Chapter 1: The Interview

Jenny Marie Jenkins was rushing around the house, desperate to get everything into some order before she left. She needed to ace this interview for both her and her husband. Joe was recovering from an auto accident two years ago. His health insurance had run out, their Cobra insurance had expired, and the unemployment payments were barely covering the food and gas.

Joe watched from his wheelchair and wished her good luck as she walked out the door. She threw out the garbage on her way to the car, and then turned the ignition switch of the old 1955 Chevrolet Hardtop. The different colored fenders and trunk made it hard to tell what the original color was, but the two four-barrel carburetors and three-quarter race cam ran it effortlessly down the freeway. Her husband had been restoring it but hadn't finished the bodywork before the accident. His new truck and her four year old SUV had been repossessed, and this was all they had now. It was one of his hobby projects that were an afterthought that he had been able to get running with a few used parts.

She reached up to the visor and put on her mirrored wrap-around sunglasses. She looked up at herself in the mirror and adjusted it as she drove out the driveway. Although her hair was long, the tight spiral perm took quite a bit of the length out of it so that her hair didn't actually go all the way down her back. This hairdo actually looked like what was seen on many black girls about half her age. The pearl necklaces her first husband had bought on their first anniversary helped to accentuate her face and gave her a very sophisticated appeal.

She had married her first husband soon after she had gotten pregnant in her last year of high school. He had planned to enroll at the local college as a vet student and her unplanned pregnancy had given them a rough start. The fact that she had twins made it even worse. He had been killed in an auto accident driving back from his second job. The stress of working 80 hours got to be too much, and he dozed off on the way home.

Jenny's second husband, Joe was an older man who she had married more out of convenience. He had a good business inherited from his family and she felt this was her way to get two young girls through school. His accident left her with the same problems of supporting the two girls, a house and car payments, and a husband who was unemployed.

Jenny had only a high-school education, and had spent most of those years taking singing, ballet and interpretive dance, and had not worked while the children were in school. Joe's job was more than enough for all the bills until the car accident. With the savings gone, the kids took part time work during school to help make ends meet. Jenn needed this job.

She parked her car at the far end of the parking lot and walked across it rather than risk anyone seeing the odd-colored car. If you are what you drive, you would not have expected this woman to come out of that car. She was a spectacular 32-year old woman with long reddish-brown hair flowing down her back to her waist. Although most people think that 32-year old women are past their prime, she was several years younger than Demi Moore, or Nicole Kidman. She was more than ten years younger than one of the women who had qualified for the Olympics in the 25-yard freestyle and just as spectacular looking as any of them.

Any of the older people who knew her would say she got her looks from her mother, who at 48, looked good enough for them to pass as sisters. Her mother had never made it out of high-school. Growing up in the top-soil poor farms of central Kansas, she had started having children early. In those days it was common for young girls to drop out of school early and start a family.

Her mother, Ginny had her first child with a tall, rugged farm hand who lived about a section away. He had died early from a tractor accident and Ginny worked as a secretary at the elevator in the unincorporated city of Tecumseh. Ginny was a self-taught singer, piano player, and seamstress, who spent each Thursday with the other farm wives quilting. Jenny visited her as much as she could, but with no income, she could not afford the two-hour drive, and was also not able to supplement her mother's income.

Jenny's grey silk dress fit like a glove. The hem stopped just high enough to keep from tripping, but with the buttons undone to the next button above her knees, one could see most of her legs above her knee-high grey Prada boots that were exposed by her brisk stride. Her legs tapered back in just above her knees, which made it obvious to anyone with an athletic background that this had been a very athletic woman in her younger years. The top part of her grey dress changed color to an off-white just below her breasts, and the loose top two buttons accented her five-five frame, hardened by a sun-tanned body that could still run three miles in nineteen minutes.

She took off her sunglasses and replaced them with her wire rimmed glasses; held her leather purse in her right hand while pushing open the door of the small marketing firm with the other.