Their budget left room for "mad" money and vacations, but there was no room for her dance and coaching lessons, without raiding or borrowing from the 401K, something that Stephen forbade. That left no choice but for Linda to finance her dancing from earnings she made at a part-time job. At first, she wondered, seriously, if the University kept a dream lab and whether they hired oneironauts. She found out quickly that they did not, however.
Besides, she wanted to get a job where she could work at home, if at all possible. Of course there were plenty of envelope stuffing ripoffs, as always, but through a friend at work, she found out about something that seemed worth a try. The internet and fiber optic telephone connections could allow people to work from home in customer service oriented positions. One company hired registered nurses to work from home as medical information specialists.
The position, officially titled "Healthcare advisor" required someone to answer phones on behalf of several different health maintenance organizations. The advisor would speak with the caller about symptoms they or their loved one were having, and would offer advice (carefully given to lessen liability exposures) and make referrals to hospitals or urgent care clinics.
Linda thought it was worth pursuing. She found out immediately that their old Texas Instruments computer was not up to the job, however. In order to log in from home, a larger and faster computer was needed, along with a high-speed connection. The telephone, dial-up connection they had been using was strictly a no-go. She had to withdraw two thousand dollars from her personal savings to buy the computer.
From the start, however, it worked out and she could log on whenever she wanted, whenever she had free time during evening or weekend hours, as long as it was a minimum of twenty hours per week. She spoke with stressed mothers about their child's runny noses, adolescent boys and girls worried about faces full of pimples, and elderly patients seeking homecare advice for post-discharge situations. The money the company paid her funneled directly into her checking out every week, and with it she could afford to take a lesson a week if she wanted to. On rare occasions she went to the Friday night parties, mostly to dance with all of the instructors and catch up with her old friends.
When she wasn't working on the computer or surfing on it during her off-duty time, Hayley liked to use it. That was fine with Linda as long as she was in the room, too. Hayley was turning into a tall, willowy beauty; at thirteen she was already taller than her mother, and both boy-and-clothes crazy. She liked to visit a website that reminded Linda of paper dolls. Hayley had created a virtual, digital representation of herself that was quite good (except she made herself tanner, with violet eyes instead of blue) and she would try on different outfits.