The four workers who should be here are absent, but I know where they are; goofing off in the back room, no doubt, smoking their pot and playing cards... I follow the sound of music and laughter to the door of the back room and push it open. “Oh, shit!” one of them shouts and they all turn and stand. The looks on their faces almost makes me laugh, but instead, I manage a menacing sneer. The four men have a TV playing and a porn flick playing. “So this is what you do with my husband’s generous. I didn't think much about it at the time.That next summer, I was between girls and one of my friends told me that Mary was definitely interested in me. So I called another mutual friend, and she helped me get a date. We had our date, and for some reason or another (hey, it's been 16 years... ) it didn't work out. I went on to other girls, and kind of forgot about it.School resumed that year, which was my sophomore year in high school. I was sixteen, had my own car and thought I was the shit. I. You’re more than prepared to live away from us and manage your own affairs.? ?Aren’t the rents in that area out of sight?? ?Perhaps. But RoseAnn tells us she has a nice roomy apartment to herself, with a pool and clubhouse, right there in Palo Alto. Maybe she’d like a room-mate to split the rent.? I may have physically jumped when he said that. In any case, that settled things as far as I was concerned. My father, innocently or perhaps by design—I never knew for sure—arranged for me to be alone. I took out my mobile and dialed Anne’s number. “Hello Anne, it’s Anna, we’re at the Black Cow in the car park”.“OK”, she replied.” It’s dead easy from there”. She proceeded to reel off a number of fairly simple directions, by the end of which Carl was climbing back in the car.Five minutes later we were pulling up outside the front door of a very nice double fronted Edwardian house. No sooner had Carl turned off the engine than the front door opened. A face appeared from around the door framed.