Maybe he was too much of a cop and saw corruption and vice in every face even when it wasn’t so. They shook hands. The man continued to smoke. ‘M...y I sit down?’ said Hudson. The man made a gesture with his hand offering him the seat on the other end of the table. Hudson sat down and he put his hand over the catalog. ‘My name is Hudson Banach, I’m a cop,’ he said, ‘and I’m interested in purchasing a mail-order bride.’ ‘Let’s talk shall we?’ said Nat Coldwell. THREE When Hudson got back to his. .. I remember it was a Friday ... Merrie and I were studying for our European History final together at the end of our junior year. She’d gotten a bottle of wine and some cheese, and we started laughing and joking about something ... probably one of my latest date-slash-fuckfests. She always made me give her all the gory details.”I interrupted. “Did she ever tell you about her dates?”“Oh, no. Not then, anyway. And I never asked. It’s just the way we were. But, the topic of me ‘melting’ came up. She started pointing out landmarks to us, screeching and waving to friends she spotted far down on the ground, and turning around to laugh with Jorge, Becky, and Emilio, another of the Mendoza kids, in the bench behind us. As the ride launched for its prescribed time, Kristina finally smiled, and we took turns searching for other people and places throughout the park to point out to Lina, chatting and laughing like friends once again. Kristina even spotted my younger brother Stephen, running in. The girl, while looking very intently into Josh’s eyes with her big baby blues cracked a slight smile and said, “mmmmm that’s it.”“How much?” She asked.“$11.50,” answered Josh in a rather monotone voice as he tried hard to keep his composure. Then he looked back over at her topless roommate still sitting cross legged on the couch staring at him.“Come on in and I’ll get my purse,” said the blonde girl. Josh stepped in and she closed the door behind him before she went to the bedroom for her.