NOW ON SALE Rick leaned against his elbow watching her. His collar was opened and his cuffs were rolled up. He stood looking at her long legs propped on the desk. "You're not working; you're looking at the snow." "Snow is interesting." "You can look at snow at home." "Not this snow. The snow at home is Eggertsville snow. I wanted to see Buffalo snow." "It's different in the adjacent suburbs?" "Yep. So what are you doing here? What's so important that tore you away from home and family on Christmas Eve day?" "My wife wasn't home. I was baby-sitting..." "What do you mean 'baby-sitting'? You can't baby-sit your own child. You take care of your own child, you don't baby-sit your own child." "That so?" Rick said coming over to the desk leaning on it with both hands. He had wanted her since he first saw her; and all she ever did was fuss about her ridiculous marriage. Now here she was alone in a dark building in the middle of a snowstorm. "Yeah. And all this time you thought you were babysitting." Chlo raised her eyebrow as if to chide him. "You probably even put it on your resume." Rick moved around the desk and sat beside her foot. Here she was in her expensive looking pant suit. Not worrying about her husband whom Sandy had seen and said was seedy looking. Light shone off the smoothness of his leather belt and Chlo realized that it was getting dark. She remembered how she used to be intimidated by him. That seemed remarkable now. "So, where's your husband?" "My soon to be ex-husband is in Puerto Largo." "And you're up here in the snow? How's a southerner like you going to manage? Down in Maryland 'You All' probably think the snow will go away if you just stand there and stare at it." "Down in Maryland it does go away if we just stand there and stare at it." "Going to be kind of tough here then, isn't it? Here, even if you swear at it, it doesn't go away. But then you probably couldn't swear if your life depended on it." "That's not true, Shithead." Rick laughed a hearty laugh from the diaphragm. "Well I always like to see people expand their vocabulary." "That's why you went into teaching?" "Could be. Or it could be that I went into teaching to meet young women like you. A young woman with the light from streetlights glistening off her golden hair." Rick leaned forward locking her gaze on his, leaned forward ...- CharactersIChlo Adams Riveras - twenty-something protagonist, was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and grew up on a farm across from where Maryland Avenue tees into Frederick Pike. The farm no longer exists, and that rise was flattened for commercial space in the '70s. Was a young instructor at Goodspeede College in Pennsylvania, moving to Buffalo NY.Juan Riveras - recently married to Chlo ten years older than she; from the US controlled island of Puerto Largo off the coast of Venezuela. Moving to the Puerto Largon department in the University in Buffalo.Jason Jensen - an older student at Goodspeede, now in graduate school in Buffalo; baby Annie. Emily Jensen - Jason's wife, graduated from Goodspeede; baby Annie.Ruth Adams Werner - Chlo's older sister, Gertrude and Darcy's oldest child.Jim Werner - contractor; Ruth's husbandTracy, Sean, Tammy - Ruth and Jim's children, Tracy now at Smith College, Sean going to Yale, Tammy in high school.Gertrude Owens Adams - Chlo's mother; she announced when she became engaged that she was going to have six sons. She had four sons bookmarked by daughters Ruth and Chlo.Darcy Adams - orphaned at the age of 3. Chlo and Ruth's father.Gustav and Matilda Owens - owned the Wisconsin farm that became Ruth and Jim's. They escaped from Austria as World War II was breaking out and gladly abandoned family lands and century-old heirlooms to avoid being forced to join the Nazis.IIWinklemans - Werner's neighbors with home on Lake Nagawicka.Daniel - Chlo's brother, next oldest to her; her childhood companion.
