A Good Little Girl Like You (A Sample)

But the man had no self-confidence, no pride that he,

Warren Benson, could do something, merely by putting his

mind to it. O.E. wanted to light some sort of fire under him.

He hoped the man didn't burn easily.

O.E. was still wondering about Warren when his new

cell phone rang. The one he bought that didn't reveal his

full name, so he could use it to talk to Rebecca. She was the

only one who even knew the number.

"Hey. What's up?"

"I'm up. Well, I will be soon. Up in the air, that is. Like I

told you at the hospital, I'm heading to Moscow tomorrow."

O.E. could gladly sit there and listen to her talk. "Tell

me everything."

Rebecca chuckled. "You want to hear the saga? Well,

let's see. . . I leave at 7:00 tomorrow evening, fly all night,

and get dumped in the Moscow airport around noon on

Friday. I will sleep on the flight, thanks to the numbing

effect of three gin and tonics. Still, I can assure you, the next

day will be hell.

"Meetings start that afternoon. They run right up to a

banquet dinner and continue after that until the middle of

the night. I'll get back to my room around 3:00 in the

morning and pass out. The good news is that I'll still have

twelve hours to get to my plane on Saturday afternoon, so

I'll finally have plenty of sleep."

She paused briefly. "The bad news is that the return

flight is the longest afternoon on record. It departs soon

after lunch and gets home before sundown. We're talking

about ten hours of setting sun! That's hard to sleep through.

Even worse because I'll already have slept enough. So I'll

probably sit there and stare at the sun for the entire trip.

"I'll get home Saturday afternoon, nicely tan on one side

of my face. For the first time since I've left, I'll be released

from my trip adrenaline and collapse until Sunday. Now

doesn't that sound wonderful?"

I've done things like that. O.E. thought about the

squeezing he had done when he was selling his software,

years ago. Endless flights squeezed in a coach seat.

Interminable banquets, squeezed between some of the

most boring people who had ever walked the Earth. And

dreadful meetings, trying to squeeze money out of

reluctant clients. He had real sympathy for Rebecca, and he

ached to give her a squeeze.

"Sounds great. Who translates?"

Rebecca laughed. "I do. I speak Russian fluently. That's

why they send me."

Damn, woman. You are amazing. Wasn't it enough that

she was sexy and sharp? A former gymnast and a lover of