The Witching Snakes pt 33

Paul meets Mikki. They have great dates. They get married. Years move on. Paul goes from Strength to Strength. Paul's Sister Gets Divorced but Rick Still Calls. The Web Design Jobs Die. 2001 Comes.

No one blamed him for Agatha. He was not his true self. He did not steal the guitar. He did not kill that musician. He only saw their concern when Spring came again. In April, they told him to get a wife, get a car and ask for a raise. They set him up with friends from church.

Most dates went pretty well. Ultimately the daughter of Paul's father's friend from work fascinated him. She had worked as an English teacher in Kyoto and had only returned from Japan to take care of her father. Her name was Mikki, not short for Michelle. Her birth name was Tomiko. The trees sprouted queasy green. Summer waited patiently. Paul and Mikki spoke about exhaustion and tragedy. Breast cancer had killed Mikki's mother when she was in high school. Paul did not speak about his mother's depression.

Their second date was at a steak and ribs place overlooking Lake Superior. Paul enjoyed paying. He admitted to hating his job, but loving his savings account. Mikki talked about her new teaching position. The second date felt like what the first date would have been - small talk without childhood trauma.

They talked about books and movies. A mutual loathing of Forrest Gump came up - first as Tomiko's guilty secret, but then enthusiastically supported by Paul. Safely enshrined in the loathing of a movie that everyone else seemed to love, Paul and Tomiko argued happily on the worth of Kevin Smith movies. Paul was making his quotas. Tomiko was applying to grads school and collecting letters of recommendation from her father's ambassador friends. She wanted to study late Victorian poetry.