Country Hoppin'!

The title sounds like a line dance, but it's what I've been up to for the last couple months. Let's see if I can get everyone caught up.

After Geoffrey's death, I took my boss's suggestion and spent a couple weeks in New York with my college roommate Becky (or Becca as she is now known to all her snooty New York friends and colleagues). Since Becky was usually busy with her job as a fashion writer, I spent most of my time alone doing touristy things, like going to museums and shopping. The one outing Becky and I did do together was when she took me along to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.  Fashion was never my thing, but I'm always open to seeing parts of the universe I'm not normally familiar with. To make sure I looked my best, Becky first took me to Bergdorf-Goodman for a quick makeover, then we headed uptown to Lincoln Center. Nothing really exciting happened, except that I met a fairly disagreeable woman there by the name of Vastiana Boatswain. Becky informed me that she was some sort of self-made businesswoman from Seattle. She certainly seemed like a self-made bitch.

Anyway, none of this would have been of any consequence except that, once I got back to work, I discovered that her bodyguard is in our database as a person of interest. I brought this to the attention of my boss, The Colonel, and he thought that maybe I should pursue the lead. This was fine with me since I was going pretty batty hanging around with my mom. No offense to my mother, but I needed a distraction from my thoughts of Geoffrey. At one point, I thought I could exorcise the pain by writing a story about our little adventure in Ocean City, MD last summer, but the writing only enhanced my pain and I abandoned it. Hopefully, I'll be able to share that story, but not right now.

So with a new assignment, I was shipped off to Seattle with a new identity. This time I am Carla Verdugo, a temp working for Ms. Boatswain's labyrinthine corporate empire. The agency got me set up in a nice, little rented house near Holly Park and, when I'm not  grabbing lunch at the Pike Place Market or shopping around Westlake Park, I've been a happy little office drone. Actually, I've managed to befriend Ms. Boatswain's assistant, Hector, so I can get closer to Ms. Boatswain and her imposing bodyguard. It took me several weeks, but I've managed to finagle a plum assignment.

So now I'm dashing this post off before I have to get on Ms. Boatswain's private jet for a business trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Along with the woman herself, I'll be traveling with Hector and the bodyguard. My job is to function as a purchaser of Native American art, but I'm sure this is just a cover for something much bigger. I just need to find out what it is. Wish me luck!