Alison was on stage with elders from the three reservations,as well as Nick and a half dozen invited businessmen. Even the townmayor was there. To Riv...r's surprise the Mayor was a 60-year-old womanwho worked as a cleaner at the hospital. She was friendly, smart andwell-spoken, and she welcomed Alison and all the others to the town,claiming that it was past time for a financial institution to come tothe town.Alison spoke most of the time, with Nick adding bits here and there.The first big moment. ”“We all have to live with that, Prudence.”“Oh, another thing, Frances. Reg wants to hold hands with whichever of us he is walking with outside. He feels he should publicly show his feelings for each of us, this way. I approved of the idea. I presume you do also?”“Nice idea. Typical boy-girl action. We can do that when walking between classes, even inside the building.”“I assumed that,” said Reg. “I want to show my commitment to each of you, in public; not just sitting together at lunchtime.. It’s not exactly polite.” We walked back to the dinner table together as if nothing had happened. Amy and I were talking in my room after dinner. Naturally, it turned to teenage gossip about who was with who else and what so and so said about blah blah blah. I swear she could go on for hours with this. We settled into silence, mainly because of my lack of knowledge about the dating scene with our classmates. Amy turned to me and randomly asked, “So what’s the deal with you and Jamie?”. I found a self-defense shop that specialized in TaiQuanDo. The young fellow running it knew Tai'Chi and was willing to give me some pointers—for a price. What the hell. He was a business-man and we both knew it. He got me going on the right path. After four weeks of practice, once per day under his watchful eye he called me 'adequate'. I almost shot the bastard.I went on to teach the kids what I'd learned. Pretty soon I noticed that the kids were getting bored. I said 'fuck it'. I bought two.