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and one-time, oh-so-brief roommate had been understanding. Smug, even. She d used the word smitten.
Ginnie had to bite her tongue to keep from defending herself, explaining to Lara that it wasn t because
she was smitten. It was purely a business arrangement.
The business of keeping an eye on her old home and its contents, and fixing her puppets and staying
safe from Rick.
Rick might do anything take more things, burn down the rental house, if it would burn in Portland s
damp weather and frequent rain showers. Who knew what he would do?
Crazy to think that less than a month ago, she d had fantasies about Rick coming to her and begging
her to come back to him. Then he d shown up and acted like a belligerent jerk, reminding her why she d
left.
Instead, it had been Harry to beg her to come back to him. Ginnie laughed, baffled. He hadn t exactly
begged, but still, it had been thrilling.
A little too thrilling. Maybe she was a bit smitten.
Little Jeffrey stared at her, his newly repaired face somehow accusing.
Oh, you ll always be my favorite. You ve gotten plenty of attention, haven t you? she asked the
marionette. Got a new face, touched-up colors, oiled hinges. You re quite dashing, she assured Jeffrey
even as she moved him to the side to concentrate on the many others needing her experienced eye. Cracked
heads, crushed limbs, snapped strings, clothes stained and torn beyond repair.
Rick must really hate her.
And the thing was, she thought he might be a little bit in the right. Very little. But, she had left him
rather suddenly, with only a few attempts at serious conversation at the end to let him know how unhappy
she felt. When she got the Helping Hands job offer, it had seemed like a sign.
Rick had taken care of her. Strong to the point of aggression on occasion, well-off if not wealthy, he
offered a reliable protectiveness Ginnie d found comforting. Her mother approved of him, latched on to his
obvious devotion to Ginnie, seeing nothing beyond the fact he wouldn t abandon Ginnie the way she d
been abandoned.
Hands On
Ginnie shook her head. Seemed it was true. Rick wouldn t give her up easily. Problem was, he didn t
particularly want her, either. Not the real her. He always made her feel as if she were silly and neurotic for
sharing her feelings about puppetry, or her feelings about him, or about anything which had had the effect
of making her more insistent that he listen, which made him irritated, until he slammed out of the house or
worse and she d figured out there was no point in continually stirring up a hornet s nest.
When she finally left Rick, arriving at her mom s new place a few hours away, she d hoped for
emotional support and maybe shelter for a few nights. Solidarity against men would ve been her mother s
forte considering the woman s own background, she d assumed. Ginnie d been impressed by the gated
ranch home on a lush city acre, courtesy of her mother s newest and richest husband. Ginnie was more than
ready to finally forge a real mother-and-daughter bond, so it had come as a shock when she was hit with If
you throw away a good thing, you re stupid don t you make the biggest mistake of your life, and you
made your bed, so you go on back and lie in it, and worse, just like your father, sneaking away in the
night like a coward.
What echoed in her head, though, was the thing her mother had called after her as Ginnie finally fled
her sharp tongue: You ll screw this up too!
But despite the agony of uncertainty and the sadness that called forth tears at the slightest provocation,
Ginnie followed her dream, clinging firmly to her hope of a better, happier life. She d held it in her mind as
a True North, all the way to Oregon.
And now Rick tried to intimidate her.
It was pretty low of him to go after her things just because he knew she loved them. Ginnie lifted the
two pieces of a puppet s split leg, the knee joint s tongue-and-groove no longer held together with a pin.
The pin was long gone.
Ginnie shuddered as if she were ill.
Should she fix her marionettes, the way she desperately wanted to, or should she put it off indefinitely
and to do the sensible thing of getting another job? She needed the money. She knew the right answer.
It was a matter of financial prudence. She couldn t live off her returned security deposit and the
rumored settlement payout forever. She should do what Harry suggested take a position at a temp place,
or a retail shop, if they d hire someone a bit overqualified. A craft store might not be too horrible.
Even more financially prudent, she could acquire a mid-tier management position at another nonprofit
company. Somewhere she wouldn t be too passionate about the work. Passion got her in trouble.
Passion made her care too much and try too hard and focus on the wrong things. Passion made her
listen to her instinct rather than logic. Passion kept her from being an easygoing team player.
A squeaky noise startled her, and she looked down. Clara, her slender African ballerina marionette,
performed a slow pirouette. Without conscious thought, her hands had performed the repair work on
Clara s strings, so that Clara gracefully swayed on her ballet-shoe toes.
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Christina Crooks
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