“Yeah. Looks interesting. Why?”“Keep telling you, bud,” he said. “If you want it, it’s yours. And several others.”“I am not moving to ...uburn,” I said. “Deena’s mom and I have got a pretty good arrangement over Deena being here, but that’s ‘here’ here, not Auburn.”“We understand that,” Dan said. “Look, we’ve talked. There’s gonna be some good work in that area for the foreseeable future. We can handle it from here, but eventually we’re going to need a local presence. We think you ought to do. A few times, he even smiled. Of course, it wasn't to them. It was only to Miriam.He still treated the rest of the staff about as well as most people treat cockroaches. He sent them on fools' errands and talked patronisingly to those who didn't catch on quickly enough. If someone screwed up, he let them—and everyone else within shouting range—know it. But they noticed he said "please" and "thank you" more frequently ... well, maybe once or twice.Miriam seemed to affect the rest of the staff,. I thought wait until you see what is in store for you tonight.We went through the same process at the end of the day, each of us taking a shower and having dinner. As we were enjoying our night air on the balcony again, I asked who is up for a game of poker. I should note that Terry is one of the best card players that I know of. We were drinking and as the game went on Terry was winning a lot per our plan. She was acting as if she were getting drunk, though she had switched to just the mixers. Unfortunately my advisor was a twat, and she didn't tell me that there is no future and having a double major in a dead language and in history. The morning I graduated, I received a letter from where I was supposed to do my internship saying that due to budget cuts they can no longer afford to have me. That meant no grad school, that meant no future.I was pissed.To top that off, my parents didn't make it to my graduation. No phone calls, no texts, no responses to the messages I sent. I was.