had access to a working time machine, and were able to make ourselves magically materialize somewhere in New York's in the 1930s, do you honestly believe we would be overhearing real live humans talking in this manner?"
"Oh, surely not. This is apparently how people thought gentiles spoke in those days."
Rita's cell phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Rita, it's Betty. I'm over at Trish's."
"Hey, how's it going? Is everything okay?"
"Is Phoebe in the room with you?"
"Yeah." Rita was now sensing something slightly foreboding in Betty's voice.
"Listen, we need to talk to you for a couple of minutes alone." her apprehensive tone was enough to convince Rita to not ask any further questions.
"Phoebe, I've got to go talk in the other room for a couple of minutes."
"Take your time," Phoebe reassured. "There's still quite a few of these things I haven't taken a look at yet."
Rita went out into the hall and closed the door behind her. "What's this all about."
"Trish and I were looking for information on the home video industry, and tried out a search engine that gave us a lot of porno pop-ups."
Rita found this somewhat amusing. "Well that's kind of understandable, considering the subject matter. You know you can easily prevent stuff like that by adjusting the security settings at the..."
"That's not what we're calling about." Betty cut her off. "Rita, this is going to sound too crazy to believe, but one of these pop-ups features a picture of a woman on her knees in a leather thong, with her face turned towards the camera, and...and..."
"And what?" Rita was now getting annoyed at Betty's cryptic delivery.
"...And we are 99% positive that the woman in this pop-up is Phoebe's mother."
Rita paused for a moment, absorbing what the voice on the phone had just told her. "Is it a recent photo?"
"Definitely not," Betty replied. "As a matter of fact, she looks about twenty years younger and a few pounds lighter. It would appear to us that the woman had a whole other life before Phoebe was born. And a pretty sorted one at that."
Rita remained composed. "Have you tried clicking on it?"
"No, Trish won't do that. She's paranoid about computer viruses."
"Understandable." Rita thought for a moment. "I've got an idea. Tell Trish to just run the cursor over the ad and write down the URL it leads to. It should be in the lower left part of the screen. Then E-Mail the link to me."
"Hold on" The muffled sound of Betty talking to Trish could be heard over the receiver. "She did it."
"Good. Does the phone you're talking on have a loud speaker thing?"
"Uh....yup."
"Turn it on, I want to talk to both of you at the same time."
Betty did so.
"Listen you guys," Rita whispered. "For all we know, Phoebe might not know anything about this, and it's probably not our place to enlighten her. At least not until we know a little more about what's going on."
"Well," Trish interjected. "You might want to start by checking out her mom's website. I have a feeling she's selling a lot more than just 'instructional videos'."
"Yeah," added Betty. She and Trish were now both giggling. "It would appear that back in the day, this woman had a little more than her fair share of 'alpha males'."
Rita rolled her eyes. "Do you think that pop-up leads to her website?"
"The pop-up leads to someplace called XXX DVD Outlet." Trish responded. "We'll leave it to you to figure out whether or not that's the place."
"Alright. I've got to get back to our assignment. I'll keep you guys posted."
"Bye." The two spoke in unison.
Rita re-entered the room to find her friend viewing a scene from High Sierra.
"Man, this Bogart character is really a one trick pony," Phoebe observed. "In every film he's in he plays the same guy."
"You'll find that to be true of most of the big stars of that era. They really didn't have actors that disappeared into their roles in those days. Back then, people were mainly paying to watch familiar faces inject their own personalities into different situations. Clark Gable was always Clark Gable, and Rock Hudson was always Rock Hudson."
"That is really weird when you think about it," observed Phoebe. "Yeah, hey Phoebe, can I ask you something?" Rita prepared to change the subject.
"Uh huh." Phoebe continued to look at the screen as she spoke.
"Have you ever checked out your mom's website?"
"She showed it to me once," Phoebe didn't seem at all unnerved by the question. "I don't recall it being much to look at. Just a typical small business site."
"Have you ever checked it out on your own?"
"No. To tell you the truth, I’ve forgotten what the URL is. I guess it just doesn't interest me."
Rita decided that now was not the time to press the matter any further. Phoebe could be covering up for her mother, or she might genuinely be innocent. For that matter, the picture in the pop-up that Betty and Trish saw, might very well be just some woman who happens to look like a younger version of her mom
10:09 pm
Rita’s mother gave Phoebe a lift home. As soon as the two of them left the house, Rita immediately went to her E-Mail, and clicked on the link that Trish had sent her. She heard the front door open. Phoebe only lived a few blocks away, so it only took a few minutes to drive there and back.
"Hey mom!" She called from her room.
"Yes?" Her mother entered the room.
"Take a look at this."
Her mother put on her glasses. "Alright, if I might ask an obvious question, why would you be interested in exploring a website that sells adult paraphernalia?"
"Because I have good reason to believe that Phoebe's mother owns and runs this website. Phoebe claims that she sells 'instructional videos' of some sort, and I've got a sneaking suspicion that that's a euphemism for something else."
"Well," her mother sighed. "Rita, most people would consider this to be a demonstration of poor parenting skills, but I'm just going to assume that you won't be too traumatized by whatever pops up." She reached for the mouse and clicked.
Rita instinctively recoiled at what was now being displayed on the monitor, but her mother had an entirely different and unexpected reaction. She started to laugh.
"Ewww, that's not funny! That's my friend's mom!" Rita was now also having a little trouble not laughing.
"Oh my," giggled her mom, as she enlarged a few pictures of the DVDs. "I believe that these are mostly old films from the 1980s. It would appear that your friend's mother has had a bit of a foggy past, and is still capitalizing on it."
"I wonder if Phoebe is genuinely innocent and really believes that her mother is selling some sort of 'instructional' videos."
"I've got news. There are some people who actually would consider these things to be...'instructional.' At any rate, if you want my advice, I think it's best not to say anything to Phoebe. When you come right down to it, her business is really none of ours." Rita's mother started to laugh again. "I'm just wondering what I should call her mother, should I run into her at the P.T.A. meeting in a couple of weeks...Mrs. Shan or Mata Hari."
"Mom, don't even joke about that." Rita was surprised to discover that she was a lot more squeamish about these sorts of things than her mother. "The problem is that my friends Betty and Trish already knew about this."
"Look here Rita, while this is not exactly something to be proud of, as far as I can see, the woman is doing nothing illegal. She's an adult, running a business that caters to adults. I'm the one who might be doing something illegal by allowing you to view this."
"Believe me, this is not something
I ever want to see again." Rita grabbed the mouse, hit the X in the upper right-hand corner, and the website disappeared. "There is something else about Phoebe's mom I think you should know, however."
"What's that?"
"She gives Phoebe a lot of weird advice."
"Such as?"
"She's one of these people who thinks that the quality of a human being, directly correlates with how wealthy they are. I don't think she would allow Phoebe to hang around with any boy who's parents don't make as much money as she does."
"Well, it could be that she's scared of Phoebe winding up leading the life that she's led. She's divorced, right?"
"Yes."
"My guess is that her ex-husband was probably a complete bum, and she's worried that her daughter is going to make the same mistake." She paused. "Look, the fact is, it's not our business to tell other people how to raise their kids."
Rita reached for the phone. "Well, I've got to give Trish and Betty a call and have a talk."
"You do that." Rita's mom got up to leave. "Don't stay up too late. It is a school night, you know."
June 18th
Ian knew he would be spending all day looking over his shoulder. All during third period, Becker was glaring at him, occasionally running his index finger across his neck, indicating that something bad was going to happen at some point soon. When the bell rang, Ian bolted for his locker. He wanted to get there while the hall was still bustling with kids. He grabbed his lunch, and also the textbooks for his next two classes. This way, he wouldn't have to make any return trips to the locker, even if it meant stretching his backpack to its limit. He’s a bit relieved