But then again, I'm an early riser -- well I was in those days -- and I took breakfast very early as well. There had hardly been anyone else in the di...ing room for breakfast that morning. Definitely no one from the party Kylie was with anyway, and she'd kind-of rushed me out for that walk along the cliffs.Yeah, I got the impression that for some reason, possibly the one Aunt G had mentioned, Kylie wanted to keep our relationship – if that's what you could call it – um ... well clandestine! But. She wanted me to stay in there as long as possible as a memory. I assured her that I could replace it from time to time but she wanted to keep it in there anyway.We walked back to the house carrying our clothes. I fixed us some dinner and then we settled in for the evening. While we were gone Bobbie Jo had placed a bearskin rug on the floor in front of the fireplace. Penelope just curled up on it and I cuddled into her. We talked about her dreams of an education, a husband, and a career. Then. I had, uh, the other girl look over these coins.”“Oh, yes, of course.” Val said and Frieda could hear her stepmother wasn’t smiling. Frieda would’ve dropped the box in her hands and rushed to the front. She managed to get it up on the shelf first. Christ, she had to hurry though. She had been way wrong about those coins. She’d called her dad after the guy had left. He, the customer, needed more info. “And you’re looking to sell?”Val hated purchasing. She’d cut the guy to the bone. The idea of. Specifically, the idea that what I was saying toJoe when we discussed this was somewhat different than what I wasfeeling. It was almost as though I were deliberately being dishonestwith myself, that I was resisting some of the elements of the change.There had been an emotional evolution, I now realized, between the timeI had given Joe his hand-job to the present. Now, the intimacy of thatact genuinely meant something to me, and what's more, I had to acceptthe fact that I would not only tolerate.