The Agency does shit like that. They're all ambitious, trying to climb the ladder, and a Chinese spy would be a good catch. The question, of course, w...as how Grimes got onto her and the guy, though she tried to gloss over that. I figured that was what she was trying to hide from me, and decided to come back to it later. My hunch was she was worried about her own service. So I thought we were both in the same boat, kind of outcasts, trusting no one. I thought she relaxed after a while, and. You said that of the two the most important to you is Mrs. Barker. So far you’ve acted as though the other one is far more important to you. Ask yourself what you need to do to be Mrs. Barker, and then put the same effort into that as you have to the other one. But just occasionally stop and ask yourself what this will do to other people before you do something towards it.”“David,” she began, her voice small, “I don’t know how well I can change, but I know that not only do I have to, but I want. "Yes," he said softly.I wasn't gonna make him say it louder, I just took it, and moved on."How did things start?" I pondered.I already knew it started before we broke up, but I was more than curious about the dirty little details."It actually started before we even met, Rita. It started in my last year of high school, when I was eighteen. I was planning my college classes, and my aunt, Colleen, wanted to help. She went to college for a couple years, so she had some experience there," he. Lucky him, I thought, that those kids weren't his after all. The bus pulled into traffic, and the brats quieted down immediately when the driver barked at them to shut up. Seated across from me, in one of the seats that face the aisle rather than forward or backward, the male passenger was chuckling at how effective the driver was in muting the kids up front. In response, I made some joking remark about how the driver ought to sell tapes of his growling voice to mothers who were unable.