We had rented Cobo Hall as we needed a place comfortably to hold us all. And since we wanted no gate crashers we rented the entire building, with diff...rent groups on different floors, to make sure, nobody had to feel like they were forced to be too close to any group they didn’t want to be near. Once the brief speeches were over, we would move me to the groups.I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs as I didn’t know anything about public speaking. With the water. The majority of the farm had been fallow for several years, with the exception of the large garden area.I knew next to nothing when it came to farming, and had no clue of even how to go about doing anything. I read the instructions left on making the garden though. Fred had left step by step instructions on a lot of things, on how to run the house, when to reattach the pump in the tower water tank, to maintaining the stored farm machinery.I smelled the meal cooking, and while it smelled good,. We didn’t have any servants. I grew up on a farm. Pretty isolated. Pa lost the farm with the Crash. Couldn’t pay the seed debts.’ He took another sip, watching her face. She seemed impassive, just listening, but her hands were holding the counter so tightly that her fingers hurt. ‘More and more stuff happened and I finally said the hell with it and didn’t go anymore. The Pacific Beach fire down by Huntington Beach was the end of it. ‘What did I fight for? It seemed like for nothing. ‘Why did I. I was walking in a skirt and blouse outfit, while Fatima worse a smartpantsuit that the receptionist immediately complimented.The snickers from the girls at the salon were nothing compared to theoutright laughs of contempt my appearance brought from the girls in theoffice and some of the guys. Some of the other guys appeared to pityme, while others had nothing but outright scorn in their eyes when Icaught them looking at me.As I settled in at my new desk, I remembered how reluctant Fatima was.