." she said with a slight amount of embarrassment.I knew why though, she had no money for fare. "I've got my car here...canI give you a lift home?"She... looked down at her feet and began to cry. We were standing near thesidewalk entirely alone. "You're having a rough go of it...aren't you?"She struggled to wipe a tear without sitting the baby down in the snow; Ireached into my pocket and removed my clean kerchief, handing it to her.She nodded her response, her face distorted in mid cry."Do you. I cocked my head and gave her my best 'et tu?' look as I closed my locker and the bell rang."So what do you think?"Tami and I were headed for journalism. Normally we had it second period, but with the short three-day week, the journalism staff needed to get a jump if we were going to have a paper on Friday.Tami stopped on the stairs, cocked her head, and looked at the ceiling for several seconds. "Eighty-seven." Darn. I was hoping for ninety by the start of school."Tami grinned and shrugged. "I. The bum chuckled, slapping his thigh."See?" she moaned. "It's not me."The driver picked up a phone attached to the computer built into his dashboard. "524, police, 9th and Main, woman performing a lewd act. Police, 9th and Main." He paused, listening. "Yeah, she's got her ... um ... breasts out, and may be ... eh ... stimulating herself." Another pause. "White female, late twenties, red hair, um, five-nine." Pause. "Received, thank you." He turned around. "Cops on the way; I'd skedaddle if I. Mel was the kind of person you couldn’t say ‘no’ to without feeling guilty about having made her sad. It was a quality she had passed on to Hannah, except that Hannah had weaponized that shit. Hannah already somehow managed to make you feel guilty if you didn’t enthusiastically say ‘yes!’ to all of her suggestions right away.Still, being so mature with full 29 years under my belt and having been subjected to my cousin’s (and aunt’s) psychological warfare for decades already, I had stood my.