"Yes. I work every day."
    "Well, that's just abysmal! Tell me you at least change into something more casual when you get home?"
    "What would be the point of that?" She seems determined not to grasp the idea of being on twenty-four hour call. I mean, I do have other clothes, but they don't get a lot of use. I go to a movie or the library or poker night with the gang, and jeans are perfectly acceptable. Even for most formal events I wear my costume. There's no point in maintaining much of a wardrobe.
    "Pierre, we need lounging pajamas for her," she decided.
    "Oui, lounging pajamas."
    "If you can come in here..." She ushered us inside, followed by Pierre's assistant with several bags of books, cloth samples, and god knows what else. "Oh, Scott?"
    He poked a pseudopod upstairs from where he's been working on the finishing touches of the hologram room. "Yes?"
    "Is there a large empty room that we can use?"
    "As a matter of fact, come down here."
    I tried desperately to think of a way out of this. If I'd had any idea she was going to pull something like this, I'd have told her no flat out last week.
    "Have you considered more... rouge?" Pierre inquired, scrutinizing my face once we'd gotten down to the basement
    "No," I replied coldly.
    "You should. And, ah," he glanced at my boots. "No, no, no, no. But we have to see all of her," he announced.
    "You heard the man," Molly said cheerfully when I gave her a disbelieving look.
    "I beg your pardon?!"
    "In order to get the lines correct," she explained with an evocative gesture. "Just... y'know." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "It's all right, he's gay."
    A curtain appeared out of nowhere, blocking the view of the stair in case anyone else should wander by.
    "Oh, by the way, the holograms are working now," Scott chirped.
    "Molly..." I finally got a grip on myself.
    "Yes?"
    "This is a little... more than I was expecting," I understated carefully.
    She cocked her head. "I told you that Pierre was going to be here."
    "Well... yes, but...."
    "Pierre, could you talk with Scott for a few minutes?" she suggested after a moment.
    Pierre removed himself from our immediate vicinity to admire the lines of Scott's solid frame.
    "This, we can work with! Stay still!" he cried.
    "I think he's found a willing mannequin. What's bothering you, dearie?" she asked briskly.
    "I'm just not sure this is really necessary," I said, a touch desperately.
    "Why not?"
    "Really, I get by very well on what I already have."
    Her expression suggested that she doubted that. "But there's so much more that you could have." She gave a little sigh. "Believe me, I've seen what it's like getting by on very little, and... I've seen what it's like getting by on an awful lot. And getting by on an awful lot is much, much better," she avowed.
    I'll grant that if she didn't think that way she probably wouldn't have spent her youth robbing banks and metaphorically torturing virtuous young heroes. But I certainly don't think that way.
    "I'm just trying to be helpful."
    "I know, I know," I said hastily. "And I appreciate—"
    "I've given up trying to set you up with my nephews," she informed me with an air of sacrifice.
    "That's probably for the best," I nodded, relieved.
    "I mean, from everything I've read it sounds like you've got that department well taken care of anyway, so—"
    "What?!" Oh please, not more rumors.... Same old rumor, as it turned out.
    "What?" She looked puzzled. "From what you had said, and when Captain Sutton had come out... oh, dear I'm afraid I've put my foot in something here," she said, looking at my expression.
    "No, please, continue," I invited.
    "The two of you just seemed like such a... well, I wouldn't say good couple, because there's too much danger involved, but I had thought that there was something...."
    This, at least, I could put a stop to. "There's absolutely nothing going on."
    "Really?" She looked doubtful.
    "Really. I think I'd know."
    "Well, in that case I have a wonderful nephew for you to meet! He's a cardiologist."
    I took a breath. "How can I put this...."
    "So, you're not... well then, what?" She gave me a puzzled look, apparently unable to see any reason why I would be less than enthused.
    I tried putting it in the terms she was used to. "You've heard Larry complaining a lot about the young guys who don't know how to play the Game?"
    "Yes. Almost incessantly," she added with a faint sigh.
    "They make up a big part of my life. There's not really room for... other stuff." Dating me would be like dating someone with a terminal disease. Pretty much the best you could hope for is that it won't turn out to be contagious.
    Molly, of course, wasn't listening to my thoughts. "Well, you have to make room. You could have so much," she repeated. "I'm just trying to help you."
    "I have lots," I insisted gently. Enough, at any rate. I suppose it's like Trent and his apartment—I wouldn't know what to do with anything else. For more than a year now, my life has consisted of winnowing. Last spring I seemed to have a reasonably normal life—an ordinary job, a home with all the usual accoutrements, a family, and a future.
    Now I have the team, a cat, and a task I would like to accomplish. And Phoenix Talon wants me to get rid of the cat (he's been permanently barred from the conference room, anyway). Anything added on would just get in the way.
    "Dear, you have a converted barracks on an island. You wear the same black suit every day. I'm just trying to... help."
    "It's very kind of you." I couldn't think of anything else to say.
    "And Pierre thinks that you have wonderful calves that we could bring out with a good pair of heels."
    "I don't wear heels," I said automatically.
    "This is the wonderful thing, with your powers you could wear as high heels as you wanted, and it wouldn't matter," she smiled impishly.
    True, as far as it went. "But..."
    "Men would flock. And you really, I hate to say this, but you really do have to play up your legs, because, well...."
    "I look like a toast rack, yes, I'm very familiar with that fact," I nodded. Flock. Right. That would be when the flying pigs gather to go south for the winter. Maybe if I was six inches taller and got implants.
    "I didn't want to... they are your best feature," she said brightly. "And you constantly have them in those jeans, it doesn't make sense. Pierre's also prepared to help design new costumes for you, too."
    I looked at the ceiling. It didn't tell me what to say.
    "We could give you a closet of three or four of them, just in case."
    I gave up. "Why don't I see what he comes up with." It didn't mean I'd agreed to do anything. Maybe she'll forget about the whole thing.

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