CHAPTER 3After mercilessly slaughtering an allegedly helpless stuffed dinosaur until it is nothing but a few shreds of green and purple fabric, a frenzied mess of stuffing, a tangle of wires, and a smashed sound box, I feel much better and I’m able to get a few more hours of sleep.After I’ve woken up, showered, and gotten dressed, I make my way—as Zeke had known I would—to visit my mother, relying on L.A.’s crappy public transportation system since I am currently Porsche-less. Whenever I do make one of these pre-assignment visits, I always feel guilty, because I feel like the prison guards should know me better than they do. If I were a better daughter, the guards and I would all be on a first name basis and they would wave at me all friendly-like whenever I came to visit, not even bothering to check my identification since they see me so frequently.As it stands, however, they are practically strangers to me. I recognize some of their faces—the ones who have been around forever a
CHAPTER 4After leaving my mother, I head to THEM headquarters, located in Chatsworth. The general public is led to believe this is a porn distribution warehouse. The majority of headquarters is actually underground, as they keep the warehouse above stocked with porn, just in case the L.A.P.D. decides to surprise us with one of their periodic raids to determine whether we’re doing any filming on top of the distributing. Gotta love the San Fernando Valley.After I enter the building through the front entrance, using my employee I.D. badge to unlock the door, I pass by the rent-a-cop guard on duty at the front desk—ignoring him since he no doubt thinks I’m a porn star as the rent-a-cop’s are kept in the dark about what the building is really used for—and continue into the back warehouse. At the very rear of the warehouse is a shelf filled with DVD’s. I remove one titled The Horny Games—a porn-parody of a popular young adult book and film franchise in which Pussniss Everbone is forced b
CHAPTER 5I get the call at 5:00 the next morning (that’s two mornings in a row . . . Zeke is so going to pay for this) when my airport transport has arrived. I drag myself out of bed, change into one of my new outfits I had picked out of the suitcase the night before, grab my two suitcases, and leave the house to find a black limo with tinted windows waiting. The driver—an expressionless man in a black suit and sunglasses—opens the door for me and I slide into the back seat.I’m so out of it, I don’t even notice her until she says, in an annoyingly squeaky and perky voice, “Hi, ‘Jennifer!’”I just about jump out of my seat. Sitting next to me, is a tiny little thing—so tiny she could pass for an Oompa Loompa if her skin were orange. Short, blond, well-endowed in the chest area, and I get the very strong impression that she is infernally perky. If she’s this perky at 5:15, I’d hate to see her at any other time of the day. She appears to be in her late thirties to early forties, but
CHAPTER 6We get to Duluth in the early afternoon. After the first hour of our flight, Bethany finally figured out that she was not going to get anywhere with me. Unfortunately, she had someone sitting next to her who actually was willing to participate in her inane babbling, so I still had to listen to her for the remainder of the flight.As we enter the baggage claim area of the Duluth airport, we find our driver, waiting and holding a sign that reads: Donner/Martin. The driver helps us get our luggage from the carousel, and then leads us out to the car—another conspicuously inconspicuous black, window-tinted limo. Since the driver is almost definitely not a THEM employee, and just a hired escort, we do not talk business while he is within hearing range. Unfortunately, Bethany of course finds everything else imaginable to talk about.As we ride through Duluth, I realize I have no idea what our living situation is going to be like. Since I’ve never trained someone before, this is e
CHAPTER 7“Hiya, girlfriend!” Bethany says in her incessantly chirpy voice as I open the door to let her in.“Hello, Bethany,” I sigh, resigned to my fate.“Look, I think we’re going to have to get something out of the way before we go any further,” she says, about as seriously as anything she’s said since I met her this morning, which catches me somewhat off guard.“All right. Shoot.”“I know you’re not exactly thrilled about having to work with someone else on this project,” she begins, beating right through the bush instead of around it, “and I sense you’re not too thrilled about the fact that I’m the one you’ll be working with, either.”So she’s not as stupid as I thought. Doesn’t make her any less annoying.“But, for the sake of the assignment, I think it will be best if we put any feelings of animosity aside and pretend to be friendly. We will have to be working together over the next six months—both as teachers and on our assignment—and we can’t afford to let any personal
CHAPTER 8As promised, Bethany picks me up at six thirty. Being the third day in a row that I’ve had to get up at an unholy hour, coupled with a slight hangover and regret over how far I let Bethany in last night, I am back to my normal, surly self. When it comes time to perform for the job, I will play the part, but when it’s just the two of us, there’s no need to act.Apparently Bethany senses my reticence, for she is noticeably less chatty than usual—well, for her at least. She still talks most of the way to the school, but she actually takes a few pauses for an occasional breath in between streams of verbal diarrhea.Our first day is pretty much just teacher orientation, since classes won’t actually start until next week. The orientation meeting takes place in the school cafeteria. The principal, Mr. Charles Davison, stands up and makes a speech, introducing Bethany and me as the temporary English teacher and new student teacher. There’s also another newcomer to the faculty, a M
CHAPTER 9After spending a weekend holed up in my girl cave, being sullen and reclusive, and watching old David Brennan episodes of Mister What—my British sci-fi guilty pleasure—come Monday morning I’m able and ready to become Jennifer Donner again. It’s nice to actually have a weekend to myself when on assignment. There have been times where I couldn’t take off at all, and those are always some of the hardest jobs.Bethany picks me up at six thirty. As usual, she spends the whole drive talking. Turns out she went on a date with Tim Collins, the P.E. teacher I’d seen her flirting with at orientation. In addition to being more than reasonably attractive, Bethany says he’s also really sweet. As you know, sweet guys bore me, but I’m sure that kinda guy is right up Bethany’s alley. They went out for drinks at a local bar. She let him kiss her goodnight, but nothing more.“Gotta make him work for it, after all,” she explains with a giggle.I don’t bother to point out if he really is as
CHAPTER 10The last period of the day is a free period for Bethany and me, dedicated to correcting class work, revising the syllabus, and preparing assignments for the rest of the week.As we head out to leave at the end of the day, we pass Principal Davison in the hall. He briefly makes eye contact, and then quickly averts his gaze and nervously shuffles off to his office. I roll my eyes and shake my head. Oh well, I’ve had to work with worse.When we get back to my apartment, we order pizza, and then begin to discuss our observations of the day. Aside from Bethany being slightly more tolerant of the Plastics than of the Goths, for the most part our observations line up. There’s actually little that Bethany missed for me to point out, which is relieving. It means I won’t actually have to spend the next six months holding her hand the entire way, which I had been worried about.“So, what’s our next step?” Bethany asks, swallowing a mouthful of bacon and cheddar pizza.“Next, we ob