Cocogurl I don't think that counts as a confrontation. It was a gentle warning to Liz not to get too comfortable because it's not over yet.
keepsmiling7 Very serious.
begonia9508 Fiancee? You're way ahead of me.
It's not as if they're random eyewitnesses, they were all involved in some way and all affected by what happened.They live in a little city and they must have not a lot to distract themselves!...
Earth2Mama Yeah, I think Liz deserves so much credit for staying and facing everybody. I don't think that I could do it.
behrstars So glad you enjoyed it.
RhondaAnn I didn't think that Isabel was either vindictive or ranty. She could have humiliated Liz in public or completely frozen her out but instead she chose to wait until they were in private and had a quiet word.
Roswellian117 Beached Whale? Saucer of milk for Roswellian117!
AlysLuv There's a part coming up shortly where I think you'll get a clearer idea of where Isabel is coming from and why she said what she did.
Tequathisy I think Liz will be ecstatic that's all Isabel said to her. She was expecting way worse and would have been prepared to take it too because she knows she deserves it.
Rowedog Well said and spot on. There's a part of me that would love to write a similar fic where it's Tess who pulls the stunt Liz did to see if people would be as forgiving.
If only I didn't have three other fics to finish first. sarammlover I don't want anybody to hate Liz, at least not anymore, I want you to like her.
Drogyn I’m glad that you like Isabel. She's actually a really great person. The problem is that a) I decided to only do a POV for the big four so we don't get to see what Isabel is thinking and b) most of what we hear about her is coming from the guys but what they say about her should really be taken with a pinch of salt. It's exaggerated and teasing mostly and it's not a true reflection of her character.
trulov I’m afraid that you'll have to tolerate Olivia for a while longer. I’m trying really hard to make her likeable, I think she has to be for Max to fall for her. To be honest, he wouldn't give a shit about seeing Liz with other guys. Max might have unresolved feelings about Liz/Lucy but none of them are love.
alien614 thanks for reading.
Eva Thank you. There's more Michael and Maria in this part so I think you'll like it.
kay_b I think your reaction is exactly what I’m going for – seeing Isabel's point of view but still feeling sorry for Liz.
roswell4life Max and Liz will talk, but it's a while off yet.
alien_friend It's important to remember that Isabel and Michael go way back, she's not just Max's sister but Michael's friend too and that's why she was so affected by what Liz did.
[b[Sundae[/b] Actually, initially it was Maria who dragged Liz along to stalk Michael and Max. I had a bit in a chapter where they talked about how they fell in love with the guys but I deleted it, I might use it again in a later part. But anyway, it was Maria who fell for Michael first and she decided it would be cool if Liz married Max so they could all be friends and that's how Liz's crush on Max came about, but then of course, Liz took it to extremes.
and thanks to Michelle in LA for betaing.
Crush twenty-one
Maria
I've been practicing yoga since shortly after getting the brush-off from my dad. I wasn't in a great place and I needed some way of being able to de-stress and sort out my emotions, and I'd already worked out that alcohol and sex weren't the ways to go. See Mom, I do listen to you.
I try to do a little everyday and on days when I'm feeling particularly stressed or worked up about something, I do a full session. Today, I need a full session.
I take my mat outside. The heat hits me like a furnace. It's mid morning and already it's sweltering. I kneel down, and begin breathing. Normally I can clear my head right away, but today I can't stop mulling things over as I go through my exercises.
It's been a week since I did the interview at the high school and Principal McClure promised he'd let me know today, one way or the other. While I'm really not expecting to get that job, I'm still pretty nervous about it. I've been kind of sticking my head in the sand so far as the whole job, career and future planning thing goes and I know I'm going to have to get my ass in gear soon and do something about it.
The problem is that making the decisions I need to has recently become a whole lot more complicated. My whole life I was pretty sure that I wanted out of Roswell and that was the plan over the last five years of college too. Then I came back to Roswell for the summer and suddenly things changed. In a few weeks I'm going to have a little brother and I can't wait for that. I don't want to miss out on watching him grow up and be part of his life. I already know what it's like to miss out on being part of my siblings' lives. It's been gnawing away at me ever since I found out that I have two half-sisters. I can't change the way things are with my sisters but I can change the way things are with my brother. I don't want to be a stranger to him. I want to be a big sister. I want to be part of the family. Since Jim and Mom married, we've all gotten along pretty well but we've never had that sense of belonging to each other. I guess the fact that both Kyle and I are adults and don't live at home is a big part of that. But Mom's pregnancy has changed things. It's united us. Being part of a family has always been my biggest dream. If I don't live in Roswell, then I miss out on that. It means that I'll be the outsider to my own family.
So that leaves me with a huge decision: Do I stay in Roswell and try to get a job locally, even if it's not something in my chosen profession? Or, do I leave to try my luck elsewhere? And if so, where do I go? Just the thought of having to move to a new city, find a new place to live, make new friends, build a whole new life – the whole thing terrifies me. I like the life I have here now. I miss my Mom so much when I'm away and I enjoy living with Jim now that the initial awkwardness has passed. Ok, working at the Crashdown isn't in my long term plan but it's not so bad. Plus I have friends here.
Like Michael. I think Michael is a friend. Lately though, I feel that things are changing. My feelings for him are changing. It's not that I’m slipping back into the old ways of my teenage crush. What I feel now is not the same. We've become friends over the last few years, real friends. I can tell him the things that I would be telling Liz if we hadn't fallen out. Liz and I haven't got back to that stage of our friendship yet and although I have made amazing new friends at college, I've never been as close to them as I was to Liz or I am to Michael. Now those friendship feelings are morphing into something stronger and deeper. And the physical attraction is different too. I used to just think that he was gorgeous and I wanted to hold his hands and comb my fingers through his hair. Now, I want to throw him down and jump his bones. I try not to feel these things, and pretend that I don't feel this way. I've done everything I can to not feel this way. But the attraction persists and it grows. If it was one-sided like it was before, then I could probably talk myself out of it, but lately I've begun to wonder if maybe it's mutual. Sometimes he looks at me a certain way and I think that he might feel like I do. If he does and something were to happen, then I can't see me being able to walk away from that. But then again, it could all be in my imagination and he doesn't like me and I'm setting myself up for humiliation and heartache.
And then, there's the whole Liz thing. I’m overjoyed that she's back and I’m delighted that we're friends again and I really do feel that we could get back to where we were before. But at the end of the summer she's going to leave Roswell again. Can our friendship take that separation while it's still in it's early stages of recovery? I really am so afraid that she's going to leave again and it's going to be another six years until I see her again. I want to believe that she's not going to go off and abandon me again, but once-bitten, and all that. She seems like she's her old self most of the time, but on Sunday, after the barbeque, she seemed a little closed off and she's been a little bit distant with me since. It's not that she's avoiding me or hasn't been talking to me, it's just that I feel like there's a barrier between us that wasn't there before.
Somehow the routine of stretching and breathing takes over and I manage to shut my thoughts off and focus on what I’m doing. I get so into it that I have no idea how long Michael has been sitting on the step watching me. I only become aware of him as I start my cooling down exercises but he looks like he's been there for a while.
His mere presence is enough to undo all the good work I've just done and instead of feeling calm and relaxed I am once again nervous and flustered. All I can think about is that I look a mess right now. I'd postponed my shower until after I did my yoga so I’m sweaty and gross and my hair is a mess. I’m wearing a sports top which squashes down my breasts. With a good bra, I can call myself a b-cup. In this top, I have two raisins on my chest. At least my shorts are baggy and might cover up the fact that I have no butt.
I stand up and brush myself off. “Don't you have anything better to do, like catch bad guys?”
Michael shakes his head. “I'm not working until twelve today, and I was bored.”
“You should get a dog,” I suggest.
“That's not a bad idea,” Michael muses. “I always wanted one but we couldn't have one because we lived over the Crashdown.”
“We used to have dogs when I was younger but our last one died when I was twelve and Mom didn't want to get another one because she felt we weren't home enough to take care of one.” I sigh longingly and look at the spot where we used to keep the dog house. It's a flower bed now. “Dogs are cool.”
“Yeah,” Michael agrees. “I'll think about it. In the mean time, I'll come by here and catch the daily show.”
I roll my eyes. “You know, I've heard that Mrs. Charles sunbathes topless. Why don't you ever go and perv on her?”
“There's no decent vantage points at her place,” Michael shrugs. “Besides, I’m not perving. I’m returning a plate and I didn't want to disturb you.” He holds up a plate that my mom had sent him home with on Sunday as proof.
I come closer and reach for the plate. His eyes rake over my body and I can't decide if I want him to stop or to continue. He appears to like what he sees but I find that hard to believe. Michael's girlfriends have all been of the voluptuous, curvaceous type with actual butts and breasts. In contrast, I have the body of a teenage boy.
Feeling pretty self-conscious, I sit down beside him. I reach for the CD player to turn it off, but I pause with my hand on the power button and grin at Michael. Time to turn the tables a little. I flick the switch to radio instead. It's Jim's CD player and he always has it on a country station, and sure enough there's a cowboy whining about his wife leaving him.
Michael grimaces. “Turn it off,” he pleads.
“I thought you liked this type of music,” I say with my best wide-eyed innocent look. “You seemed to really enjoy dancing to it on Sunday.”
“I don't dance,” Michael says quickly.
“You're right. That wasn't dancing. It looked like there was somebody poking you with a cattle prod.”
Michael narrows his eyes at me. “It was those damn margaritas of yours.”
I laugh, can't really deny that. “I'm surprised that Kyle and Max haven't uploaded videos onto YouTube yet.”
“They won't,” Michael says with certainty. “Kyle, Max and I have an agreement based on Mutual Assured Destruction.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I have dirt on them too, and if any videos of me dancing appear in the public domain, I will destroy them.”
“It's hard to believe that you have anything on them that's more embarrassing than the sight of you dancing,” I tease. “You were really bad.”
Michael's eyes glitter in amusement. “Trust me, I have good stuff on them, way more embarrassing than anything I did on Sunday.”
“I don't know - Have you seen you dancing?” Then a thought strikes me. “So you've been sitting on something really embarrassing about them all this time and have never done anything about it? Why is that? Do they have something else on you?”
Michael says nothing but his silence tells me everything.
I cackle with laughter. “Oh my God, what do they have on you?”
“I'm not going to tell you,” Michael says with a shake of his head. He's trying to act cool about it but the red blush staining his cheeks gives him away. Whatever they have on him must be really embarrassing.
I pick up my phone and dangle it in front of him. “Lucky for me, I have no such agreement with you and I’m free to upload the incriminating evidence wherever I like.”
Quick as lightening, Michael snatches the phone from my hand and begins to search through it. I make a lunge across his lap for the phone but he just grabs me and keeps me pinned to his side. I make a feeble attempt at breaking free but my heart's not in it. I quiet like being in this position. It feels so nice being pressed up against him like this, having his arm around me. He smells really great.
I’m so screwed.
“Ha,” Michael crows triumphantly as he presses delete. When he's happy the video is gone from my phone, he tosses it onto my lap. He relaxes his hold on me, but he keeps his arm around me and I feel him playing with my ponytail.
“You do realize that Kyle sent me that video and that he can send it again, right?” I ask.
He groans.
“And I wasn't really going to upload it before, but now that you've interfered with my phone I’m going to have to.”
He leans closer to me so that our faces are almost touching. “What am I going to have to do to persuade you not to?”
It really wouldn't take much to persuade me to whatever he wanted right now. I have zero defenses when it comes to Michael. His eyes drop down to my lips. I think. Maybe I’m imagining it. Being this close to him is scrambling my brain. Somehow, I manage to engage my brain and I push him away so that I can stand up and escape his gravitational pull. “Chocolate is a good start,” I laugh, somehow sounding light and breezy. It's the years of practice I guess.
I pick up the plate he brought over, and my yoga stuff. “Well, I have to go and get ready for work. Catch you later.”
“Sure, I'll see you around.”
“Ok,” I smile and hurry inside before I do something stupid like throw my arms around him and beg him to be my boyfriend.
***
Michael“You have thirty days to pay the fine,” I rip the ticket from my book and pass it in through the open window. The douche-bag inside the car rips it from my hand. “Have a nice day.”
He mutters something under his breath and drives off, slowly. I smirk as I walk back to the police cruiser. Best part of my job is giving tickets to douche-bags.
Jim is laughing as I slide into the seat beside him. “You held him up for seventeen minutes, that's got to be a new record.”
“Nah, Hanson held a guy for twenty-two minutes once and all he had was a broken tail light.” I reach for my bottle of water and take a gulp. “It's really hot out today.”
Jim's phone rings, he checks the caller ID and answers it. “Hello sweetheart.”
I start the engine and pull the cruiser out into traffic, trying not to listen to Jim's conversation. He's making comforting sounds into the phone. After a few minutes he hangs up and sighs deeply.
“Is everything ok?” I ask.
“That was Amy. Maria didn't get the job at the high school.”
“Oh.” Shit.
“Yeah,” Jim blows out a sigh. “Amy is devastated. She was really hoping that Maria would get the job and stay in Roswell. I don't know what she's going to do without her.”
“So Maria's going to leave?” I ask. For some reason, I can barely get the words out of my mouth.
Jim shrugs. “She'd never planned to stay long term. It was only every supposed to be for the summer to help with the baby. Amy seems to think that she'll move to New Zealand now and we'll never see her again.”
I try to come up with some kind of lame joke or something but I’m coming up blank.
“Pull up here,” Jim instructs, pointing towards a flower shop.
I pull into an empty spot across the street and he jumps out. “I'll just be a minute.”
“Sure, take your time,” I nod numbly.
As I wait for Jim to come back, I try to analyze my reaction. The thought of Maria leaving Roswell fills me with dread, a lot more than I would have expected. I guess it's natural; Maria's become a close friend, we've been spending a lot of time together recently and I'd miss hanging out with her. I'd really miss her.
So I physically shake myself, as if that will somehow shake off the disappointment I’m feeling. It's not very effective.
Jim comes back a few minutes later carrying two bunches of flowers. “Can't hurt,” he shrugs.
I start the car and we make our way back to the station to do paperwork and finish out the shift. Forty minutes later, we're back in on the road, in my truck this time, and we're heading home. I swing by Howard Street first to drop Jim off. Amy is watering the flowers in front of the house when I pull up, she waves and walks over to the truck to greet Jim.
“Hi, Michael,” she smiles at me. “If you're hungry, you're welcome to stay for dinner.”
“If he's hungry?” Jim laughs.
I ignore Jim. “That would be great Amy. Thanks.”
“It'll be another half hour, if you'd like to go home and change first,” she suggests.
“Cool.” I wave goodbye and drive home. I take a quick, cool shower to wash the sweat and grime off and pull on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I spend a minute gelling my hair and then head back to the Casa Deluca-Valenti.
To my surprise, it's Liz who answers the door when I knock. She's holding a handful of cutlery.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Liz rolls her eyes. “Nice to see you too, Michael.”
“Sorry. Hi, Liz. What are you doing here?”
“Hanging out with Maria and mooching dinner, like you.”
“I'm not mooching,” I grumble as I follow her inside. She ducks into the dining room and I step into the living room to say hi to Jim and Amy. The flowers are sitting in a vase on the coffee table. Jim has his arm around Amy and it looks like she's trying not cry.
Shit. I really hope she doesn't cry in front of me. I hate that.
“Hi Amy. It smells great.”
She gives me a half-hearted smile. “Thanks, but I can't take credit. Maria's cooking tonight.” She sniffs then and tears form in her eyes.
“I'll go say hi to Maria,” I say and back out of the room quickly before the tears start falling.
“Need any help?” I ask Maria as I enter the kitchen.
She looks up, surprised at my offer and smiles. “No thanks, we've got it under control.”
We? I glance at Liz who's taking glasses from the dresser. “You didn't let Liz help with the cooking, did you?”
“Hey,” Liz objects. “I can cook. I’ve been looking after myself in Boston for five years now, what do you think I live on?”
“Take out?” I smirk. “Liz, you'd burn water.”
She huffs in an exaggerated fashion but doesn't deny the accusation. She probably can cook a little but I don't want to find out. Last time I ate something she cooked I ended up with... well, it was unpleasant.
“What's for dinner anyway?” I ask as I remember that Maria's a vegetarian. If it's mung beans, I’m going home and ordering pizza.
“Spinach cannelloni,” Maria answers.
There's a moment of silence as I stare at her in horror, then both girls burst out laughing. I sigh in relief. “Ok, what's really for dinner?”
“It's really spinach cannelloni,” Maria giggles. “But the look on your face was priceless. Are you still going to stay?”
She smiles at me again and I relent. I can always order pizza later if I don't like it. “Sure. I'll try anything once.”
Liz shakes her head and goes back into the dining room. I pull out a seat at the kitchen table and watch Maria as she putters around the kitchen. She's wearing a flimsy looking sundress that hits about mid-thigh. It shows a lot of legs and a lot of skin, and it's pretty obvious she's not wearing a bra with it. I try not to stare too much. The thing is, I’ve seen Isabel wear the exact same thing. Except Isabel wore hers with a pair of jeans which means that Maria's wearing a shirt as a dress. Even though it's longer on Maria than it was on Isabel and it covers everything it's supposed to, I find the whole thing very erotic.
It really accentuates her tight little body. I'm not normally into 'tight, little bodies'. I like girls with meat on their bones – Isabel, Anna, that girl with the hair, they all had butts, breasts and hips. Maria is a lot smaller in that respect but I like the way she is. There's something about the delicateness of her features that I like. I mean, why else do I show up at her house when I know she's outside in the garden doing yoga?
Movement at the corner of my eye catches my attention, and I turn my head to look at Liz. She's standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me through narrowed eyes. I look away quickly. “Sorry to hear you didn't get the job,” I say to Maria.
“Thanks,” she says with a small smile. She doesn't seem to upset about it which bothers me a little. “I wasn't expecting to get it, anyway.”
“Have you any ideas what you're going to do next?”
“Well, I’m not packing up and leaving tomorrow or anything,” she says with an eye roll in the direction of the living room. “Other than that, I have no real plans yet.”
“You know where's nice?” Liz asks. “Boston.”
Maria shrugs. “Maybe.”
“It's an amazing city, lovely people, great shopping, close to New York,” Liz lists. “I could email my friends there and see if anybody knows if there's any jobs available?”
“Sure, that would be great,” Maria smiles.
I inexplicably want to smack Liz.
“Dinner's ready. Can you tell Mom and Jim?” Maria asks.
“Sure.” I call Jim and Amy and we take our seats around the dining room table.
Liz and Maria carry out the plates. I can't help but notice that while everybody else has gotten perfect cannelloni on their plates, I’ve been served two misshapen lumps.
Maria catches my look and laughs. “Liz made those two and we figured on the off chance that they are poisonous that you're the most expendable.”
“Gee, thanks.” I mutter. I wait until Maria is distracted and then I swap our plates. She glares at me when she notices but doesn't say anything.
Surprisingly, the spinach cannelloni tastes amazing. Maria can cook. I like that. Anna's idea of cooking was cooking a frozen pizza. That was one of the reasons that I broke up with her. I’m not a sexist who thinks that women belong in the kitchen or anything but I like home cooked-meals. I can cook and I enjoy it even, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy being cooked for, too. Anna couldn't cook and never saw the point in even trying. There's a lot of truth in the adage about the path to a man's heart going through his stomach, at least with me anyway.
Dinner conversation is slightly awkward. Amy is clearly upset and everybody else is trying to cheer her up and nobody mentions the reason why Amy is so upset. Surprisingly, the person who seems most upbeat is Maria.
The meal is delicious and that's not normally something I'd say about vegetarian food. I think I’ve had three helpings.
“What's for dessert?” I joke as Maria clears away the plates after dinner.
“Well, Liz and I are going to the movies so we'll be having popcorn.”
I follow her into the kitchen carrying the dirty glasses. “What are you going to see?”
“Inception. Wanna come with us?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I help Maria with the washing up while Liz chats to Amy and Jim and then we leave for the movies. I end up offering to drive.
“So, are you actually going to come in with us are are you meeting some hoochie in the parking lot?” Liz asks cheekily as we stand in line.
“What?” I brazen but I can feel my face redden. I used to take the girls to the movies when they were younger. I'd buy their tickets, load them up with popcorn and junk and then when they were watching the movie, I'd call up whatever girl I was seeing and we'd spend an hour or so in the back of my dad's car. Then I'd take the girls home and collect my brownie points from my parents. Apart from a couple of times when I bought the girls a little too much junk food and had to clean up vomit it was a pretty sweet deal.
The girls giggle.
“How did you know about that?”
“One time we found a condom in the back seat and we asked Mom what it was,” Maria laughs, then she shakes her head. “You were such a ho in high school!”
I wince at the thought of Amy knowing what I was doing. Actually, the thought of Maria knowing what I was doing is just as embarrassing. They girls laugh at my humiliation. “Just for that, I’m not buying you popcorn,” I say petulantly.
They just laugh harder.
Then Maria leans in close and pouts, “Aw, Michael, please can we have some popcorn.” I don't think she realizes that I can see down her dress and I can confirm that she is indeed bra-less. Forget popcorn, right about now, I'd buy her a car.
I swallow. “Jeez, fine. I'll buy you popcorn.”
Maria smiles at me and pulls away, thankfully oblivious to the affect she's had on me. Liz gives me a strange look though.
The movie is pretty cool and everybody there seems to enjoy it, but I have a hard time concentrating. Maria is sitting right beside me and I just can't seem to stop being aware of her. Consequently, I have no idea what the hell is actually happening on screen.
After it's over, and we've stopped off for ice-cream we drop off Liz and then I turn the truck for home. And now I’m alone with Maria and I suddenly feel nervous.
“Are you ok?” she asks. “You've been quiet all night.”
“I'm fine, a little tired. Hard to get a word in edgeways with you two.”
“Ah. I thought maybe you were having a reaction to eating a vegetarian meal,” Maria says.
“I'm sure that meat withdrawals are part of it.”
Maria laughs. “Hey, can I ask you a huge favor?”
“Sure.”
“You did some work with the Young Offenders Intervention unit in Ruidoso, right?”
“Yeah,” I confirm. The unit was set up a few years ago to work with kids who had been convicted of a first offense to prevent them from falling into a life of crime. Jim wants to get one going in Roswell, so I got to go to Ruidoso and see how they did things there.
“Well, I was hoping to pick your brains about it.”
“No problem. Any particular reason why?”
Maria bites her lip. “Yeah, but you can't tell anybody.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Ok,” She turns in her seat to face me and her face is lit up with excitement. “Well, Principal McClure told me that he had to give the job in the school to somebody with more experience but that he'd been really impressed with me in the interview. Anyway, he knows the woman who runs the unit in Ruidoso.”
“Karen McDonald,” I supply.
“Yeah. She's launching a pilot scheme that's going to specifically target teenage girls and she asked him if he knew anybody suitable for the job.”
We've reached her house, so I park the truck in front of her house and turn to face her. I smile hopefully. “And he recommended you?”
Maria bounces in her seat. “Yes. So Karen called me this afternoon and we talked for like forty minutes. She wants me to go down there next week for a meeting with her.”
“A meeting, not an interview?”
“I don't know,” Maria shrugs. “I kind of think the phone conversation was the interview. By the end of it she was talking about what we'd be doing and what decisions we'd have to make. Maybe she was talking about her and her organization but it sounded like she meant her and me... What do you think?”
“Her organization is pretty much just her, so if she's talking 'we', then she probably means you and her. Karen doesn't mess around, she gets right down to business and doesn't waste time. I don't think she'd interview you twice.”
Maria breaks into a smile and bounces again before sobering up. “No,” she says sternly. “I'm not getting my hopes up until it's a done deal. And I’m not telling my mother either. I don't want to upset her again if I don't get the job.”
“Like I said, my lips are sealed.”
Her eyes drop down to my lips for a second and she swallows before looking away. “So, uh, anyway, since you worked with her, I was hoping you wouldn't mind telling me what you know about it.”
“Of course.”
She looks back at me and smiles gratefully. “Cool. So maybe I could come over to your place sometime this week and we could talk about it.”
I nod in agreement. “Whenever you like.”
“Ok, great, thanks. Well, I should go in.”
“Ok.
“Ok.”
Not for the first time today I have the urgent compulsion to pull her to me and kiss her but even as I move towards her, Maria climbs out of the truck. “Good night, Michael.”
“Good night, Maria.”
She smiles again and closes the door of the truck. I wait until she's gone inside the house before I drive home.
I pull into my driveway and and switch off the engine. Instead of getting out and going inside, I lean my head against the head rest and close my eyes, trying to calm down. I’ve just had a major realization.
A more self-aware person would probably have figured this out a while ago. I mean, all the signs were there but I’m only having the epiphany now – I have a huge crush on Maria Deluca.
***
and as for all the other problems, there's still a lot of healing to be done. Hopefully I can get us there without dragging it out for a million years like I'm doing with Gold Diggers. Did you know I started posting GD in July of 1950?