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Or not

"This is it? These are supposed to be the answer to , you stupid bitch?"

Elizabeth wasn’t quite as lovely or the ee, herthe table hard enough to kill a spider--the bird-eating, plate-sized South American kind

"Bethy"--that’s what they’d called her before she’d married money, when she lived down in the trailer park where her mother worked two jobs and her father was in the wind--"if you call ain, I’ll solve your problem in an entirely different way One that will involve prison and police, because I know all about you Why, I had to know all there is to know to get you what you wanted, didn’t I? But while I said I ments, sweetie, I never once said I tolerated disrespect"

Her er still boiled under her skin I could al for a way, any way, out Her eyes flickered to the full chane bottle on the table, and for a second I could see her picturing how nicely it would splatter my brains on my favorite silk shirt I wasn’t surprised by that That’s who Bethy was Who she’d always been She’d told me what she wanted--a rich man to marry ould conveniently die with or without her help, made no difference on that score to her I said happy to deliver and named my price Her price Semantics

What she hadn’t told me was her path to that want and desire It was paved with the very sa Bethy Rose, the girl who’d polished up her accent, sanded away the trailer park fro a shallow person would want to own and pay to own it Shallow or not, every one of those four men had been kind to her, as kind as they had it in them to be They’d done their best to make her happy Not everyone’s best is equal in all ways, but if you give your all, even if you have less to give than the more saintly, you still tried It still counts That made Bethy the ht, men

I sold information all the time I kno to do my research

I’d found Bethy’s pattern and I found out the root of her probleh First a rich man and then a millionaire and then a multimillionaire, but, oh, times were hard and rown accustomed to maids and pool boys and drivers and country clubs and Learjets Bethy spent it all and had to find herself a new husband Trouble was, best effort expended or not, the men she wanted were as shallow as I’d said and Bethy wasn’t twenty-two anymore Or thirty-two Or forty-two Billionaires are a special breed, and an old horny billionaire is going to want a young thing with tits done by Dr Double D and the only lines on her skin the ones shown by her Brazilian wax Bethy couldn’t compete with that, not anymore

She asked me for a man ould see her as beautiful (which she was), to not be so shallow about the age yet stupid enough to be obsessed with her within a week and marry her within a month It would be nice if he had a heart condition and died promptly on his own One honeymoon had taken care of that for her before, but if that was too much to ask, she’d handle it She’d handled it three other tiht her out

Save for me

"So, little Bethy Rose frolass of the chane, "keep your trash talk to yourself and let’s celebrate I found you the perfect man, who matches all your qualifications save a minor one He would love you instantly in all your ways and"--I laid the newly fashioned boots across her lap--"he has a highly documented fetish for woood con still needs a hook, and these boots are yours"

Her anger dissipated, leaving her as pink and flushed and dewy as her middle naht After all, this was a woman who loved her thousand-dollar black-and-white snakeskin shoes and these boots--they made those shoes look like Kmart ninety-nine-cent flip-flops The scales lay so flat you could barely see the that had ever been separate from one another except for the color Every color that existed was there It wasn’t the bright explosion I’d dug up in another country No, noas a subtle watercolor wash that shi on the waves of the sea to drown a sailor would’ve been ic and i it safe

I filledand sos in despair "Satisfied, Elizabeth?"

She kept her hands on the boots, grasping pincers, and gave o--that love-me-because-I-make-it-so set to keep the boots, yes?"

I s of a job well done "Bethy, I kneas never getting those back froain"

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