" What kind of special occasion could I possibly be involved in mother? Don't get me wrong. I do love them but when will I get to wear them?" Well, fo... one thing, suppose Frankie invited you to a special event at her church. She has invited you before you know. Wouldn't you want to look sharp like the other girls?" Well sure but I can't...oh my! Other! I can't really go as Cory can I? There's too much going on here now sending girlish signals, isn't there?" I'm afraid so dear. Do you girls. At least till my dad retired from the service, which was when I was in high school.” He sighed. “The only people I could rely on, the ones who were always there, were my family, and now, well, who the hell knows anymore, though I guess we’ll find out.”I took a huge gulp of coffee. “Well,” I finally said, “I don’t know how I’m gonna tell my family either.”“Are they super-conservative too?”“I dunno,” I said, “I mean, not like yours. Not politically. My dad’s an attorney, and my mom’s a. . That's it? Prayers? Mass?" Eve looked suspicious."Probably. You have opened the door to your life to something lurking at thethreshold, but it's nothing spectacular. Of course, if you are not a limitedatheist." What if it wouldn't work?" Natalie asked."Well, there are some kinds of exorcisms," I shrugged. "Fortunately, we livein conservative, backward Poland. There are masses with prayers fordeliverance in each diocese. I know where and when there is such mass inWarsaw. We can go there. But. Doom, the angel of death. Every company has them, kept on a shelf in a dark basement room until they’re needed to do some dirty work. He laughed when he realized that his corporate life was really an extension of his military experience. No one he worked with knew what he had done in the Army, they wouldn’t have been able to avoid the irony if they had known. The bottle was empty and he was tired. There was an impressive list on the plus side of his personal ledger, certainly enough to keep him.