Emmy And Me

The last time I was caught with my figurative pants down I just rolled with it and that seemed to work, so after my initial moment of shock and embarrassment, which I don’t think anybody saw, I played it cool.

“Hey, guys,” I said, sipping my Coke.

Wally seemed to not know what to do, so he looked away after gawking for a moment. Grant, though, stepped right up, so to speak.

“Leah, Emmy, Luisa,” he said to each of us in turn. “This is my daughter, Mia.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, stepping forward to shake her hand.

“Um, how do you do, ma’am,” Mia said, shaking my hand, trying to keep eye contact.

After the initial moment of embarrassment, I realized with a little rush that I actually enjoyed the comedy of the awkwardness of the moment, so I decided then and there to not put the kimono back on. After all, Mia was going to be living in my house, right? The possibility certainly existed that she’d see me nude at some point. Might as well get that over with.

My nudity didn’t seem to faze Grant at all. Of course, we’d wrestled plenty with neither of us wearing anything besides minimal athletic gear, so he was fairly familiar with at least my basic outline.

Wally, though, was mortified, and doing his best to not look at my body, but it’s the same thing as when somebody tells you to not think of an elephant. What’s the first thing you do? Imagine an elephant, right? The more Wally tried to avoid looking at me the more he couldn’t do it.

Mia, after her initial surprise, seemed to take it in stride. “Dad didn’t tell me you’re a model,” she said, looking at the easel and Luisa’s sketch.

“Luisa is an artist, and Emmy wanted me to pose for a painting, so here I am,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal.

“Hey, I need to get back to posing if we’re going to finish this up,” I said. “Grant, can you give Mia a tour of the house? Wally, do you suppose you can get us some more of those sandwiches like the ones you got from that deli the other day for lunch? We’ll be done in what, forty-five minutes or so?”

Wally rushed to leave, but Grant and Mia stayed for a moment longer. “Leah, should we set Mia up in one of the bedrooms downstairs or in the other apartment?” Grant asked.

Thinking about it for a moment, I said “One of the bedrooms for now. Luisa has the other apartment half filled with boxes at the moment, but Mia, you should definitely take a look at the apartment to see what it’s like and if it’ll suit your needs.”

“Sounds good,” Grant replied, and the two followed Wally back into the house.

“Oh, that was delicious!” Emmy said, laughing that beautiful laugh of hers. “The look on poor Wally’s face!”

“I can’t believe the way you just acted like nothing was unusual at all, Leah,” Luisa said. “You were just like, ‘Oh, hi. Nice day, isn’t it?’ and they were trying to be cool about it, too, but failing completely!”

I shrugged, still acting nonchalant, then burst out laughing. “Yeah, that was funny as hell,”I agreed. “Embarrassing, but funny as hell at the same time.”

“You didn’t look embarrassed at all,” Luisa said as I got back into that uncomfortable pose.

“Let’s get this done,” I said.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Luisa was satisfied with her work and she said we could stop.

“Damn,” I groused. “How can sitting still be so much work?”

“I know, right?” agreed Luisa. “It’s amazing how tough it is to just sit there and not move.”

This time, after I stretched, I put the kimono back on. “As soon as you get your stuff put away, come downstairs to the parlor, and we’ll have that conversation I promised everybody,” I said to Luisa. “C’mon, babe,” I said to Emmy, taking her hand. “I’ve got to get some clothes on.”

“But I like you without any clothes on,” Emmy said, pouting.

After taking a quick shower and throwing on jeans and a T shirt, I went to the parlor for the meeting. Emmy had rounded everybody up while I was getting presentable, so I was the last to arrive.

Without any real preamble, I got straight into the conversation. “Luisa said this morning that she will be working for us after all. She feels assured that the risks to her are not anything to be too concerned about. Wally, have you made up your mind?”

“Yes. Sherrie and I talked it over, and we decided that this was a great opportunity,’ he said. “I brought my tax forms so you can see how much I’ve been earning.”

“That’s excellent,” I said. “Really excellent. I’m glad to have you, Wally. Oh, and sorry about earlier. I hadn’t realized that you guys would get back to the house so early.”

“Oh, no, we shouldn’t have barged in like that, Miss Leah.”

“Eh, whatever,” I said with a dismissive shrug. Turning to Mia, I asked, “Did your dad give you a tour, and an idea of what you’d be expected to do?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mia said.

“Mia, this isn’t the Marines any more. ‘Leah’ is fine, or if it’s in public or a formal setting, ‘Miss Leah’ is good. Sure, I’ll be your boss, but seriously,” I said.

“Yes, ma- Yes, Miss Leah. How should I refer to Emmy?”

“Princess,” I said, laughing. "Call her ‘Princess’. That works perfectly,” I said, and glancing at Emmy I could see the look of consternation on her pretty face. “So, you’ve seen the house, seen the second apartment, met Wally, our driver, and you know Grant, my head of security,” I said to Mia, teasing her a bit. “My name is Leah Farmer, my wife there is Emmy De Lascaux. This here is Luisa Rossi, who is the household manager here. She’ll be yours and Wally’s direct supervisor, if you decide that you do want to work for us.”

Looking around at the group, I said “I’d promised to explain the risks you’ll potentially face working for us. Mia, your dad told me that he’d explained a bit, but not all, to you. I want you to regard this as privileged information, and to not share this with anyone, whether you take this job or not. Can I have your assurance that this will remain under your hat?”

“Of course, ma-Leah,” Mia said, sitting up straight.

“Wally, you don’t have to keep this secret from your wife- Sherrie, you said her name was?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he responded.

“It’d be great to meet your family sometime soon,” I said. “Maybe you can bring them over for dinner?”

“My wife would like that,” Wally agreed.

“So, yeah, you can share this info with her, but please impress upon her that it would be best if she doesn’t tell anybody else. You’ll understand why when I explain,” I said.

I went on to explain that Emmy is, in fact, a princess of a European royal family, and that her family has political opponents back in the Old World, opponents who have tried to kill her (and me) in the past because of Emmy’s fame and visibility. I explained that Emmy is from a hidden ethnic group, sort of like the Roma, and that they live in amongst everybody else, hiding what they really are, and Emmy, simply by being publicly visible and famous, threatens their old way of living in secret.

“This sounds crazy, if you don’t mind me saying, ma’am,” Mia said.

“Really crazy,” Luisa agreed.

“I know it does,” I agreed. “But it’s one hundred per cent true.”

Mia looked to her dad for confirmation, and he nodded his head. “It might seem crazy now, but soon enough you’ll meet some of the others, and hear their stories. It might be crazy, but it’s real.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Luisa said. “These others, these political opponents, hate Emmy because she’s famous, that’s it? They want to kill her just to keep her, um, out of sight?”

“Exactly,” Emmy said. “I threaten the old ways simply by being visible, and they do not want that.”

“So, the threat you’ve been talking about is that these guys might hire hitmen to kill Emmy, but they have no real beef against any of the rest of us, so we’re pretty much safe?”

“That’s a bit of an over-simplification, but more or less true,” I agreed. “If they broke into this house, they might tie you up or something like that, but it’s really unlikely they would harm you. That isn’t to say there’s no chance they would, which is why keeping this house secure is important to us.”

“And this has happened twice in the last five years?”

“No, both incidents were nothing like direct home invasions,” I said, then went on to give general outlines of the alley attack way back when, and the Vancouver incident with Rahsett and King Marfan. Of course, I skipped the bits about me killing the bad guys. They didn’t need to know that, even though I’d told Grant about both instances.

“Um, this girl, Grace. Where is she now?” asked Luisa.

“She’s about to start her freshman year at Northern Arizona University. She moved there right after graduating high school, wanting to spend the summer there before school starts in the fall. You’ll meet her at some point, I’m sure. She’s one of the people I expect might come and stay here when she wants to visit New York.”

“Who are the others?”

“Well, maybe my mom and little sister, Emmy’s band mates, probably not Emmy’s parents. If they come to New York they’ll stay in a hotel,” I said, thinking about who might use our new pied-à-terre. “Maybe a few other friends, but that’s about it.”

“So it isn’t going to be like some sort of AirBnB, right?” Luisa asked, just to get further clarification.

“No, not at all. Not a bit,” I assured her.

“We will have grand parties every now and then,” Emmy announced. “That is why I wanted this particular house, because of the enormous kitchen. I expect we’ll entertain large groups once in a while, but do not worry- we will bring on a chef and extra staff for those occasions.”

“I wondered,” Luisa said. “The kitchen is ridiculously huge.”

Getting back on track, I said to Wally, “Do you have to give two week’s notice at the livery company?”

“Yes,” he said. “I can turn in my notice today, if you would like.”

“Sure, may as well get it done as quickly as possible,” I agreed. “We’ll need to buy a car.”

“Two cars,” Emmy said. “We have two parking spaces, correct? We should get two cars.”

“Two cars, then,” I said. “I’ll set that up after we’re done here. Now, Luisa, is there anything you need that we haven't discussed?”

“I need a bank account, if I’m going to pay the household bills and things like that.”

“Sure, after this meeting let’s go up to the office and set one up. I guess Wally will need a charge card, too.”

“Um, don’t we need to go to the bank?”

Laughing, I said “When you have as much money as we do, the bank comes to you.”

Turning to the last person I needed to square away, I said to Mia, “I don’t need your answer on whether you’ll take the job right now. Think about it overnight, and let me know in the morning. Also, think about what you need, and let me know about that, too, if you decide this gig is for you.”

Looking around one last time, I asked “Any questions?” I just knew that if Stephanie were there she’d reference that movie with Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis and ask ‘What was the middle part again?’ but she wasn't there, and nobody asked anything.

I felt a little pang, thinking about Stephanie, and how I was going to miss seeing her the following week.

Grant said “I think I’ll show Mia around the neighborhood. Luisa, do you need anything from the store?” and that was all it took for the meeting to adjourn.

I led Luisa and Wally upstairs to my office, and pointed out the smaller office down the hall. “That was the old household office,” I said. “Emmy’s stealing it to be part of her recording studio, so we need to figure out where to move your seat of power.”

“My seat of power?” Luisa asked, laughing. “With the Daltons, I just sat at the kitchen table to do bills. I never had my own office.”

“Well, give it some thought,” I told her. “If we need to convert one of the larger storage areas into a little office, we’ll need to tell Erich.”

“Wally, I hope you like driving BMWs,” I said as I sat at my desk and they took the two chairs facing me. “We own a couple of dealerships in California.”

“Would I have to drive them back here?” he asked, looking a little concerned.

“We could do that if you’d like, but no- I was thinking we’d get the cars delivered from the factory to a local dealer here in New York. Here, give me a moment,” I said, flipping open my laptop. I sent a couple of quick emails, and then turned back to the two. “O.K., that’s set up. The first car should be ready this afternoon, but the second one, the seven series, that’s a special order from the factory. It’ll probably take a month, unless one can be sourced here in the US somewhere.”

“Special order?” Luisa asked.

“Bulletproof,” I said. “Special order.”

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

“Better safe than sorry,” I said. “Haven’t needed that feature yet, but I’d rather have it and not need it…”

Turning back to my laptop, I shot off a couple of emails, then looked up at the two. “I guess I’m going to need a printer,” I said, “For the necessary paperwork. I’ve let the bank know to open an account-” I said, but was interrupted by my phone ringing in my pocket.

Seeing that it was my banker, I answered. “Yes, one account. Let’s use the LLC we set up to buy the house. I’ll need two charge cards, and the statements need to go to Luisa Rossi here in New York and Tracy there at my office. Yeah, no limit, but verification on charges over, say, two grand?” I looked at Luisa, who seemed a little dumbstruck.

“Do you think you’ll be charging more than two grand at a time very often?” I asked, and she snapped out of her surprise.

“Um, no, I don’t think so,” she replied.

“All right,” I said into the phone. “I’ll have the two fill out the forms, then I’ll scan them and send them back. There’s no printer here, so I’ve got to run out and get one real quick.”

Making one last call to my office, I said "Tracy, I need employment forms for three people. Email them to me, and I’ll send them back as soon as I can. Yeah, I’ll send you the salary info. Yep- full package. If you can email me the employee info file I’d appreciate it.”

“All right,” I said to Luisa and Wally. “Welcome to your new jobs at Royal Holdings.”

“Just like that?” Wally asked.

“Well, no, actually. I need to get a printer-scanner unit so I can give you the employment paperwork to fill out, and the bank paperwork. Wally, go ahead and tell your boss you’re quitting, but do yourself a favor and don’t tell him I’ve hired you away. Emmy and I will continue to use your exclusive service with the livery company for the next week, then you’ll go back to normal service duties for another week. I don’t want your boss pissed at you.”

“I don’t think he would be angry that I’m leaving, but I do think he wouldn’t like losing me to a client,” Wally agreed.

“O.K., so I’m gonna need for you two to go get me a good quality laser printer, so we can make this official. Grant would be pissed at me if I connected via wifi, so get me an ethernet cable, too. In a couple of hours, Wally, I’ll need a ride to the dealership to get our new X5.”

“Can I come?” Luisa asked. “I’ve never bought a car before and I want to see what it’s like.”

“This won’t be like a normal car purchase,” I said.

“Still…” she wheedled.

“All right, why not?” I said.

After Luisa and Wally left to go find me a printer, I shot some emails back and forth with our accountant and banker, getting everything set up. I was engrossed in this when a knock on the door and a “Do you have a moment?” interrupted my train of thought.

“Come on in, Mia," I said, and she entered and sat down. I think this was the first time I’d actually seen her walk for more than a couple of steps, so it was then that I first noticed her limp.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“I think I want the job, Miss Leah,” she said. “I’ve thought about it and talked with Dad. I think this could be a really good opportunity for me, so if you still want me, I’d like to sign up.”

“All right,” I said, leaning back. “Now, this is important. I’m going to have to have you sign a non-disclosure agreement, and if you break it, my lawyers will absolutely skin you alive, you understand?”

“Did my dad sign one?”

“Yes, he did. But also, I know, since he’s had top secret clearance from the DOD, that he knows how to keep things quiet. I trust him to not talk about anything that he learns here unless I’ve cleared it. Are you willing to sign the NDA?”

“Of course!” Mia said. “I’ve got Secret clearance, myself.”

“I don’t have a printer yet to print out a nice-looking form, but I can write something up really quick,” I explained as I pulled out a piece of blank paper and wrote a basic NDA agreement on it.

“Now, by signing this, you’re agreeing that anything I tell you is absolutely confidential, you got that?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am, I got it,” she replied, reaching for the pen.

After she’d signed it, I said “Here’s the deal. There is a very real possibility I may need you for some, um, paramilitary ops. These will be local, here inside the U.S., and may possibly involve, let’s call them, extrajudicial proceedings. Is this a thing that you might be prepared to be involved with?”

“Does my dad know?”

“Yes, he does. Now that you’ve signed the NDA, he can talk to you about it, but the same rules apply to anything he tells you involving Emmy, me, or our company, or our people.”

“And he recommended me?”

“Yes, he did. He said you’d seen combat, and he thought you’d be O.K. with these possibilities,” I said. “In fact, I didn’t want to hire you because you’re his daughter, I wanted to hire you because of his recommendations of your character.”

“And he said I’d be O.K. with what, gang wars?”

“Not gang wars. Well, not exactly. It’s complicated, and boils down to the politics I mentioned earlier. It may never come down to violence, but I’m going to need to have you prepared if it does.”

“Dad said something about me getting a bodyguard license,” Mia said.

“Yeah, I think that’s the easiest route to a concealed carry permit here in New York,” I agreed.

“How likely is it that it’ll be needed?”

“Unlikely, but not out of the question,” I said. “There is a lot of resistance to the reforms that Emmy embodies, and it may result in fighting. I don’t want Luisa to be involved in any of that- it’s not her place. All I need Wally to be able to do is spot trouble and evade it, but you, I might need you to punch that trouble in the face.”

“I’m good at punching faces,” Mia replied. “I’m real good at shooting back when shot at, too.”

“So that’s a yes? You’re still on board?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. If my dad knows what’s going on, and he has no problem with the, um, ethics of it, then I don’t either.”

“All right. Now, ostensibly, mostly you’ll just be doing whatever Luisa needs to have done. Run errands for her, maybe help clean up once in a while, water the plants, whatever she tells you needs to be done. On top of that, you’re going to maintain the household security. Check the video feeds from the night before every morning, make sure all the windows and doors are locked every night, that sort of thing,” I explained. “This should leave you plenty of time to take classes during the day, if that’s what you want. If you have any specific requirements, let me know if you think of them today or tomorrow. After that, let Luisa know and she’ll deal with it.”

“Seems pretty straightforward,” Mia said.

“It should be,” I agreed.

“Oh, and one more thing. Starting soon, construction crews will be remodeling throughout the house. I’d like you to stick around as much as possible while they’re working here, just to make sure no problems arise. I doubt they will- the contractor specializes in these high-end homes, and has a good reputation. But still…”

“I gotcha,” Mia said.

“Mia, one more thing. Emmy and I are among the most famous lesbians in the world, right? I mean, everybody knows about us. We’re like Ellen and Portia, and the tabloids love to talk shit about us, right?”

“I’d imagine they do, ma’am. I don’t pay much attention.”

“Well, here’s the thing. We went out to dinner with Luisa the other night, and paparazzis took our pictures entering the restaurant. Now, I’m sure you noticed, Luisa is very pretty. The next day, those pics with the headlines that said 'Emmy and Leah’s new toy?' were all over the tabloid sites. No offense intended, but you’re kinda masculine looking,” I said, pausing.

“No offense taken, ma’am. I fully admit that I present as butch,” Mia said with a self-deprecating smile, rubbing her high and tight haircut.

“So if you go out with Emmy as her bodyguard, it’s going to make it in the rags. I don’t care, and Emmy thinks it’s funny, but I want to warn you, you’re probably going to become internet famous as a dyke.”

“Not to be too crude about it, ma’am, but I don’t think that would hurt my chances with the ladies,” Mia said.

Laughing, I said, “No, probably not.”

“Ma’am, may I speak freely?”

“Of course you can,” I said.

“Is Luisa your new toy?”

“What? No!” I said, laughing. “No, she’s not. I’d like to think she’s a friend as well as an employee, and hopefully you and I will get to that same place, but just a friend and employee. Despite all the rumors and innuendo, a lot of which has been spread by Emmy, we’re probably the most vanilla people you’ll ever meet.”

“Forget I asked, then,” Mia said.

“No, no worries,” I replied. “You’re pretty much all caught up on our big, dark secrets now. Seriously, for the most part, we’re pretty boring.”

“It didn’t look boring when we walked out onto that deck,” Mia said, smirking.

“No, I’d imagine it didn’t,” I said with a chuckle.

The trip to the dealership was about as uneventful as you would imagine. Wally dropped Luisa and me off in front, we walked in, I asked to see the sales manager, told him who I was and what I’d come for, he led us to the car, we checked it over, I said it was fine, he handed me the key and said the paperwork was on its way.

“Just like that?” Luisa asked.

“Well, a lot happened behind the scene,” I said. “But yes, essentially, just like that.”

I drove us back across town, while Luisa marveled at the nice, new car.

“You know, the limo is cool, riding around like that, but having a car like this is even better,” she said.

“How so?”

“Well, there are a lot of places where a limo just isn’t appropriate, right? Say you want to drive up to the Hamptons, or Montauk. A limo would just be silly, but this…”

“And that’s why Emmy wanted two cars, and not just two sedans,” I agreed.

“You guys- your lifestyle is just so…” Luisa trailed off, at a loss for words.

“Really, once you get to see us in action more, you’re going to realize we’re actually pretty boring,” I said.

“As if!”

I hadn’t actually been inside the garage halfway down the block that held our two spots, but it wasn’t hard to find our designated parking places. I parked nose-out out of habit, glad that the garage wasn’t too cramped. Two full-sized cars would have no problem right next to each other.

Walking back to the house, Luisa asked “That’s it? You get a brand-new BMW and you don’t even want to drive it?”

Shrugging, I said, “I’ve got one back home.”

I didn’t ask Wally to stick around after he’d taken his paperwork to fill out, just asked him to be there at nine the next morning to take me to the airport.

Grant and Mia went out for the evening, so it was just Luisa, Emmy and me for dinner. I’d asked Luisa for something light, so she fixed a really nice Caesar’s salad, which was perfect.

“You know, I don’t think I ate dinner even once actually with the Daltons,” Luisa said. “It’s gonna be real different working for you guys.”

“In a lot of ways, I imagine,” I said.

“Luisa, Leah is leaving for San Jose tomorrow, but I will be staying for another week. Next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we will be having some guests, so we will need to prepare all the bedrooms. There will be five of them.”

“Will Grant still be here?” Luisa asked, doing the mental math in her head. “Because we only have four empty bedrooms now.”

“Yeah, Grant will still be here,” I said. “I don’t want to kick him out just for one of the boys.”

Emmy looked thoughtful, then said, “We will work something out.”

“So we’ll need to feed a few extra mouths,” I said. “You and Mia should go shopping tomorrow.”

“What do you think of Mia?” Emmy asked, and I wasn’t sure if she was asking me or Luisa, so I let Luisa answer first.

“She seems… Well, she seems like she’ll be able to do the job,” Luisa hedged.

“But?” I asked.

“Well, but nothing. It isn’t as if I’ve really had a chance to get to know her, you know?”

“I guess that’s true,” I said.

“Do you think you will be O.K. with living under the same roof as Mia?” Emmy asked.

“Yeah, I don’t see any problem with it,” Luisa said with confidence.

“Leah, what do you think of Mia?”

“She seems competent, for sure. I think she’ll have no problems doing what we ask. I also think she has a good sense of humor, and that helps, too,” I said. “She just needs to get rid of some of her military habits. I can only take ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ just so long.”

Laughing, Emmy asked, “You spoke to her about our security concerns?”

“Yeah, and she thinks she’s up to the job,” I confirmed.

“That is good,” Emmy said.

“Luisa,” I said, turning to face her. “I told both Wally and Mia that you’re the boss as far as the household goes. You’re the one in charge. They both seemed to understand that, but if there’s ever any question, feel free to get ahold of me to straighten things out.”

“Um, O.K.,” she said. “What kind of things should I have them do?”

Grant and Mia came back in while we were discussing specific job duties, so after dinner we ‘retired to the parlor’ (yes, it sounds funny to me to say it that way, so I used the phrase every chance I got) to discuss it, then, over drinks, the conversation turned more informal and just became a group of people chatting.

I think it was a really good thing, in a way. Emmy had never really talked much with Grant, and obviously Mia was new to the party, so it was a real ice-breaker with regards to just getting to know each other.

Emmy and I called it a night a little bit after eleven, leaving the other three still going. Settling into bed, Emmy said, “I am going to miss you very much this next week.”

“You’re going to have so much stuff going on, and so many people here, you won’t even notice I’m gone,” I said, pulling her into my arms as we snuggled.

“I will miss you ever so much,” Emmy protested. “I will miss you so much, that I already miss you.”

Chuckling, I said, “Well, at least you’ll have a house full of people to keep you distracted. I’ll be all alone there in Palo Alto.”

“That makes me sad to imagine,” Emmy said, pushing back against me as we spooned, wrapping my arms tighter around herself. “I hate the idea of you ever being lonely.”

“It’s just for a little while,” I said. “A week isn’t very long.”

“It will feel long.”

“That’s what he said,” I replied, and chuckled a little at my own joke. It’s a punchline that never fails.

“You are terrible!”

My last morning run there in New York for the foreseeable future took me back across the Queensborough Bridge and around Roosevelt Island one more time. On my way back across the bridge, I stopped to take a really good look at the top terrace of our house, and realized that yes, I probably was visible in my nudity, at least when I walked out to the railing looking out over the river. Maybe not when I was posing, but I’d probably spent half an hour all told in plain sight of any runners or cyclists heading west across the bridge. Thinking about it as I continued my run, I decided to not share that information with Emmy or Luisa.

After my shower, I woke Emmy up as I packed to go. “Hey, babe. I’m taking off. I’ll call you when I land, O.K.?”

“Have a good flight,” Emmy mumbled, still mostly asleep. “I already miss you.”

I gave her a quick kiss, then went down to the kitchen for a croissant and a cup of coffee.

“Luisa, call me if you have any questions about anything,” I said as she got the kitchen ready for the day.

“When do you think you’ll be back in New York?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Probably a few months, maybe sooner. No idea, really. Why?”

“Well, we need to finish up that portrait. I can work on it some, get it roughed out, but I’ll need you to pose again so I can finish it.”

“Ah, I see,” I said, laughing. “You just want my naked body.”

“No, that’s-” Luisa started to protest, then realized I was teasing her. “Well, O.K., you got me. That’s all I want you for. Well, that and my paychecks, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

I had just finished my coffee when Wally came down to the kitchen and accepted a cup of coffee from Luisa. “We need to leave in ten minutes or so,” he announced. “Can I get your bags?”

“Up in the foyer,” I said. “Just the one suitcase, that’s all.”

“That’s easy,” he said.

Michael and Jassie were waiting for me when I landed in San Jose, and I was very glad to see their familiar, smiling faces. New York had been mostly fun, but it’s always nice to come home.

“How was your trip?” Michael asked as I settled in the back seat with Jassie.

“It was good. Really good, actually. I think in a couple of months I’m going to have to send you to run a team there, to see who we can find to get to join us. I think it’s time we branched out away from the west.”

“Yes, it was inevitable that we would have to approach the East Coast in our recruitment,” Michael agreed. “I expect we will find larger numbers of Night Children in those older places.”

“I’m sure we will,” I agreed.