up, late in the evening. Sherrie had gone back to her room; Susan had been falling asleep and had gone to bed. "I was over at Marybeth's. We were talking about things. Ann showed up; she was really loud, kept wanting Marybeth to fuck her. That's what she said over and over." Jackie nodded at Sherrie's door. "I take they had a fight." "Yeah. I'm not going to talk about it, okay?" "Sure." She waved at Sherrie's door again. "Should I talk to her?" "You can try." Jackie knocked; after a minute, she went in to talk to her sister. Much later Jackie came out, gave me a hug, a smile and left. I was just thinking about bed myself when the phone rang. "It's Marybeth." I sighed, and she did too. "I think we've talked her out of killing herself." I gasped in surprise. "Nancy's with her now; some of the girls from the team, past and present, who knew her." "She and Sherrie had a fight." "Over you." "About me." "Over you," Marybeth insisted. "There you were, someone Sherrie could look up to. For the first time, I guess, Sherrie has found a positive adult role model. Sherrie made no bones about it, talking to Ann." "I wouldn't even call Sherrie and I friends. She's someone I rent a room to." "Sometimes it's just that you're there." Marybeth sighed again. "I suppose when you're as close to these girls as we are, you lose sight of the simple things. You think because you're there, that they all look up to you. Amy, now Sherrie... right now there are too many undercurrents, Laura. The undertow is a lot stronger than I thought. "But, not to worry," Marybeth went on briskly. "This isn't the first time we've had someone despondent over lost love, lost this, that, or the other thing. You know me, I have a plan for everything." "And I've got more than an inkling of what lies ahead," I told her soberly. Human emotions, I thought, are like explosives. You mess with them at your own risk. Sex? That was the part most fraught with risk. "Having second thoughts?" "More like tenth or fifteenth. Push on, said the big fool. Push on." I can deal with this, I thought. I can. There are ways to go about this, ways that Marybeth and her friends have exploited for a long time. Fifty years, she said; that was a long time. A very long time. Marybeth echoed my thoughts. "You haven't done this long enough, Laura, I have. There are the occasional Anns. One day you will know the pleasure of meeting someone five or ten years down the line. You will see her bright smile, her happy eyes; feel the warm hug of shared memories. You will listen to her stories of success, the stories of personal satisfaction and happiness, family and friends. That happens dozens of time for each Ann. That alone is worth it. "And we never, ever leave a sister hurting, not if we can help it." "And Sherrie?" "Be a comfort, be a role model, be Laura Alban Hunt. Of all the people I've worked with, few are as strong as you. Maybe none of them." "Have there been others like Ann?" "Oh sure. Three, or four, along the line. It can be hard, sometimes, sustaining some of the girls. Even with the strongest desire to help, it can be hard to keep them sheltered from the real world. They have problems with parents, with school, with lovers... ten thousand rocks in the road, ready to trip up the unwary. We do our best; I personally think we've done a whole lot better than anyone else could. We have to focus on success in the long run." I knew Marybeth was paranoid about phones. I'd deliberately kept my comments vague and over general. But that, I thought was a coded message. Sometimes your conscience catches up. I imagine it wouldn't take very long, once you started having doubts at all, for your conscience to consume you. Of course, I had doubts. Why hadn't I been consumed? My passion, I thought. Yes, for sex. But also just for the girls. I honestly wanted them all to have the best shot at cheer I could give them. It was something they would be able to look back on in the future, like Marybeth said -- something to be proud of. And if there were additional happiness to be found along the way, personal as well as athletic, that was okay too. "Well," Marybeth said into the silence, "I think I'll go apply a little more TLC." Tuesday morning started with a trip to school to drop off Susan. Then came the visit from Lydia Sanchez; to say that it wasn't a high point in my day was a vast understatement. "I looked at Amy Becker's file," Lydia Sanchez said after we'd toured the house. "We would take serious exception if you are attempting to circumvent the rules. To, shall we say, insure that Amy Becker spent considerable time with her current care parents. That causes the child confusion." "You could always leave her where she is." I regretted saying that almost the instant the words were out of my mouth. But there are times when if you don't speak your mind, no one will ever hear you. "That's against the rules. They are certified for temporary custody only, just like you will be." "Except, I can get my status changed. Why can't they?" "I'm sure you know why. The woman is going to die." "That woman," I spat, "has a name. Ann Bowden. And yes, she's going to die. So am I; it could happen tomorrow. It did happen to my husband. If I'm not disqualified for being a widow, why should Jack Bowden be disqualified for being a widower?" "Two things. It's traumatic for a child to lose someone close to them. That, and of course, she's too old to be placed with an adult male." I wanted to pop my cork. "I'll give you that last; I can understand, even if I disagree. If it had been me that died on 9/11 and my husband had survived, I wouldn't have the least qualm about him raising Susan. Not the least. "Do you think Amy's not going to find out when Ann Bowden dies? Do you think it will make it better for her, not being with someone she loves when that person is in pain and dying?" I bit back the next thing I was going to say: Do you have any concept what family means? What it means to love someone? "I was talking to my husband on the phone when he died. If Susan had been there, he'd have been on the speaker. He knew what was going to happen, had to have known for some time. His last thoughts were for me and for Susan, not about what he had to face." "Denial," she said. She saw the black look of rage on my face and stepped back. "I'm sorry." Her voice showed she was shaken. I just stood there, trying to calm down. This is for Amy, I told myself over and over. For Amy. For any other girl I could save from this monster without a soul. Sherrie came in and saw me. "Are you okay, Laura?" "I'm getting there," I said, trying hard not to grind my teeth. "Who's this?" Sanchez asked. My first instinct was to be angry again. Hey stupid! You've gotten me so pissed; I forgot to tell you about Sherrie! I took a deep breath, lifted my head and looked at Sanchez. "Sherrie Licht, Lydia Sanchez, a social worker from CPS. "Lydia, I'm renting Sherrie a room for a while; she's had some family problems." It was like offering a crumb to a pigeon, I learned later. You never lose that pigeon... or all it's friends. "How do you do, Sherrie." Sanchez held out her hand, and Sherrie shook it. I realized that Sanchez was trying to guess Sherri's age. "Sherrie is going to Scottsdale Community College," I offered blandly. "Her sister is one of the cheerleaders at Scottsdale, I offered to help her out." "You realize that we have to check on everyone living in the household?" "I do, I put all of that down on the form." "She'll need a DPS card, too." "Okay. Is Friday soon enough?" She frowned. "It takes two or three weeks." I shrugged. "Whenever, then." There was a little more, and then Sanchez took her pound of paper and was gone. I looked at my watch, remembering that the Highway Patrol didn't take applications after 4:30. I could do it, if I hustled. "Care to go for a ride, Sherrie?" "I guess. To get that form?" "It's called a criminal background investigation. You've never been arrested for anything, have you?" "No." "I'd appreciate it, then." "No problem." We got in the car and headed for the highway patrol station. "I've kind of been picturing you in my mind as a nice version of Coach," Sherrie said as we hit the freeway. "Back there, with that woman." She shook her head. "You're really a very nice version of Marybeth." "I hope that's a compliment," I laughed. "Oh yes!" I thought I heard something in her voice. "Jackie was enough for me," I said softly. Sherrie giggled. "Jackie told me some of the things you told her. About your 'she's interested radar.' What is it telling you about me?" I glanced at her breasts. Nothing. "Not interested." I breathed a mental sigh of relief. "And you don't mind?" "I meant what I said, Sherrie. Never, ever. It's two way or there's no way it's going to happen. Zero push; I don't even ask. If you change your mind, you'll have to ask me." "Oh, cool!" I contemplated this and that. Decided that Sherrie had a right to know, just like Amy would have a right to know when the worst happened to her foster mom. It's not nice, but it was her right to know what happened to someone she cared about. "Changing the subject radically... Ann." Sherrie made a face. "She went over to Marybeth's; wanted a fuck for old times sake, I guess," Sherrie said. "That's what Jackie said. However, Jackie didn't stay long enough." "I don't understand." "Marybeth said Ann really went there to kill herself." "Oh, my god!" Sherrie exclaimed, horrified. "Is she okay?" "I assume good news; bad news has a way of traveling much faster than the good. Marybeth called late yesterday, said it was going well. The team rallies around in support of someone in trouble." "I've heard of it happening, there are stories. Coach told us about them." She looked at me. "It really isn't just about fucking little girls, is it?" "No and yes. Some, for sure. But not nearly all of it." "Can I say something really awful, and you promise you won't jump on me?" "I'm human, if it's too awful... no promises." "I used to wonder how people like Coach, Marybeth... how their conscience could let them do it. To take advantage of young girls the way the do." She paused before continuing. "You explained it, it makes sense. They come to you, mostly. Even if you ask, they can say no. None of you would let that affect the way you treat them. They know that. So they're confident, they feel safe and secure." "Did you or Ann take advantage of each other, because you were sleeping together?" "No." "Do you think most people take advantage of the person they are sleeping with?" "Some do." "Yes, some do." I sighed. "A couple of years ago, we were in France. Roger, Susan and I were walking through downtown Paris. Just off exploring, no real destination in mind. We'd only been walking a few minutes when this man in a suit stopped, whipped it out and pissed on the side of the building. Shook it and walked away. Didn't hesitate or blink. Just pissed." "Eww! Gross!" "A couple of blocks later I could see a woman squatting in an alley. I couldn't really see what she was doing, but I sure knew what it looked like. We went back to our hotel and didn't wander away from the tour areas after that. "Or, a long way to say, not everyone in the world is perfect. Some things that would trouble a person's conscience here doesn't even get a raised eyebrow somewhere else. It goes back to where the lines are drawn, Sherrie." She nodded. "I'm beginning to understand." We got to the Highway Patrol office, I found the same man as before at the desk, handling the applications. "Hi." "Mrs. Hunt, nice to see you again. Is there a problem?" "No. First, I want to thank you for the trouble you went to before." "It was no trouble." "Then I wanted to ask another favor." "No trouble," he repeated with a smile. I waved at Sherrie. "Sherrie Licht is a college student I'm renting a room to." The officer smiled at Sherrie, spent a lot longer checking her out than he'd spent looking at me. "I'm trying to get into the foster parent program, and they want a CBI on anyone not in the family who lives under my roof. Please could you...?" "Sure, Mrs. Hunt. I'll put a priority on it." Sherrie did the fingerprints, filled out the form. I handed over the fee and thanked him again. "Oh yes, if this time, if you'll call me; I'll be happy to come and get it." "The sergeant was going by the school anyway; it was no trouble." "You like cookies?" He laughed. "Part of the job description." "You call me and I will come, bearing cookies." He smiled. "That's fair." When we were back in the car, Sherrie was laughing. "You are so amazing! Just seeing a policeman makes me nervous. You make jokes. I'd think you'd be terrified." "We're driving down the freeway, we could be in an accident. Surely you've seen cars after an accident?" "Yes, it's scary." "Yet, there you sit. You don't look that scared." "I guess it's because you get used to it." "Back there at the police station, the young officer who kept looking at you." Sherrie blushed, but I went on. "He's got a gun on his hip. You understand why, don't you?" "To shoot bad guys." "Just that. And sometimes the bad guys shoot back. That's why they are helping me." "I don't understand." "A lot of policemen and firemen were killed on 9/11. They went and did their jobs; God knows how many more would have died if they had run away. But they didn't run. "Sherrie, that could happen here, this minute. Boom! Crash! And he'd be one of those to run and help. Sure, he might be scared, but he'd do what he could. And it sure doesn't stop him from thinking a girl has cute breasts." She laughed and I added, "Or cute anything else." "So, why was he so nice? Besides liking my breasts?" "A lot of people died on 9/11. A lot of very different people now share that one thing; all of them. I don't know how long it will last, forever would be too short a time. The policemen and firemen who risk their lives for us, they share some of it too. And so they go the extra mile for people like me." We got home and I promptly called Marybeth, with Sherrie listening on the speaker. "Marybeth, this is Laura and Sherrie. How is Ann doing?" "Irony, Laura, irony. The only word to describe it. I think she's fine now. A bunch of them are off, pigging out on chocolate ice cream." "Ann likes fudge sundaes," Sherrie said, a little wistfully. "We all do," Marybeth agreed, "but some of us don't dare touch them." "Irony?" I asked. "Brenda Zeeman, I think she started it. She started tickling Ann; Ann tickled back. Pretty soon it degenerated into a pillow fight. They kept at it for a simply amazing amount of time. Then they all curled up in a pile on the bed and slept past noon." "I never wanted to hurt her," Sherrie said. "She's just gotten really paranoid about being outted." "Sherrie, I tell you true: you're never going to see me at a gay pride event, burning my bra or any of that. It's our choice to make. I don't have a problem with someone it scares the pee out of. If anyone had found out when I was working, my career would have been over a whole lot faster than my husband's." "I really appreciate your helping Ann. The others too," Sherrie told her. "I'll pass on the message; although it may take a while. Ann told them it wasn't anything you did, but won't talk about it. Naturally, they think she's lying." "If anyone, it was me," I interjected. "No, it wasn't anyone but Ann," Marybeth stated emphatically. "Unlike her friends, I didn't have any trouble believing what little Ann said. It was pretty clear. It'll take a day or two to sink in, then the others will wake up." I waved goodbye to Sherrie, who nodded, turned and left the room. I killed the speaker button. "It's just me, Marybeth. I wanted to ask you for a favor." "Just about anything," she said with a laugh. "Be happy to come over and rub your back or something..." "That sounds good! This is a personal favor. I told you about Amy's foster situation." "And that you were going to do something about that. I have a few reservations, but on the whole, I think if it's what you want -- go for it." "I went to CPS yesterday, the case worker came out to the house this afternoon. Let's just say she and I have some bad chemistry." "You were wondering if I know someone who might help? A different case worker is a piece of cake; you could do it yourself if you wanted." "Well, I'm afraid if I made the request, it would look bad." "Dear sweet Laura, whoever asks that she be replaced, it won't take a rocket scientist to figure out who the original source was. But, not to worry; everyone understands bad chemistry." "Well, I don't know any social workers. I was wondering if we could go just a little further and get a good one?" "If you don't know any social workers but one... oh, you lucky girl! I know lots of them. A good one? Laura, the good ones quit in disgust after a month or two. Sometimes after just a few days." "Well then, maybe someone who's worked there less than a month?" I was grasping at straws. Marybeth laughed. "Out of the mouth of a babe! Sure, why not? You understand such people are under extra scrutiny by people who've been social workers for a long time?" "I'm not concerned about the facts on the ground. Just personal chemistry." "When I saw the numbers on your financial statement, all those zeros..." Marybeth laughed. "You certainly got my attention! I mentioned it to Nancy and she said you'd told her, but she didn't really believe you. Believe, I told her." Marybeth turned brusque. "I think the chocoholics are back. I think I can do something for you Laura. You realize, of course, that while I'm not the Godfather type, I seriously admire his methods." "I owe you, yes," I told her. "Yes you do. Like I said, could I come over and rub your back?" "And Ann?" "At some point the bird has to fly." "And Jackie?" "I am ashamed of myself, Laura. What with one thing and another, I wasn't keeping track of the time... and neither was Jackie. She's grounded for a week for staying out too late. It's not like she could explain where she was." "Bummer. What time could you stop by?" Marybeth laughed. "Sevenish?" "I'll rush dinner." We both laughed at that. I hung up, and went to start dinner. <1st attachment end> ----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------ Notice: This post has been modified from its original format. 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