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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 171: Takano 136
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 345
It was the usual Friday morning. Tommy got the coffee and settled at her own desk to see whether she could contribute anything to the ongoing efforts to design a computer. The boy with the interoffice mail came by. They called him ‘Billy’ she thought, although some called him ‘Bobby’, as if his name didn’t matter. He was probably eighteen or nineteen, fresh out of high school.
“Hi,” he said in a friendly voice.
“Hi,” she answered noncommittally.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked, indicating her duffel. She remembered Brian’s answer--not a lie, but not likely to reveal anything.
“My workout stuff.”
“Really?” he said with an obvious interest. “Where do you work out?”
“Oh, wherever, really. I run, climb, jump, that kind of thing.”
“You don’t belong to a gym or something?”
“On my salary?”
He laughed. “Oh, I just thought--”
“No, I just work out wherever.”
“Right. Um--would you like to go to lunch?”
She glanced at the clock. “It’s not time yet.”
“No, I mean, would you like to go to lunch with me?”
“Oh--I don’t know. I have to take my check to the bank, and then I thought I’d go home and grab a sandwich there--I live three blocks away, now, and can’t really afford to be eating out all the time.”
“It’s O.K.--my treat. I know a pizza place not far from here. And I can go to the bank with you and go from there.”
She nodded. She didn’t really want to be going out with Billy, or Bobby, or whatever his name was, but he was so persistent she thought it was bordering on rude to say no.
“O.K.,” she said. “Meet me here at lunch time, and we’ll head for the bank and go out for lunch.”
He almost danced down the aisle behind his cart. Tommy shook her head. What had she gotten herself into now?
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #519: Versers Congregate. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
