I tried to step back. For a moment, I could note that she wore a short, logo tee shirt, cut short enough to move over her tummy when she moved, but co...ered it to the waist of her faded hip buggers when she stood still. Then, she filled the gap with her body."Hi," she said again, filling the gap in conversation. After I didn't respond, she added, "I'm Karen."Then, she giggled.She also weaved a little as if the resulting body motions disturbed her balance enough to need correction. This led me to. It is a tribute to your bizarre need for pain and degradation that pulled you through this ordeal. You went from water heated to well over one hundred degrees F to the fifty degree F chamber room environment perhaps twenty times an hour, for more than twenty-four hours, an amazing display for one so undernourished that you looked like a survivor of a WW II concentration camp. At times you were submerged for nearly two minutes, enough time for you to ingest large amounts of brackish water that. . if something happens, can you listen and not say ‘I told you so?’ Can you be there for me?”Linda opened her arms. “Yes! I’d never ... I have your back. I think we all have your back here, but I know I do.”“And ... if it works out well, I won’t gloat or anything, but will you share my happiness?”Linda smiled. “I’d love to be wrong. I’d love to hear about how you helped someone and gave them a second chance.”“Thanks! That means so much.”Linda was far from the only friend who thought Laura was. Are you still surfing?”“Yes, Ma’am.”Claire said, “He’s still a polite young man, isn’t he Ling?”“Yes, he is,” Ling said.“That’s only because the two of you terrify me,” Sanders said.Ling burst out laughing. Claire looked at him, amused. Sally and Steve were in full agreement with Sanders. There was something lethal that lurked below the surface in each of the two women. Betsy frowned.“Sally, I understand that you took Betsy to her first live performance,” Claire said shifting the conversation.