That evening, alone in the back room of the Greco Fine Jewelry Store, Sammy sits at a square, wood table. His laptop is open in front him and he is reading. Slowly, Mrs. Greco opens the white door. She tiptoes inside, then closes the door without making a sound. Two seconds pass, she steps softly to her left.

“Mom.”

She frowns and smacks at her yellow skirt.

“I’m facing your direction. There’s no way that I cannot see you.” Sammy’s blue eyes dart from the screen to his mother. “You don’t have to sneak up on me.”

“I give you privacy.”

He squints, glancing down then up. Sammy waves her over. “Come on, check this out.”

Smiling, she rushes around the table. “What is it?”

“Email from my publisher. Everything’s set. Friday they’re sending a luxury van to take me and other authors to a hotel, where they’re holding a banquet to introduce everyone who is newly signed with the company.” He leans back and smiles. “I’ll stay in a luxury suite, and then Saturday morning be driven to the convention where my books shall be waiting for me. All I have to do is set up my booth.”

“All you have to do is not tell your father how much you pay, you spend on your books, and then pray God you sell all of them.”

“Not tell your father…” Mr. Greco slams the white door.

Mrs. Greco slaps her son’s arm. “You don’t see him?”

“How you not tell me? You are not quiet people.”

Sammy and his mother open their mouths. Mr. Greco raises his hands. “No. I want him to go.”

Her brows rise. “You do?”

He drops his hands and takes a step toward the table. “Son, there are things a man must have to experience so he can learn. This is not one of them, but you in it, so there go.”

Mrs. Greco presents her palms first to her husband then to her son. “What is he supposed to learn?”

“It’s a scam, a racket.”

She mashes her curls. “Ah…”

“How much he pay for books, for the car, for the driver, the hotel, food, the booth? I’m right, but I pray God to make me wrong.”

Mrs. Greco lowers her arms. “You do?”

“But I am right.”

She slaps at her skirt.

“He will go, maybe he has a little good time, until he realize scam. It’s a scam.”

She pats her son’s shoulder. “Maybe he makes friends, finds a nice woman…”

“Mom…”

“Ah, just make sure she don’t cook. Cooking is my life. Find a modern woman. They don’t know how to cook. You live with us, we have more, a bigger life. Okay?”

Sammy stands and he lifts the laptop. “Let’s go home.”

***

That same Wednesday night, Sergeant Ginger Johnson exits the back door of a Miami substation. She’s wearing a blue party hat with silver tassels, and an over-sized, white T-shirt with the words, TWO WEEKS PAID TO GET LAID written on the front of it.

She approaches four uniformed officers who are heading toward her brown Mustang. Giggling and shaking her head, she calls out, “Sergeant, Alex, Patty and yes you, Rookie. What happened?”

They form a half-circle in front of Ginger, and they hang their heads. The youngest of them raises his palms. “Aw… Some of us have to work, dammit.”

Ginger crosses her arms beneath her breasts and with a big grin she turns to the young man. “You want to retire already, Bill?”

“No! I want cake.”

They all chuckle.

Patty steps forward and she gives Ginger a quick hug. “We missed the party...”

Silver-haired Sergeant Moore, presses his palms together and he brings them to his chest. “Tell me how, how did you do it? What strength, power, self-control. How did you not kill or at least punch the snot out of that ride-along punk?”

Bill asks, “What do you think he’s going to write, you know, say about you?”

Ginger pulls from her back pocket a cellphone. “That accident by the medical center…”

“So lucky…” Alex crosses his fingers and he raises them to his shoulders. “No major injuries.”

“But before we realized that…” The officers draw closer. Ginger pushes play. The voice of what sounds like a child shrieks about not wanting to see blood and he pleads to be returned to the station.

The officers grin. Ginger turns the recording off. She leans her head to her shoulder then sticks out her bottom lip. “And he told me he was a man.”

Laughter fills the parking lot.

“He canceled the article after he learned that I too recorded our conversation.”

Patty asks, “Where are you going? What are your vacation plans?”

Alex rushes to Ginger’s side. “This is my friend.” He wraps his arm around her shoulders and he pulls until her right arm is wedged against his side. “Known her all my life…” Ginger groans and she frowns. “…but will she tell me what she’s up to?”

Sergeant Moore’s brows rise. “Why, so you can add more candid photos of her to your page online?”

The rookie smiles. “What?”

“You need to delete that one of me in the bathing suit.” Ginger swings her hips, bumping Alex to the side.

He releases her. “Owe. Not until you get rid of the one with me licking the sausage!”

Ginger giggles.

Moore turns to Alex. “Why were you licking it?”

“Grease was dripping!”

Laughter fills the parking lot.

Ginger marches toward her car. “You cops are all crazy… I’m going to go spend time with normal people… With intellectuals!”

“Have a great time…” is repeated in turn.

She opens the door. “See ya in two weeks. Stay safe.”

***

Meanwhile… Just outside of Miami, a white Jeep turns into the driveway of a trailer park. Traveling over dirt and gravel, Irma passes a palm tree that is bent at its base and its brown palms hover a trash bin that is over-flowing with diapers and beer cans. At the site manager’s dilapidated, wooden shack, she turns left then stomps the brake pedal, stopping the Jeep a foot from the bumper of a police unit. Three patrol cars line the driveway.

Beside the car that Irma almost struck, an officer shines a light in her eyes. “Park and wait on the street. Out, out of here, now.”

***

For the third time since she moved in, Irma put the Jeep in reverse and she sped away to a well-lit convenience store down the road. She sits behind the wheel snarling at her phone. The agent who helped her find a house that is completely wheelchair accessible, and located in a quiet neighborhood in Miami, sent her a message to remind her that other people are interested in renting that house, and if she doesn’t deliver the full sixty-two-hundred to her by four in the afternoon on August thirtieth, as promised, Irma will lose the thirty-one-hundred she put down as a deposit last Wednesday. “A friendly reminder?”

A ding sounds from the phone. Irma clicks on a message from her sister, Marguerite. “As you can see, our babies are getting along real well. Call me tomorrow. Love ya.” She opens the attachment and smiles at a photo of Mutters, a black and white, mix-breed of unknown terriers who she and Don adopted last summer. The picture shows Mutters licking ice cream off her three-year-old nephew’s cheek.

She turns and frowns at the plastic bags on the back seat. In spite of the air conditioning running full-blast, her vegetables are aging and the ice cream is melting. A ding sounds from the phone. She faces forward and raises the device. Her eyes widen and she smiles. “Oh my goodness…”

Don sent a picture of a cheeseburger with the words, YOU GONNA EAT ME flashing off and on, on two sesame seed buns.

With a tear rolling down her cheek, Irma replies, “You remember your password!”