Halfway across the Queensboro Jenny warned, "I don't know if she's going have any information about Scott... but I figure you ought to be with me in case she does... so unless she brings it up, maybe you shouldn't say anything..."

Sheriff Misener didn't say anything more substantial than a grunt of acknowledgment as we crept through the mid-morning traffic. We passed the wall of buildings lining Central Park South and turned down Seventh listening to radio calls about the stabbing death of some hapless Puerto Rican in Hell's Kitchen before he found the spot 'reserved' for him across from the China Fair restaurant on Fiftieth.

After thanking the patrolman who'd blocked off the space for him, Sheriff Misener flipped down the sun visor so his PBA tag would show in the window and we all got out of the car to head over to the Time & Life Building.

"So... what exactly are you folks in town for anyway?" The patrolman had given us a couple once overs while he asked that. At least now he could say he's seen everything.

"Oh we're going to catch a movie," Jenny replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "Just a little one-reeler. But thanks for saving us a spot..."

Sheriff Misener mumbled something in the patrolman's ear. We could make out a 'No kidding?' from the patrolman who shook his head and continued on his rounds with reports of that stabbing bleating from his handie talkie.

We were met in the lobby by a fresh-faced but rather dull looking junior aide who extended a hand to Sheriff Misener and greeted, "Uhhm... Mister J Platt I presume..."

"You presumed wrong son... I'm just the chauffeur," Sheriff Misener replied as he withdrew his 'shaking' hand and pointed over to Jenny.

The aide just shrugged if off and continued with his task of leading us upstairs.

"A movie huh? Don't suppose it's the one from that guy who makes those 'Jennifer Junior' clothes?"

Back in the Fifties we'd given her a few outfits we'd picked up on one of our shopping trips back home as a late birthday present. We failed to take into account a half year of Jenny growing up so she ended up modifying the outfits so that we could wear 'em. Weren't we surprised to read about the company founder all these years later.

"Yeah... that one. Well, from what she was telling me, something didn't look right to her and she wanted my opinion on it... I dunno... Dad's the one with that sort of expertise..."

"Y'know we were in Dallas that weekend..." We'd been 'sitting' on that for quite a while and now seemed as good a time as any for it. "We'd come down to bail out one of our ranch hands... Seems he picked the one girlie bar in town all the cops went to for his Friday night at the fights..."

"Gee... You two didn't see the shooting did you?" That got Mister Blasé's attention.

"No... We were at the train station and saw everyone goin' out to this little park to watch a parade or something... but we didn't know what was going on at the so we got a cab to go look for the police station... Cabbie told us the president was in town and that we'd have a good chance to see him from City Hall which was right next door to where we needed to be. Got there just in time to see them make the turn down the main drag..."

In fact we got a pretty good look at Miss Kennedy - almost sure she did a double take when she saw us. We continued with our story.

"Well they were short-handed on account of the motorcade so his paperwork hadn't gone through the system yet... and because they were gonna let anybody out of jail with the president going through town. So we went to lunch and when we got back, it was a Chinese fire drill on account of them looking for the stupid hump that had gone and shot the president... and then that cop - there was two people killed that day..."

"Your buddy sure picked a good day to get arrested... Did he got to meet Oswald?"

"Not sure about him, but we sure did... his court case was right behind Oswald's... you've never seen such a circus gather around one little dinkus... They set bail for him but since it was already the Sabbath, he was stuck there till Sunday when we could wire home for the bail...

"Yeah... we're Jewish... Now... this is where it gets 'weird'... We get our money and head for the station a little after quarter to eleven, stopping to bug some little wiener dog somebody left in their car... we get to the desk to pay up and we gotta wait another hour on account of Oswald had to go and get himself shot right on national television - the show off... Cop at the desk finally tells us it looks like the club owner won't be pressing charges anymore... but we hadda wait till monday to finally get the case thrown out. And that's our brush with 'big history'..."

We look at him hoping for some sort of payoff but he was looking at Jenny.

"Hey, didn't you used to be with Lady Desdemona and the Aquanetters?"

If she lives to be a hundred, she'll never live down the year and a half she was a singer.

"Actually," Jenny corrected. "it's just the Aquanetters... 'Lady Desdemona' filled in while their lead singer was having one of her kids..."

"Oh... Whatever... I really liked your Freedomland show. So... how do you know the First Lady?"

"Her dad and one of my grandfathers were in the same sort of business... but I've never seen her socially... but then I'm not exactly what you'd call a socialite..."

"Ya don't say... I remember reading how she had a run in with one them 'socialites' in the john up in the Rainbow Room..."

"You know you shouldn't always believe what you read in the papers..."

We were finally on the executive floor and to our surprise the door opened to reveal N'eddie standing there, arms akimbo in her 'j'accuse' stance as if she'd known we were coming.

"Jennifer..."

"Naomi..."

"I get a call asking for a character reference... you're not trying to jump ship on me?"

"I'm on a consulting assignment for the company... really can't say much more..."

"Oh really... So whaddya got the Sheriff up here for?"

To emphasize his flimsy ruse, Sheriff Misener fumbled around his pockets as if looking for his checkbook. Anticipating that we'd be next on the witness stand, we went with the story that we were here to catch the Carson show run-through.

"It's just that I know how passive aggressive you can get sometimes... Don't wantcha going off on a sulk if it's something I can do somethin' about."

"You'd hafta really screw up before I'd even think about doing that to you. Anyways... It's not like I don't do some stuff just to see if you can find out about it."

"So what are you doing up here?"

"I'm not really a liberty to say right now because one, I don't have the job yet and two, I'm not all too sure what I'm supposed to be doing here but I'll try to see if I can get a story for you..."

"You want I should get outta here?"

"I think that's gonna hafta be up to them... but I'd really like you to be around in case I need you to enforce one of those 'exclusivity' clauses..."

That was her way of setting up a face-saving 'out' in case she didn't want the job.

"Not that being on assignment for Panorama wouldn't make for a useful cover story," Jenny added hopefully.

Jenny checked in with the receptionist who gave us a rather skeptical looking over and after a phone call to her supervisor, we were ushered into a dimly lit and windowless conference room. We took our seats at the table as a movie projector was set in front of us and a screen pulled down from the ceiling with the hushed reverence of a religious ceremony. A pad and pencils were laid before Jenny as was a manila folder holding what looked to be eight by ten photographs. Even though it looked like there'd be time to kill before the main show, Jenny resisted the impulse to flip through them, opting instead to draw some forms from her briefcase to leaf through.

As The Film was brought in and threaded with the clattering sound of the projectionist jewelry, Jenny couldn't resist one last morbid aside, "N'eddie... something tells me you should've brought a couple lawyers with you..."

"I'm just wondering how fast I could run with a projector under my arm..."

Any thoughts of making a break for the door were dashed by the arrival of Miss Kennedy. This is where we had to do some fast thinking on our part. Being a gentleman, Sheriff Misener rose to greet her and we knew Jenny was going to want to stand up too even with that tender leg of hers. We also knew that she hated like blazes to be seen ill or injured so we made like our back was bothering us and asked if she could hold 'our' walking stick so that we could stand up. Naturally, this had desired result of Miss Kennedy telling us not to get up on her account.

Seeing that Miss Kennedy had arrived alone Jenny quipped, "Gee, if I'd known you were coming stag, I wouldn'tve brought an entourage with me... unless you got G-men hiding inside that filing cabinet over there... or behind that ficus..."

"Oh no... I left them at home to watch the children. I actually didn't want them here with me today..."

"Well when you said something about watching a film, I figured I'd need a few experts..."

Jenny introduced us as her 'photography experts' and Sheriff Misener as her 'ballistics expert'. As for the presence of N'eddie...

"I should disclose that I've been working for Panorama Publications over the summer so if this is something you don't want published maybe we'd better deal with that right now..."

After giving us a puzzled look as if trying to figure out where she'd seen us before, Miss Kennedy more or less brushed off Jenny's concerns to get down to business.

"I just want you to look at this and give me your opinion... Something about this just doesn't look right..."

Miss Kennedy pulled her chair next to Jenny and nodded to the projectionist who then started the movie explaining there were three prints of the assassination footage on the reel and that the first run would be in 'real time' and the next two after that would be in slow motion. As the countdown leader flickered on the screen he gave explanatory notes on the camera speed which was eighteen and three-tenths frames per second and other particulars that we might need to know.

The car passed behind a street sign and emerged in front of someone standing under an umbrella next to another person sticking his arm out in greeting. Mister Kennedy had his arms up to his sides like someone had dumped a bucket of water over his head. The man sitting in front of him looked back to see what was wrong as Mister Kennedy turns toward his wife. A couple seconds go by and the car is nearly out of frame when the death blow strikes him in the face like an invisible prizefighter.

"Geeze... right in front of her face... even the Mob won't do that," Jenny uttered, momentarily forgetting that she was referring to someone sitting right behind her.

Sheriff Misener grunted something we couldn't make out as he raised a hand to his face. N'eddie, usually good for a snarky comment, could only stare at Miss Kennedy as if amazed she was willing to watch that for what was presumably the second time.

The film ended with Miss Kennedy clambering onto the trunk of the car as if to grab for something - at least that's what it looked like to us - while a Secret Service man leaped onboard. Recalling how Jenny would focus on a material object in the midst of the violence of her artwork, we watched the flags mounted on the hood of the car flutter in the wind as they disappeared from view.

Before the slow-motion sequences could start, Miss Kennedy asked the projectionist to stop the machine and bring up the lights. After a few moments of silence, Jenny offered an opinion.

"I think... I see what you were talking about over the phone... and I think you're wrong... or at least you're looking at it wrong... I'd have to look at it a couple more times to be sure... You sure you want to go on with this?"

Miss Kennedy was but N'eddie wasn't. She left the room with the excuse of needing to confer with her 'legal department' - which was her uncle Murray. The lights went down and the movie resumed in slow motion and with frame numbers counting off in the upper left corner. Passing the two twenty mark, Jenny ordered the projectionist to stop and go back.

Pointing to the man sitting right in front of Mister Kennedy, she declared, "Right there... I think that's one of the bullets... do you have prints of these frames?"

There was a whole folder of them right in front of her.

"See how he's turning in towards you... wish we were watching this on a Moviola... There! See how he's thrown sideways..."

"But wouldn't that mean a shot from the front?"

"Not necessarily," Sheriff Misener opined. "Depends on the resonance wave... that's what does the most damage... looks to me like high and from behind..."

On the second pass of the slow-motion reel Jenny noted, "Must've got him fairly close to the side... looks like maybe a water hammer... or wake turbulence under the skull... I remember my dad telling me about this ore boat that was so close to the draft limit that they were pulling boulders from the bottom of the Saint Lawrence... big glacial ones... and they were jammed right into the hull... I'm sorry... I tend to get carried away. don't I?"

Physics class was like going to a nudie bar for Jenny. It really was. Miss Kennedy brushed off Jenny's apology as unnecessary while we sorted through the stack of photographs.

Flipping between the ones marked 'Frame 223' and 'Frame 224' we announced with rather inordinate glee. "Hey Jen... you were right about that bullet! You can see his jacket puff out... almost covers up his tie!"

That raised enough of a murmur to bring N'eddie back into the room. Feeling lucky, we pulled out the pictures of frames three-twelve and three-thirteen and passed them to her. Jenny probably had her 'answer' after maybe a couple looks between them, but when she gets it that soon she tends to take a lot more time to be sure. Since the cameraman had panned slightly ahead of the car in between frames Jenny held the pictures up to the light to try and line the frames up.

Satisfied with that, she drew a draftsman's compass from her purse to compare two points between the frame. Having done her figuring, she put the pictures down on the table one on top of the other so that you could see the car in both frames.

"You can see these lines here between the back of Mister Kennedy's head and the edge of the back seat... There's your elbow... and I think that's the curb... It's a little longer here... which looks to me like a shot from behind... It's a little hard to make out... but his head seems to have rotated downwards a little too... Of course I could be wrong... I'd really need to see this on a Moviola to be sure..."

The Moviola merely confirmed her paper observations, but Jenny wasn't done yet.

"Yeah... we got a couple reels from UPI... You don't see much... You want I should see if we still have 'em?"

"No... it'd be easier to check over at NBC... unless you guys have copies of 'em. Thinking maybe I could cross-reference between... I really ought to get some pictures of the crime scene. I hate to admit this... but I'm almost completely ignorant about everything that went on. I was out at sea most of that time..."

"That's OK Jennifer," Miss Kennedy assured her. "Most of that weekend is a blur to me... and I was right in the middle of it."

"Oh... I've had weekends like that. Maybe sometimes it's better to let 'em stay a blur..."

Of course we didn't let that weekend stay a blur as the better part of the day was spent pouring over images of assassination as well as of the general site. Jenny noted that her granddad did consulting work on the Dealey Plaza reconstruction project for the Public Works Administration back in the 'Thirties and that he probably still had blueprints on file. By mid afternoon they got to the point where a cursory reenactment was laid out so Jenny could work out possible trajectory angles. Miss Kennedy supplied a toy car, a seafoam-green late-model Chevy Impala convertible, from her purse that had been confiscated from 'John-John' after he'd whipped it at a playmate in a fit of pique. From that Jenny was able to work out that Mister Kennedy had 'crossed the T' of both Oswald and 'Manny X' - her working name for the theoretical shooter from the front.

The two UPI films were rounded up and run through the Moviola with no sign of Manny X. Still, Jenny concluded, a field expedition might be in order so see if a second shooter could even be seen. At any rate it would help to have her own set of measurements. She offered us the assignment of getting hold of cameras and film similar to what had been used that day and asked Sheriff Misener if he could help in getting the cooperation of law enforcement officials in the area. As she filled out a J Platt and Company work order, she made notes to inquire on the minimum order needed to get a few skull models made out of Perspex.

Ultimately the subject of paying for all of this and more importantly who would be the final owner of this work came up. In theory, Jenny was willing carry the costs herself as soon as she could take control of her inheritance and if she couldn't, we could. The ownership problem was a bit trickier. Life Magazine owned the 'crown jewels' in the Zapruder footage and even as a personal favor to Miss Kennedy, was reluctant to license its use for even the peer review article Jenny would need for a proper dissertation.

Eventually a compromise was hashed out in that Jenny as an agent of the J. Platt and Company would 'officially' be engaged as an outside consultant to Panorama Magazine. A private report on J. Platt and Company letterhead would go to Miss Kennedy and a Jenny would would author or supply research for a separate article for Panorama. A 'gentleman's agreement' was made that Panorama would hold publication of any article using Jenny's data till Life Magazine's article on the Warren Commission report came out. In return Panorama would be allowed to publish any pictures off the Zapruder film the commission entered into the public record as an exhibit in their report.

By way of a parting gift, Miss Kennedy was given a 'permanent loan' of that copy of the Zapruder film we'd seen, ostensibly for the JFK Library. In reality it and that little green car would spend the indeterminate future hiding in plain sight inside the White Metal Cabinet in a box marked 'Jennifer's Junior Prom'. Such was Jenny's sense of integrity that she didn't want even the risk that someone in the office might find the thing and leak it to the press.

It was parting gifts all 'round as our idea about profiling the Platt family as the modern equivalent to that turn of the century family featured by Life Magazine last November was given a tentative green light by N'eddie with a speculative run date around October - after the current serial finishes its run and if she can get reprint rights to the original article for a lead-in. Not a problem on Life Magazine's end but as a matter of courtesy, they wanted to get in contact with the Mister Lartigue to get his blessing on the reuse of his photographs and it was getting fairly late in France.

It was getting fairly late here. By Jenny's reckoning, the first run-through at the Tonight show would be in a hour or so if Miss Kennedy would be interested in watching from up in the control room. It wasn't often that Jenny wanted to show off for someone and for Miss Kennedy she sweetened the offer by noting that she had a 'fireman's key' for the one of elevators in the RCA building which meant we'd have a private cab to ourselves.

We didn't have that luxury in this building so we were obliged to ride down to the lobby with the first wave of exiting cubicle farmers. As if wanting to keep Miss Kennedy from having to deal with the peasantry, she went into a spiel about a minor incident from her time in California.

"I get this call from a screenwriter who wanted to know everything I knew about elevators... He was working on a scenario in which a spy gets into an elevator and when the door opens in the lobby, he's nowhere to be found...."
Miss Kennedy nodded politely as another secretary squeezed by her into to join her office mates.

"He wanted to have it so that there was an identical cab underneath the real one that the spy would get into... Well I told him right off that you couldn't do that on account of that's not how elevators are built. You see, there's a cable underneath to equalize the weight of the cable on top and both cables connect to a counterweight behind the cab..."

"Couldn't they just detach the underside cable and reattach it to their cab?"

"If they did that with all the weight on the counterweight's side - you see the counterweight equals the weight of the cab and half it's rated capacity so the motor doesn't hafta do so much - the cab would shoot right through the roof... Of course I was figuring that the cab would be empty at the time and the safety brakes only worked if the cab was falling downwards. Never did check up on that... Just so he wouldn't be too disappointed I did mention that there are a few old buildings in this city with hydraulic elevators that you could put a fake cab on top..."

A couple of older ladies that looked too well dressed to be common office workers squished in with us. Something told us we ought to keep an eye on them. Maybe on account of they looked like those small town biddies you see in the movies. You know, the gossipy ones that give small towns a bad name.

"My grandfather Philip, you might remember him... Well he has an office in the Trinity building downtown and they have those. They hadda drill holes three hundred into the ground to install the lift mechanism... That's kinda why they don't make 'em like that anymore."

When our elevator passed its last service floor that before dropping down to the lobby, one of those two old ladies cleared her throat in a showy sort of way before starting with her well-rehearsed spiel.

"It's just a real shame the kind of people they entrust with our hard earned tax dollars, that's all I'm saying..."

"...I used to love riding in them when I was a little kid... like riding onea those car lifts at the gas station... real smooth..."

As Jenny soldiered on with her story, the old lady's partner straight-manned, "Oh... but I just can't believe a man like Arthur Van De Lay would have even a hint of scandal..."

"Oh dearie, those 'do-gooders' are the worst kind, let me tell you... half his staff gets laid off on account of business being slow but he's got money to give his little chippie a do-nothing job..."
A man's voice chimed in, "Your tax dollars at work, huh?"

From the way the lady looked around to see who said that we could dope out that he wasn't part of the act. She quickly gained her composure and improvised her way back into her script.

"...and at play young man! He set her up with a 'love nest' in Murray Hill! But that's not the worst of it either..."

"Hey Jenn," Sheriff Misener muttered, "Think that fireman's key would work on this elevator? Think I'd like to have a little..."

"John... stand down,"Jenny quietly commanded. "We're just forward observers today... let's not blow our cover, huh?"

"After six months of 'Van De Laying around' he checks his little birdie checks into cushy little private clinic to um... 'lose a few pounds'... and I do believe you know what I mean..."

"Oh come on," we protested. "Even we know you gotta go to Finland for that sort of thing..."

OK, so you have to go to Sweden for that sort of thing. Those Scandinavian countries sorta blend together anyway.

"It's just an overnight flight from Idlewild dear... yeek!"

Her voice cut off with a gasp when she got a look at us. It's a common reaction but being the trouper she was, she soldiered on and fired another broadside at Mister Van De Lay.

"As I was saying... as bad as all that is... the real topper is... that he has the audacity to check into the same clinic where she's 'taking the cure'... A case of 'nervous exhaustion'... Well, she checks out the very same day and I don't blame her after what that brute has done to her..."

Miss Kennedy looked like she was about to say something but we finally got to the lobby and everyone was making the rush for home. Everyone but our two gossip queens.

"Watch and learn," Jenny instructed as she drew our party aside to let everyone pass. "One of them is going to take out a list of dismissal times..."

Sure enough, one of them drew a folded sheet from her purse as they stepped out of the cab.

"Now... they're gonna look for a pay phone to check in... they'll hafta make a collect call..."

When the ladies turned into one of the booths, Jenny overshot them to look like she was just passing by and doubled back once they dialed for the operator. As the other end got on the line Jenny snatched up the receiver before they could do anything about it.

"Traci! Hey.... What's going on? You still payin' thirty pieces of silver a week? Yeah... they're sitting right here... Uhm.... Well... they're a little wooden on the prepared material but they sure can hold their own on the Q and A... Listen... the reason why I wanted to talk to you... Excuse me..."

Hissing "Knock it off will ya? I'm on the phone!", Jenny swatted back attempts by the two ladies to get back the receiver and continued. People sure can be rude can't they?

"Anyway... what's with all this stuff you them saying about Arthur Van De Lay? Yeah... I am working for N'eddie this summer... You know I won't say anything if it's 'off the record' but... I figured I ought to give you a heads up... that maybe you're not gonna want to send your people into Thirty Rock... Yeah... Well kinda on account that my mom works there and from the way they've been saying it, I'm that girl you've got him humping from Hell to breakfast... Hello?"

That sure rated a gasp from those ladies - bigger than the one seeing us rated we might add. At least they stopped trying to grab for the phone.

"Not that I care one way or another... and not that I think you care one way or another... but the whole story's a load of pig crap... First of all I was working on a study grant so it was not like I was taking anyone's job away... Earthquake study... His building's right next to the Lincoln Tunnel truck entrance so you get a constant supply..."

"The 'Love Nest'? Well, he thought I was from California so he had it all set up without checking with me first... I already had a place to stay on the Island... Never even set foot in it... His partner's kid is living in it now..."

"No... I'd just had a leg injury... It was pretty bad... I just got sick of being in a hospital and wanted to go home. No... At least not that I know of..."

"Well from what I can figure... it all started when he got sick off some Raritan Bay oysters... "

That was Jenny's little joke on one of the most polluted waters in New York Harbor.

Jenny spent another few minutes getting Traci's end of the story before handing the phone back to the old ladies. As they were being dismissed from their job Jenny drew a couple fives from her purse and two dimes and a two nickels in change. After a few seconds mewling over not wanting Jenny's money, they took their day's pay and subway ride home and melted into the crowd.

"The thing people do in this city," Jenny pondered. "Looks like Miss'es Van De Lay is trying to bail out on the poor fellow... but doesn't want to look like she's leaving him on account of his health... The things people do in this city... Do we want to go straight to the studio or do we want to get something to eat first?"

La Fonda Del Sol was right there in the lobby but that was quickly nixed when Jenny saw N'eddie walking in on the arm of the Time Life executive we'd been dealing with - Jenny and N'eddie has an unspoken rule about not eating in the same place when one of them is on a date. The short list of places on the next block over were China Fair, Howard Johnson's, the York, Sagers and Davey Jones on the other side of the block. Nobody was in the mood for Chinese and considering what happened to Mister Van De Lay, seafood was out. Nobody in our party ever ate at the York and from Sheriff Misener's experience, Sagers was nice enough but we wouldn't be out of there in time.

Miss Kennedy was game enough for HoJo's, though to tell the truth, we weren't - some people we just don't want to see eating a hamburger and Miss Kennedy was one of them. Luckily for us, by the time we walked the half block to get there it was packed so Jenny suggested we might as well get something at Thirty Rock. Sheriff Misener suggested the Rainbow Room. Jenny inquired whether he really wanted to eat at a place with five dollar hamburgers. He reached behind his back and slapped his wallet to indicate he could afford a god-damned five dollar hamburger if he wanted one.

Knowing full well he was still hurting financially from his wife's medical expenses, Jenny replied, "Man... I got into a lot of trouble the last time I was there... why don't we just go to the NBC commissary? I think Monday is Salisbury steak night..."

Like salmon trying to swim upstream, we pressed our way through the exiting crowd. Luckily we didn't have to swim too far as Jenny had led us into the elevator lobby that served the seventeen story skyscraper grafted into the Sixth Avenue side of the R.C.A. building.
With all the traffic heading out, Jenny was able to secure an empty cab for the ride up, giving Miss Kennedy the 'honor' of turning the fireman's key. As Jenny explained, the fireman's switch tells the elevator car to ignore stop requests and operate only on commands from inside the cab. That was so fireman can use the elevators without having to worry about the doors opening on a burning floor.

"In some of the newer buildings where the buttons activate from the heat of your finger touching a pad," she noted with the macabre glee of someone determined to get the most use of a half-semester course in elevator technology, "a fire could easily fool an elevator into stopping at a burning floor."

Having arrived safe and as far as we could tell, unimmolated at the commissary floor, Jenny gave the door a cursory pat down for heat - just to make sure. More or less satisfied, she let everybody out, pocketed her key and sent the elevator on its merry way.

If Miss Kennedy had any concerns that she might be the center of attention, they were cruely dashed on the rocks as all the old-timers greeted Jenny like anyone else in the NBC 'family' that had returned from a prolonged illness. A few of the really old-timers remembered us from the time we used to come up with Jenny during the high school years. One of the security guards recognized Sheriff Misener from the troop transport they'd flown on during the Korean War. Miss Kennedy took her tray and joined the chow line in blissful anonymity.

For the record it wasn't Salisbury steak night - they bump days up one with each passing holiday and Jenny had forgotten about July. Tonight's special was chicken with biscuits and gravy and everybody was game for it. However, Jenny insisted we get the kosher plate because, 'You know and I know the first thing you two are gonna do when we get home is call your mom to say you just had dinner with the First Lady, and you know and I know the first thing she'll ask is if it was a kosher meal'. So we grabbed a plate for 'meat' and a plate for 'dairy' and had essentially the same meal as everyone else.

"Not that I'm telling any tales out of school," Jenny ruminated to no-one in particular as she filled her tray. "But if anyone's to be called out for 'sleeping on the job'... it's N'eddie... Chocolate pudding please? I mean... she's not flagrant about it... but if a buyer from out of town invites her up to his hotel room for drinks, she'll go up with him... She's not afraid of sex... and it gives her an edge on the competition... or so she says. Chocolate milk... two of them. House detective at the McAlpin did think she was hooking this one time... Ahh, well... girl's a street hustler at heart... You want to sit next to the twins Miss'es Kennedy? I have a feeling they don't want to have to put on a dinner show tonight..."

After saying our graces, Miss Kennedy took a thick envelope out of her purse and stared at it as if trying to decide what to do with it. Whatever she was planning to do, she seemed to think better of it as she put it back and started her meal. It was halfway through dinner before she spoke to Jenny.

"Well... what was I gonna do? Yell at them? They would've just closed ranks on themselves... and then where would they be? An unrepented sin on their record... Besides they're just the hired hands... had to find out who was turning the wheel."

"Still.. the least they could've done was say they're sorry... Especially after taking your money..."

"Ehhh. I really don't need apologies. Half the time, people only apologize 'cuz they want something from you... I really don't need apologies.... It's like advice... better to give than receive."

"Still... I did feel rather awful about that gossip piece..."

"I thought it was kinda funny... for a minute anyway..."

"Just so you know, it wasn't anyone..."

"Well then you've got nothing to answer for... I didn't think it was you anyhow... You couldn'tve known about the stuff that he got wrong anyway..."

"Supposing it had been me?"

"I'm not saying I wouldn't be sore at you but... I don't know... I got a friend on the other side now... no point in putting hate in your soul when you don't have to..."

She let that sit for a few minutes before starting another line of conversation.

"So... what are you planning to do now? If I recall... you were studying to be an architect."

'Yeah... Well I did have to change schools to get a full degree... I was working on my dissertation, but I've sorta had to put things on hold for now... at least I won't have too many money problems if that's what you're worried about... Unless you happen to be in the market for a beach house made out of a railroad bridge. I've got the parts for one down in Panama..."

"I was thinking more in the lines of the presidential library. We wanted to get a design program together..."

"What.. you mean like for books? I didn't think he was all that big on them..."

"No... I mean for his papers!"

"Actually no, they belong to the estate. But the National Archives will be taking care of them."

"Huh... You learn something new every day. So... you're looking for someone to represent your interests? Pick an architect? 'Cuz I know of this Chinese fellow who's doing some nice work down in the Village..."

"I was thinking that maybe you'd want to try for the commision yourself. Something like that would be a nice way to start a career..."

"Not that I couldn't come up with something... but I'm not all that good on the styling side of architecture. I'm really more of a structural engineer. I can do cost estimation, construction scheduling and value engineering fairly well too. You put a blueprint under my nose and I can tell you how to build, it, how much it's gonna cost and even how to save money and get a better building in the bargain."

"But I've seen your work! That building you designed for the Worlds Fair is quite remarkable..."

"Huh? I never even finished that..."

"Yeah Jen," we reminded. "Jan and Stacey finished that up for you. Pretty sure we mentioned that. They're supposed to get back to you on when you could do an unveiling..."

"Oh... that building..." Jenny shrugged and looked back to Miss Kennedy.

"And I was talking to your grandmother... She showed me one of your articles. She's rather proud of your work..."

To emphasize her point Miss Kennedy handed Jenny a page torn from Panorama's architecture magazine. It was her article on the 'Crystal Ziggurats of New York' - the one where she reworked the façade of one of Walter Drake's commercial buildings.

"Man... half the stuff I've done for N'eddie I've forgotten about already... You know I don't have a license yet. You hafta intern somewhere for four years before they let you apply for a license..."

"Well that's not a problem! We haven't even started getting some preliminary ideas together. It'll be years before we can even think about breaking ground..."

With a heavy sigh Jenny took out her sketchbook, flipped to a particular page and contemplated it.

Jenny casually flipped the notebook around so Miss Kennedy could get a look. It was one of her more esoteric designs - if Ezekiel saw wheels inside wheels, Jenny envisioned a flattened cube of squares inside squares. Looking like the wall of television sets you see in department stores, the panes of bronzed glass were set deeply behind a grid of dark-blue steel beams that carried over to the roof.

"I made it a little taller than the original building because I wanted to put a reading area on top of the new book stack so people could read under the light..."

Jenny further explained that the 'stack' was a five storey concrete and glass block structure taking up the first third of the new building piercing the common wall between the old building to line up with its five storey cast-iron and glass floored stack. The middle third was an open area with a staircase and elevator. The final third had a three floors for 'modern' library services - an hall for lectures, a childrens room and a place to listen to music.

"Just offhand... I suppose I could move the stack structure outside of the box... wrap it around the back... you'd really only need the top and two sides of the grid to make the point... If you can get someone to make a replica of PT-109, there'd be plenty of room for it..."

"I suppose there'd be room for the Stations of the Cross too," Miss Kennedy gloomily replied.

The back story to that exchange is a tape recording Jenny made of her press visit to the White House a couple years back to tour the restoration efforts. Miss Kennedy was leading another reporter around and Jenny was 'stuck' waiting with the President for a spell. On the tape we could hear him joking about how unimportant he was that day while they made small talk.

After Jenny mildly scolded him about some of the publicity surrounding the recent campaign - she especially disliked the setting of the 'Ask not' part of his inaugural speech to the Blue Danube waltz - their conversation drifted around to the perceived decline of religion and how people seem to be turning to things like celebrities and flying saucers to fill the void. Jenny had jested that if he were to be assassinated, a new religion would probably arise with street merchants trading in shards of PT-109 like they used to sell splinters of The Cross to pilgrims in the Middle Ages.

"Yeah... well I don't need to tell you how crazy people can get around famous people these days... I was getting a lot of grief when I was singing with Janice's band. I was really close to chucking it when I got that awful call from Scott..."

With dinner over Jenny led our party to her mother's office by way of the corridors of rehearsal area stopping abruptly at the doorway of an elderly Italian-looking fellow sawing away at a violin.

"Stradivarius... Early golden," she declared with authority.

"Ahhh... you know your insturments! Do you play?"

"Used to... not anymore... You know the 'D' string is a little off. Somebody cut the bridge wrong. I can see it from here."

As the violinist gave his instrument a puzzled look, Jenny drew a navigator's compass from her purse and donned a pair of gloves to take up the instrument. Sure enough the 'D' string's slot was a just few hair's width out of place. But there was a noticable chafing mark in the 'D' string where it rested against the bridge. Not that you could see it from where Jenny was standing.

The cure was simple enough, the 'D' string was loosened and shoved aside so that Jenny could rework the slot with the side of the compass needle. With that engineer's eye of hers, she was able to retune the 'D' string without having to play a note. As he played scales to confirm her work she had one final note of caution.

"Next time your luthier has it in for servicing, you might have him leave it under an ultraviolet lamp for a couple days. Pretty sure I caught a faint whiff of mold in the sound chamber. I don't think it's serious... might've just picked up a smell from the case... I can send down a spare..."

Having maintained her reputation, Jenny continued with the backstage tour.

"When I was a kid, this place in Glen Cove offered a free violin if you took lessons over the summer so I signed up. Free violin... Teacher was a flagrant 'name dropper'... Well I knew some of the people she claimed to to be intimate friends with and they never heard of her..."

The audience was just filing into the Tonight Show sound stage for the warmup so Jenny led us all down another hallway and continued with her story.

"Well I got so sick of her lying that I kinda set her up... Left a cheap drugstore pocket watch where I knew she'd find it and arranged to have this singer call all frantic-like looking for the watch on account of it being a good luck charm... Needless to say, I stopped taking violin lessons."

Jenny found her leaning against the wall of her dressing room with a telephone receiver to her ear waiting for the other end to pick up. We noticed that to pass the time she was arching up her heels and letting them drop down hard to get that little resonance wave to the breasts - something we do all the time. For someone who just turned fifty, she looked more like the late thirties - face was tanned yet well maintained, hair was a deep red and styled like someone who fondly remembered Greta Garbo.

Finally getting the other end of the line, at least her voice sounded like it could pass for Miss Garbo - if she'd picked up a Southwestern accent and ended sentences like she was asking a question. She had Emily on the horn and was trying to get her to drop whatever she was doing.

"Vell I should vant to haff some-vone in mein cheering zection Emmchen? vhy aren't you vith your fah-zer?"

Something like that. She went down the list of people she'd called before Emily which must've got her incensed at being low man on the totem pole because Eloise was obliged to mention that she'd tried to get Emily first but she wasn't home. Yeah, that's a loving family.

Getting a gander at us she asked, "I'm sorry, but I think zis is my dressing room?"

"Huh? Wha? No, we're with Panorama... Lady Desdemona couldn't make it... Just checkin' in on ya..."

Seeing a puzzled look tinged with embarrassment, we added, "That's OK... We used to sneak into carnivals and circuses on our looks so we got nuthin' to kick about. Looks like we're about to get the hook so we best gets tha steppin'..."

Jenny hustled us up to the control booth which was the usual Chinese fire drill with everyone setting up for the evening's videotaping session. Still there was always a time for a member of the family and with the First Lady in tow, Jenny would be able to conduct the whole Cook's Tour tonight. She knew by heart all the various pieces of equipment, their function and how to work them. Since Miss Kennedy was a little more familiar with television operations, having been in front of it so often, Jenny spent more time explaining things to Sheriff Misener.

Speaking of backstage stuff, one of the things that amused our friends back in Oklahoma was the way we could uncannily 'predict' what people were going to say on television - and not just on the NBC affiliate. They never caught on that we'd talked to Jenny long distance and she'd given us the 'run-down' on shows before they're aired - she often attended show tapings on school breaks.

"For the life of me Walter, I will never understand why you left a perfectly decent office building on Park Avenue to slap a coat of paint on a run down, burnt out old hulk in this god-forsaken location..."

Stanford Keach, Walter Drake's man at the City National Bank, pondered the Italian Line billboard standing sentinel over the field of metallic beetles huddled below.

"Call me a spoiled former Texan... but I like to be able to look out the window and see my car down in the parking lot every now and again. Anyway, I can see the High Line from here and I always did like trains. Come to think of it... as a kid I used to see a building just like this one from the station platform in Dallas..."

"Oh... You're just a sentimental old fool at heart, aren't you?"

"Ehh... I had a project in the neighborhood... Besides that, I wanted to do something that'd get me in the architecture magazines for once... I'm not an especially proud man, but putting a roof over the heads of the huddled masses doesn't exactly put trophies on the mantlepiece. So... what the situation with Freedomland?"

"Circling the drain as we speak. We're pulling our financing in October. You lookin' to make a play? Because Zeckendorf, Lefrak and the Starretts have been sniffing around the office lately... You don't get a chunk of land like that in this area every day... Say, what's going on with Arthur? I was in the elevator the other day when these two ladies start talking about him and his mistress. Never figured him for a ladies man."

"He surprised all of us Stan. And to think I almost believed that girl..."

"I wouldn't be too quick to pass judgement Walt. That story your wife wrote is certainly going to get the old hens crowing."

"It's like the man said... public ridicule isn't so bad when you're laughing all the way to the bank... Speaking of Panorama... I was at the dentist office the other day..."

"Bridge work again?"

"Bridge work? Hell, they put in a goddamn viaduct! Anyway... I was flipping through an old issue and look at what I found..."

That Crystal Ziggurat article of Jenny's sure gets around.

"You mean to tell me you tore a page out of a magazine in a waiting room right in front of people?"

"With the money I was leaving in their till, they can afford new ones... Now... look at what she did with the building you did for us... I rather like the red number... Walter... if you had given us that design, we would've had a building we could put on the letterhead with pride. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of hearing David Rockefeller crow about his damn koi pond and sculpture garden down at the club... Maybe you could have that son of yours bring one of those piranha fish back from that Peace Corp jaunt of his."

"No.. that ship has sailed... and I'm not being figurative. His boat comes in Thursday..."

"Too bad... would've loved to see the look on Dave's face... Say why don't you see if the girl who wrote this would like to work on real buildings for a change. Shame to waste that sort of talent on magazine articles..."

"Don't tell me you're looking for someone on the side now... What's her name... Desdemona?"

"That's her 'nom de plume'... I checked with Panorama - real name's Jennifer Platt..."

Walter swallowed hard on his drink before replying, "That... was Arthur's girl... She left after her contract expired."

"I take it from your tone, it wasn't on the best of terms."

"No it wasn't.... She caught me looking through her project book and threw a hissy fit. Then she threw the thing down the incinerator shaft. Janitor found it in the basement. Wanna look at it?"

"The little minx wanted to build this right across Lexington from your building. No doubt to show me up..."

"Hmmm... Don't you think you ought to give this back to her?"

"She can pick it up any time she wants to."

"You think maybe the mountain ought to go to Mohammed?"

"I don't have time to waste on every tempermental little flake that comes along..."

"Flake? Have you looked through this? This isn't just a building - nice though it is... This is a goddamn assemblage plan! Look at this! She went and did a title search on every building on the block she wanted... even talked to the owners and got their selling prices and terms... Even checked to see when the leases are up. That's five years off the lead time right there! Couldn't you just mail this back to her."

"Don't you think I tried? Look at the address... Twenty-one Twelve Ocean. Amityville, Long Island. That's at the bottom the Atlantic - I checked..."

"Twenty One-twelve? Shows how much you know about this town... That's the old Platt Island estate. Washed out in the 'Thirty-eight hurricane. Say... this must be Jo Platt's little girl... Threw it down the incinerator... Hmm... Maybe you better not try and give this back to her..."

Puzzled look from Walter.

"Few years back, some kid went through one of her project book and kept laughing at it so she torched the thing right in front of him... Nicest person you'll ever meet, but if you cross a line... You might as well pick out your funeral clothes 'cause you're dead to her."

Walter gives him the 'what do you want me to do' shrug.

"Hang on to it I guess. If nothing else, we might want that land for a new building."

"Is that even ethical?"

"They're taping it as we speak."

"Now? I thought they did that live... why aren't you there?"

"Oh... the show hasn't been the same since Jack Paar left. I'll watch it with her tonight. Now let's get back to Freedomland. I was thinking I could get United Housing to go in with me..."

Meanwhile in another part of town...

"I really don't need some head-shrinker to tell me what's wrong with me, I can tell you in two words: The War... Both of 'em... Now I wasn't even three yet when my dad got called up, but I could still figure out it'd been an awful long time since he was around. When the Korean War came around he got called up again and that really got to me 'cuz I was in school and whenever someone's dad got it they'd be extra nice to the poor kid on account. I wasn't the brightest bulb in the set... but even I could figure out that people were extra nice to me all the time. So praise and affection have always left me a bit cold... And you what's really pathetic... I'd work all that much harder at everything to earn that praise and affection anyway."

"But... You really are an intelligent and talented person Jennifer," A somewhat flabbergasted Miss Kennedy assured. "and that's just from what I've seen today..."

"I'll have to take your word for it.," Jenny replied glumly. Then she cracked a smile, "Oh, I know I'm good at things... and I do appreciate it when people compliment me on something. I just don't like to crow about it..."

"A little self-promotion isn't the worst thing in the world..."

"Yeah... but most of that stuff people go nuts over is subjective anyway... When I was helping out with Janice's band, as many people loathed what I was doing as loved, so what's the point?"

I'm gonna go check on Eloise. She didn't look so good... You kids bring a camera? Maybe we could take some souvenir pictures... That oughta distract her a little..."

As we were leaving the sound booth we could hear Evelyn address Miss Kennedy by her first name in the way a parent might scold a child. Instinct told us to stick around for a possible catfight but we figured Jenny needed us more so, Leica in hand, we followed her down to the dressing rooms.
"There's one thing I kinda wanted to clue you in on... As you come out from behind the curtain, when Ed goes to shake your hand he's also gonna be aiming you towards the guest chair. It's a little wierd even if you know it's coming but that's what they do on TV on account of people sometimes get a dose of nerves once they see the audience and forget where they're supposed to go..."

Eloise already had that deer-in-the-headlights look to her - and the poor creature hadn't even made it to the green room. With an unlit cigarette on her lips, she nodded and mumbled a 'Dankeschön' as she rummaged through her purse for her lighter. To add to her nerves Carson pokes his head in to say hi to Jenny and inquired about who Jenny had brought to the studio.

"Oh, just some friends of the family... one of the kids mother used to babysit for back in the 'Thirties. If you wanna pop up to the booth after the show, that'd be nice."

That was Jenny's way telling Carson not to show up in the booth before the show without making him wonder why.

Whispering, she added, "Hey... I think we got a 'glosser' here..." That was her 'code' for someone with stage fright - from the word glossophobia - the fear of speaking in public. He took another look at her and told Jenny to 'do the best you can with her'.

"So... do you verk here?" A natural question for Eloise to ask.

"No... I'm sort of the studio mascot on account of my mom does work here... bit of the Lampenfieber eh?"

"Mmmm... Sprachen Sie Deutsches?"

"Ein wenig. Aber werfen Sie viele Glocken nicht an mir..."

Puzzled look from Eloise and a 'Bitte?'.

"Oh that's a tugboatman's phrase. 'Throwing bells' is how they signal each other when docking ships. When somebody gets flummoxed they ring a 'cowbell' and start over... You gonna be OK for the show?"

"Ach... I don't know... I must be getting timid in my old age. I mean... vhen I vas a kinder I could valk through a whole shooting riot with nothing but my camera... but this?"

"But you are used to people staring at you, no?"

"Not particularly... But then people tend to make themselves known when they're looking at us."

"Well I have been on stage a few times and it's not so bad," Jenny added "But then I was a World's Fair exhibit so I got used to people looking at me."

Another puzzled look from Eloise and another 'Bitte?'.

"I was a premature birth and they had an incubator exhibit at the 'Thirty-nine fair. The trick for me is that I've never made a distinction between performers on stage and the people in the audience. It's sorta like talking to your friends in the middle of Times Square - just tune out whatever isn't necessary to the conversation at hand."

As Jenny walked Eloise down to the green room she happened to mention the time one of her college boyfriends challenged her to strip naked in front of his friends and how she made him take her in front of them in return. She warned Eloise 'not to give away the store' during the interview adding that the one thing she liked about the serial was that it wasn't one of those horrid 'Road to Ruin' stories they foist on women.

"So whatever you do... please don't play the 'repentant old whore'."

When we get down to the green room Jenny had us take a few photos 'for the White Metal Cabinet'. Surveying the room, we saw nobody we liked or knew but Jenny immediately recognized the architect Wallace K Harrison. Guessing correctly that he was there to talk about his 'Albany job', a multi-building expansion of the New York State Capitol, Jenny offered ebullient praise on the overall look of the design - the Futurama come to life, only better!

She then offered the suggestion that maybe the bottoms of the three reflecting pools could be made of structural glass so that the pedestrian concourse underneath would get some natural lighting and that in the winter when the pools are drained they'd still look like there was water in them.

He seemed politely receptive of the idea considering that for all he knew, she was just some doxie with a movie to plug. When she gave him her business card, he brightened up a bit on account of his remembering that he'd met her when she visited a job of his in Pittsburgh. As they batted the idea around on paper we made small talk with that night's comedian who seemed puzzled as to what sort of act we were going to do.

The comdedian nods poliltely for us to go on.

"After cleaning us out she calls over these eight strapping black-buck 'cowboys' wearing nothing but Stetsons and a gun belt to 'teach us how to be a proper lady' - and this is where being twins makes the show... As we're writhing on the table, one of 'em sticks his big black dinkus right up the puss and one of 'em goes up the butt. Then one does our tits while another does the little space between our necks. We go oral on two of them and hand job the last two while our mother rides around and whips them in the ass with her riding crop. On a good night they all came together."

"So... what did you call this act?" Not that the answer wasn't a foregone conclusion.

We looked around as if confused by the question then shrugged our shoulders and innocently replied, "You know... we never could figure that one out... prob'ly woulda made more money with a name..."

Our decision not to go with the standard-issue punchline was richly rewarded with the groan of respect it deserved. As the evening wore on it turned out that the show was running long and given the choice of a middle aged architect in the proverbial gray flannel suit and a middle aged sex authoress in a dress that wasn't so much as revealing as it was concealing by the strictest legal minimum, it went without saying that poor Mister Harrison would have to settle for the genial hospitality of Jennifer for the rest of the night.

Eloise handled herself reasonably well, given our low expectations, keeping her attention mostly fixed on Carson and heeding Jenny's warning. Something that really bugged us was when Carson asked her about the sex for money stuff and Eloise basically repeated the story Jenny told her as if it was an event in her own life. If Jenny noticed, she didn't say anything but we were out of the green room and back in the control booth before the next commercial break.

Miss Kennedy was gone when we got there and when Jenny asked why, Evelyn explained that she was calling for a ride home. Then she asked Jennifer to sit down. When they call you by your legal name it's usually trouble.

"I've had a discussion with Miss Kennedy and we both agreed that you are in no condition to take on any more projects..."

"Look... I know you've been getting a bit restless as of late and you want to throw yourself back into some sort of work but it's just too soon... You're not even out of that damned leg brace yet!"

Icy glare from Jenny's chair.

"I don't you appreciate how bad you got... they had to restart your heart twice! ...and you damn near killed a nurse while you were out of it. I've made up my mind..."

We didn't know about that second time. Jenny leaned back in her chair and was surprised to find...

"Whuhh... this chair has wheels! You were saying?"

"I'm saying that I want you to take it easy this summer. No sense knocking yourself out over something the government is already taking care of... Not while your living under my roof..."

In point of fact the house was in Jenny's name for tax purposes.

"So you're 'pulling rank' now..."

"Yes Jennifer, I'm pulling rank. I've done a lot of worrying over you this last year and I really need a break..."

Given that Jenny wasn't exactly thrilled with prospect of being Miss Kennedy's protégé, it was perhaps inevitable that she'd acquiesce to her mother, but she always did make people pay for whatever ground they tried to take. Having won this battle of wills, Evelyn sensibly held out an olive branch.

"You've got your flight physical coming up later next month," she sighed. "If you can clear that we can talk about letting you take on more responsibilities..."

Miss Kennedy had returned from her phone call just in time to catch Carson who was in the booth to meet Jenny's guests. She confirmed that Evelyn did indeed 'babysit' for the Bouviers a few times before the family left Long Island - 'make-work' for a family friend's kid. She expressed her regrets that she couldn't return the favor to Jennifer. Jenny was philisophical about it.

"Ah well... things have a way of working out for the best. Maybe I would've thrown a rod trying to run up that little hill or something..."

"Yeah, well it's not like I was gonna hop on a plane the first thing in the morning. Prob'ly would've needed the rest of the week to get everything lined up... We already had dinner if you're not going straight home..."

Evelyn had planned on joining Gloria and Phillips anniversary party for the Oliver and Elizabeth if Jennifer wanted to come - with the unexpressed implication that we weren't invited. Since Jenny had been 'ordered' to take it easy she had that face-saving excuse to fall back on. After a few minutes of small talk Miss Kennedy's Secret Service detail showed up. One of them handed her a manilla folder and whispered something in her ear.

Handing the folder to Jenny, she explained that she hadn't really planned things to work out this way but she had made some enquiries with the Navy department about Scott and something turned up. Being that it was his son, Jenny handed the folder unopened to Sheriff Misener to look at together. Inisde was a typewritten cover letter a couple blurry photographs of what looked like a shard of cloth wrapped around a hunk of meat and bone and another typewritten page explaining what we were supposed to be looking at.

"Portion of upper left chest with shirt material partially obscuring ID Badge. Letters I-S-E-N-E-R readable."

After a long silence Jenny tired to say something about the incredible power of the sea but gave up somewhere in the middle of a thought. Sheriff Misener consoled himself with the belief that at least it was an instant death before thanking Miss Kennedy. He asked Jenny to keep the photos with her on account of him not wanting it around the house where his wife could find it.

"You know Miss Kennedy," he concluded. "Back in November I remember her saying that at least those two kids you lost now have their father to look after 'em on the other side. She's been hanging on with the hope that he was just missing somewhere. Don't know how she's gonna take this."

On the car ride home Jenny had the last word on the subject for the time being.

"I wish they could've brought up that badge. If that really was Scott, there might still be a fingerprint left on it... maybe underneath where the water didn't hit it directly... It's a long shot... but you know... I still have dreams where he just shows up out of the blue like nothin' happened."

Come Tuesday morning - a few minutes before the noon whistle.

"Jebus A Moebius Sco... Jeff! Don't you EVER come sneaking up on me like that again!"

"What's the matter sleepyhead? You look like you just saw a ghost..."

Still trying to catch her breath, Jenny gasped, "Huh... Ya think so?"

"Well gee... no need to get sore... it's been over a year now... you hadn't seen him for a couple years even then... I see you have the Gruesome Twosome with ya... Mind if I pop in?"

"Yeah, I mind! No... Use the side door! You better take off your shoes... You're kinda standing on fertilized soil..."

We heard the rustle of shrubbery as Jeff made his retreat from the minefield followed by footsteps down the side path and then the sound of of a garden hose running. Jenny put on a robe and turned up the air conditioner, spritzing its vent with air freshener. The sounds of Jeff Misener unshod feet transferred from the steps to the inside of the house as Jenny finished tidying up the room.

"If I'd known you were in town," Jenny shouted, "I would've asked you to bring a couple buckets of ice from the clubhouse... There's a case of sodies in the mud room... you wanna bring a few in here?"

We listened for the clink of four bottles. Sometimes people forget we like to have our own bottle of soda.

"You know, I almost pulled up to your old house till I remembered you saying something about your dad buying the old Moynahan place... always thought this was a funny house for the lot they picked out."

"Well dad figured... with all of us in school, there'd be nobody left to mow the lawn. Say, aren't you supposed be on the Scorpion right now?"

"Didn't you hear? They took so many people off the Devil Ray, I was practically the only one left that knew where the bodies were buried... You're lookin' at the proud master of the finest diesel electric submarine in this man's Navy."

Eying his 'Triple Six' patch, Jenny noted, "Better to rule than serve eh?"

"Exactly... Never figured you for the layabout type. Shouldn't you be working on a building?"

"She tore her right calf muscle," we explained. "Pain was so bad she had a heart attack right on the table. They had to use jumper cables on her..."

"So as you can see I'm grounded for the summer... Didn't know the fleet was in..."

"Isn't... Drove down from New London..."

"You drove all the way around the Sound? That's gotta be a fun ride!"

Jeff looked at us like we had two heads or something before saying, "I took the ferry down from Bridgeport..."

Jenny added, "Why do you think we can do so many jobs in New England? Hope you remembered where your ship is parked. You check in on your mom and dad yet?"

"No... I haven't. She's in dry dock right now. Lost a torpedo tube door... Some fish took it off during a high speed practice run. They figure as long as we're in the shop they'll replace the batteries too... also gonna check the ballast valves. Speaking of that... You know your name came up on account of that submarine you tried to build... whatever happened to that?"

"Traded it... for a railroad bridge... This guy in the Carolinas makes these prefab fallout shelters... Well he had to replace the bridge going to his factory and he was in the market for a forklift engine. Now, I was looking to build one of those cliffside houses like they have in LA... so we haggled. He's took the rest of the sub and he's gonna use it for a fuel tank. Wish I coulda made that thing work... so what's the Navy's interest in that?"

"You know how you were having problems blowing the ballast tanks?"

"Yeah, filter traps kept freezing over."

"After the Thresher went down, someone dug up a few of those letters you sent to Electric Boat... They did a test blow on one of the nuke subs... and they think that's what finished 'em off."

"That'll teach me to finish what I started... You know that white metal cabinet we had in the old dining room? Well we got it in the same place here... on the second shelf under a box marked 'Jennifer 's Junior Prom', there's a folder with some pictures in it. Could you run and get that for me? One of mom's friends knows someone in the Navy and they think they found Scott..."

"Say Jen... I thought you were on the refreshment committee for the Junior Prom. Why would anyone take pictures of you handing out punch?"

"That's a film that friend of mom's wanted me to look at. I just put that on there so I'd remember which one it was. I see you're one person who has the decency not to peek into a folder without asking..."

Not knowing her beef with Walter Drake, Jeff let that one slide and joined Jenny on the floor as she showed him what presumably were the final remains of his brother. She warned him that as far as she knew his mother hadn't been told yet and for the time being, his dad wanted it that way.

"Maybe if you can get her happy on account of your promotion, you might be able to slip it in later," she suggested before going quiet for a spell, finally adding, "You know he really fought tooth and nail for everything he didn't get in life... I tried to help him out in school, but he finally pushed me away... Some people should just have stuff handed to 'em... So what's your next deployment?"

"Probably spook work... breaking and entering... special recon... sorta stuff they don't want to waste on a nuke sub..."

"It's always more fun when you're not worried about dinging the paint job... don't suppose you'd be able to tinker with the engine any, huh?"

"I was gonna ask if you saved any of your project books on that..."

"I didn't bring a lot of things to the new house... but if the twins didn't chuck 'em and I didn't leave 'em in LA..."

We had saved a lot of Jenny's abandoned project books - some of them were here and some we'd taken back to Oklahoma. We promised to sort through them for him.

"You know," Jenny offered. "I bet I could sweet talk the NASA people into letting you have a fuel cell or two to play with... maybe get a research grant. Just think if we could build a conventional sub that can stay underwater as long as the fuel holds out... we could get some of our tax money back by selling to countries that can't afford nukers. Anyway, if we can make it work, odds are the Russian can too... so we'd hafta have a few just to learn how to defend ourselves from 'em..."

"Gee, if this ever goes anywhere we ought to call it 'Project Buggy whip'..."

Jeff gave Jenny a puzzled look and a 'Huh, wha?'

"When I was taking some business courses... they had this canard about how you could be the dominant player in an industry but if your industry was buggy whips at the time automobiles were just coming out you really haven't accomplished much. Of course when I went to do a article for Panorama's business magazine, I found the last maker of buggy whips was doing very well thank you very much. Seems there's a lot more people with horses out there than you'd think... Not to mention there's that sex fetish crowd..."

Jenny cracked an imaginary whip a couple for effect before going into a coughing jag, followed by her saying that maybe her heart wasn't pumping fast enough because she could feel the toxins building up or something like that.

"You need to get laid..."

"You offering?"

"I dunno.... That's the one thing I never could measure up to with Scott..."

"A real submariner ought to be able to handle anything long, slender and full of seamen..."

"Uhmm, Jen," we interrupted, "didn't your mother tell you about not taking on any new projects?"

"As long as I'm living under her roof..."

We could tell Jenny was thinking about that loophole a bit when she finally made a decision.

"Y'know... She also said nothing about any project in progress I might happen to have on my plate... I promised Elizabeth a painting... I wonder if gramma still has that lodge on her property... Always did like that place..."

Turing to Jeff she sternly yet seductively commanded, "You really frightened me by rapping on the window and for that, Ill be pressing you for my supply crew..."

"Hey now... we fought a war to put a stop to that sort of thing..."

"Looks like you're hooked Captain!" This time we cracked a whip to emphasize the point.

In the years we'd been summering on Long Island, we'd never really seen much if any of the 'North Shore'. Jenny had never asked us to come along when she used to visit her grandparents and this time was no exception. This was to be a solitary retreat on Jenny's part but we were welcome to come along so that Jeff would have company on the ride home.

Things had changed since Jenny had last been there. Most of the old estates had been encroached upon with new houses along the roadside in the way we'd seen of the farms on the drive into Oklahoma City - they'd chip off a lot or two to pay taxes or for pin money, leaving the main house intact somewhere in the middle of the property for when they want to cash out completely. Around Glen Cove the difference was that most of the 'infill' houses were as substantial as the 'ordinary' homes lining Ocean Avenue back in the Village.

The Van der Plaat estate was by no means the largest or most elaborate but it did have a choice location inside a curve along Hillcrest Drive with beach frontage on the Sound. The lot was sort of shaped like the paper part of one of those Japanese folding fans cut down the middle with the main house on the squared off eastern side with its central drive flanked by some cottages built sometime in the 1920s. and a service drive cutting off a triangular slice on the western side.

Between the service road and the neighboring lot and set well back from the street was 'The Lodge', a picturesque affair with a roof that swooped down from the attic storey past the second storey , forming awnings for the front and back porches with 'eyebrow' dormers over the second story windows and the kitchen and an upstairs sleeping porch jutted out from the back where we had parked Jenny's car to unload supplies.

"I see you have nice friendly neighbors," Jeff remarked, indicating the man high cobblestone wall separating us from next door. "You suppose the top is lined with shards of glass?"

"I think that's on account of them having a pool on their side... anyway we put it up not them... see how the foundation uses the same stones? Chimney does too..."

"What's with all the Monopoly houses?" We were referring to a quartet of steel paneled homes on the other side of the service road. One faced the street and the other three lined the driveway.

"Back in the 'Forties grampa got the bright idea to buy these prefab homes for all his grandchildren. Figured he could rent to summer people in the meantime. Janice took hers already."

"There isn't one. They never bothered to put electricity in this place. That's why I came here..."

"So what are we supposed to do with all this cold stuff?"

"Put it in the icebox... It runs on gas..."

Jenny pulled one of those flint lighters things that welders use from its hook on the wall and bent down to check the pilot. Happily one of the servants from the 'big house' had already lit it so Jenny was left to explain that the ice box was built from plans drawn by of all people Albert Einstein and worked by running a bunch of fluids and gasses under pressure through a series of pipes in a convection circuit. On the upstroke it drew heat from the icebox and transferred it elsewhere on the down stroke. Or something like that. Even Jenny was at a loss on how to explain it.

Jeff helped lug Jenny's paints and canvasses up to that sleeping porch where she was going to have her easel set up. Looking into the neighbor's yard we could see a lady talking to some underling about the tasks for the day - seems she was having the place spiffied up for a party that weekend. Looking over to the row of 'Lustron' homes we could see a vegetable garden with about the same footprint as the houses being tended by a caretaker. Presumably that was where Janice's home stood.

We couldn't help wondering if the rest of the houses missed their comrade - one of the things we'd picked up from some of the indians that worked around our ranch was the vague idea that even inanimate object contained a spirit within them. We could only imagine how sad Jenny's house must've felt all those years not seeing her - especially when Janice's house was hauled away for its intended life.

Our thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Janice bearing a vacuum cleaner and and several extension cords looped around her arm followed by Gloria and a servant who ran the extension cords over to 'Jenny's' allotted house. When doing chores the Platt girls actually liked to dress up nicely like the housewives you'd see on television but then the Platt girls always did go in for role playing and Janice was in her finest house dress. Jenny had already stripped down to little more than paint splotched bib overalls, so Jeff got a little reward for his servitude every time she leaned forward.

You can't spell 'smother' without 'mother' and grandmother Gloria couldn't help being concerned with the 'primitive' conditions Jenny willfully was submitting herself too. Jenny replied that it was better than being cooped up at home and certainly better than pitching a tent out in the woods where some animal might come along and try to eat her.

Gloria cranked the ancient extension phone to make sure she could ring up the house and satisfied offered Jeff and us the use of her car for the ride back home unless we wanted to hang out with Janice and her kids at the main house. Jeff had to leave for his ship so we opted to ride back with him leaving Jenny to her fortress of solitude.

We spent the rest of the week at the Worlds Fair taking pictures of the muscle show for N'eddie over at the Meadow Lake amphitheater across the highway from the rest of the fair. There was a morning, afternoon and evening show mixed in with a totally separate children's program so the boys would have some time to explore the rest of the fair with us.

We were taking trick photos of the boys in front of the Unisphere on Friday when we heard a voice from the crowd yell, "OK Atlas! Just shrug it off!"

It was Jenny, taking a break from her Sabbatical. As it turned out she decided to make use of her season pass on account of it being too dark to paint anymore and had been hoping to run into us. The boy were going to have to get back to their show soon so we stayed in the amusement section to look for the spot where Jenny spent her first days on earth. Sadly it was now an interchange so we all walked over to the Amphicar exhibit where they were giving people a test dunk into Meadow Lake. They remembered Jenny from when she bought hers and asked how she liked it so far.

"Best four and a half month's salary I ever spent!"

Figure that she was a 'twenty-five dollar a day office girl' minus thirty percent in income taxes with maybe a hundred in other expenses since Jenny lived frugally even when she wasn't living with her parents.

Remembering that we'd wanted to do an updated version of that Frenchman's photo essay Jenny borrowed our camera to arrange so poses herself - literally jumping into a lake to get a reaction shot of the boys in an Amphicar as it chased after some ducks. She managed to get her shot and keep the camera dry while treading water in street clothes but she did opt for a tow back to dry land. We took a brochure and inquired about taking delivery in Oklahoma City.

At the muscle show Jenny let us take one of her watching the show before suggesting that we get one looking back at the crowd from the side of the stage and to make sure the Monorail could be seen going by in the background.

After we got that shot she was inspired enough to sieze our camera again and light off for the Monorail to get a shot of the show from that perspective. She returned a few minutes later a little winded but otherwise as pleased as peaches - or Peechi - she always struck us as being pretty pleased most of the time.

On the ride back to the Village we casually mentioned to Jenny, "You know that Great Gatsby party Eloise is throwing? N'eddie sending us over to take some pictures for the society column... You'll never guess where it is..."

"I hate to spoil your fun," Jenny replied handing us an envelope, "but she sent me an invite to that... Engraved even... She sure doesn't know where East and West Egg are!"

"So... ya gonna make an appearance?"

"If I can finish up early, I'll poke my head out the window and see if it looks like it's not gonna be a snooze. Otherwise I'll can pick you guys up and drop you at the door..."

"If it's a nice enough day we was wondering if we could borrow that scooter of yours. We're kinda getting sick of being driven around all the time..."