I called her a few days later when I could bear it no more. She did not know who it was at first and I was inarticulate, bungled it and hung up. But s...e called back, no doubt aware of the dangers in her profession of not following up on one of her cases. I pulled myself together and we had a brief chat. She was very professional, asking how I was, had I found a job yet, was I settling into my digs and had I made any new connections. The formality hurt me a bit and I asked to see her but she. ”After everyone finished breakfast, they all shook hands, hugged, kissed various cheeks and wished each other Merry Christmas. One by one, everyone left to whatever personal destinations they had for the holidays ‘till only Linda and Joyce remained.“So, Linda, where do you plan to go for the Christmas vacation?” Joyce asked.“I’ll need plane reservations for Hawaii tomorrow, and a hotel room right on that famous beach they have. That’ll cover Christmas. Then I need a flight out of Hawaii to Los. I walked the couple of blocks to the shop on the west end of Main Street, passing banks and clothing stores as well as bars who's doors were locked until lunch, stopping in front of one store with specially dressed mannequins. The male dummy was made up like a samurai, armor and all, on one side of the door, the female dummy looked like a true southern belle straight from Georgia on the other. The sign above the purple overhang read:G & A Costumes & More!The lettering was elegant cursive with. She sat, flicking through an out of date car magazine disinterestedly, occasionally sipping tea. Eventually, Derek came in.“Well, love,” he began…“Please tell me it’s good news!” she begged.“Well, it’s not great.” Derek replied. “You’ve got an emissions sensor out. You’re looking at a couple of hundred quid.”“Really? Is there nothing else it could be?” She asked, more in hope than expectation.“Afraid not,” he replied. “Fault code on the diagnostic. Wouldn’t recommend driving it, you could.