The thing I liked best about the White Rose was their mid-day collection of hot food for the blue-collar workers in the neighborhood. Of course, most ...f the clientele washed it all down with liberal helpings of the draft beer that tasted like it just came out the brewery door.I was on good behavior with my membership in AA and stuck to the ice tea much to my Uncle’s distain for my drinking habits. Still, I knew he respected my getting on the wagon and he did everything he could to support me in. Trinh picked up the photos again, just as her mobile rang, and when she answered I knew it was Kim. I understood from hearing Trinh’s side of the conversation, and when Trinh looked at me, I nodded: we were going for dinner with Kim. Time for a beer, as Trinh said “Thank you for folding my clothes, Anh, that was sweet of you; I’ll just go and put them on, go home and get ready for dinner.” “Where are we going, Trinh, did Kim say?” Before she could open her mouth, her phone rang, and it was Kim. I wished my words unsaid, but I was helpless in the grips of Tracy’s hypnotism. “Hmmm.” Tracy looked thoughtful and pulled a coin out of her pocket. “Heads you take off your pants. Tails John does.”She flipped the coin and my heart leapt into my throat. I didn’t want to violate my friend. “Tails it is. John, would you be so kind as to remove her pants for me? Slowly, so that she has time for… all sorts of thoughts, really.”I didn’t want to, I honestly didn’t. This wasn’t how I’d fantasized. Heron had been one of its founding fathers, so anything with a Heron association found favour with the Faculty. Luckily, the director discovered, Heron had left a bequest of his ethnographic collection to the museum. They'd never really bothered to look at it before but when they'd gone through the boxes in the museum's warehouse they'd found a curious collection of specimens and artefacts from Heron's Indian expeditions and, in one small velvet lined wooden box, the largest emerald that the.