”I turned to face Ms. Sloane with the quiet satisfaction of having performed well.“Birdie, what were you thinking?”Now if that query had a ringi...g of familiarity to it, it’s because that very same inquisition is sometimes put to me by Peggy and Auntie Pru. Perhaps it’s something the female form learns in some sort of classroom.As it happens, I’d had fish and chips the previous evening and my associate neurons were clicking over at an accelerated pace. “That video?”Just the right tone. That old. The way he scrunched up his mouth before he laughed, the warmth in his eyes each time he smiled at me—it all just fit his personality so perfectly. By the time the boys left to go stow all those stuffed animals in their cars, I'd decided that Shane was actually one of the most beautiful men I'd ever met.And in a couple hours, he'd be having sex with my best friend..."Oh my god, Connor is such a hunk!" Tracy exclaimed, yanking me back into reality. "When he took off his jacket to swing the. I get a pot of coffee going and go and sit down in the chair and cannot keep my right leg from bouncing up and down and am trying to control my breathing… Sis looks over at me and nudges Mandy and says, “go over to him…” She comes over and Becky sees that I am not ok either and looks over and says, “are you ok hon?”I look at them and say, “It is called an adrenaline dump, I am sorry if I was being rough or an ass, but I thought Becky’s hubby had found her and was beating her or something and I. ’ George was a gambler, and once several years ago he had used one of the company credit cards to take a cash advance when he’d run short at a casino in the Bahamas. He had repaid the money, and I’d told him not to do it again. But Audrey remembered, and could never quite bring herself to trust that he might not do it again in the future, and run up a big gambling debt on the company card — in effect leaving me with his gambling debt. I started writing down on my pad: ‘Pay off outstanding.