Resistance is futile

As she slammed the door, Molly stood. "Don't," Lucia moaned. "She can find you and carry out her threat. I know her type."

"Bloody Americans," Molly grumbled, sitting down again. "The violence in this country ... Who invited her to this meeting?"

Roxana and Allison tried not to look at me. "I did," Anabel finally said with a shrug. She looked at Lucia sadly while she drained her can of Diet Pepsi. "What else did April take? You said that bag was the only thing in your room?"

While Randy took his mother to dinner, I reported the latest to Barry. "She who steals my purse steals trash," he chuckled. "Molly's going to spend the rest of the conference nursing Lucia's broken heart. She won't have as much time to throw her weight around in the meetings and Roxana can probably push through anything she wants. That's politics."

"Is it really that brutal?" I asked. "Did Lucia have to get totally ripped off by April to find out that her real allegiance should have been to Anabel? Jasmine's up in the room studying April's trash, by the way."

Monday, November 8

Thanks to Jasmine's merciful intervention I found myself, late last night, alone in my room with Randy -- as nervous there as I was when he tried to kiss me in the hallway. "Sit down, will you?" he said, holding my shivering body. "I love the way your mouth feels."

"Yes, but -- " I allowed him to sit me down on the bed. "This is so embarrassing! I can't handle knowing all this about your mother! It's information overload." And almost like having sex with my own brother for some reason, I thought. "I didn't even know that Jeannie -- Mary -- Anabel -- whatever we're supposed to call her -- had a kid!"

"She didn't know she could," he said. "And she was too sentimental to have an abortion because she was in love with the guy -- my biological dad. So when my mother found out she was pregnant, she contacted Mom." I digested that interesting remark -- "Mom" being the mother who raised him.

"How did you trace Jeannie down?" I asked. My curiosity was making me less nervous. He poured me another scotch. "I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't call her Jeannie."

"It's OK," he said, with a quizzical smile. "It was an open adoption. I saw her twice a year -- whenever she was in town. When I was about 16, she told me the truth about her business. And when I was 18, Mom said I was old enough to visit Anabel myself. So I started flying out to wherever she was -- once a year, around her birthday. She moves around."

Sixteen, I thought -- that's not so long ago for him. And that's the age I was when I started working for Jeannie! Or Anabel. "Weren't you ... disillusioned ... when you found out?"

"I don't have many illusions about my mother. She's the one with the illusions. Tonight, when I took her out for dinner, she kept hassling me about how I should become a dentist! She's been telling me that ever since I was 10."

"She hassles you about your job?"

"Anabel doesn't want me to work at a gym but Mom thinks it's great -- you see, Mom's a retired ballet dancer. Let's face it, my mother -- Anabel -- wasn't up to raising a kid. She's unstable. But she has these weird feelings that she thinks a mother should have. Sometimes, she's like a teenager playing at being my mother. Hey," he said, turning to me suddenly. "I would never have guessed you had worked for her."

Next Page: Arms pinned, not entirely against my will

• View blog reactions