"If you were my sister..."

I told Maricel over a delightful tuna salad that I'd put together. "I'd come get you and drag you home."
"If you were my brother." She said. "I'd be absolutely sure that little foreign chick was out to rip you off."
I'd put together one of what I consider my specialties: tuna salad that you scoop up with Fritos Scoops. Maricel said it tasted good.
"I've no plans to dump you in a lake." I said thinking about a case I'd seen on Cold Case or American Justice.
"I've no plans to kill you yet." She said.

There were probably five guys in the store when I got home.

And bless her heart, Maricel was selling them stuff. She's knowledgeable enough to talk about product and smart enough to admit when she's not familiar with something in order to give the customers the pleasure of explaining it to her. SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS in sales. On a weekday morning. WHAT THE HELL? She doesn't need to get a job. She's plenty profitable as store decor. Maybe I need to get another job and just let her run the store. Then she offered to make me lunch. I made her lunch. I didn't want her leaving the store.

On my way out...

I literally ran into a pretty dark-haired woman with a stack of files. As I was helping her pick it up I realized I knew her from somewhere, but I couldn't think where.
"I know you, don't I?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think so." She said and she looked me up and down.
"I've never been indicted, if that helps." I said. "I have a comic store."
"You're Simon." She said after a second or two.
"I'm still lost." I said.
"I'm Maria. I'm Juanita Morales daughter."
Juanita Morales is the Juanita who's been helping Danny out for a decade or so.
"I haven't seen you in a long time." I said. "Nice suit."
"I'm an assistant prosecutor." She said.
"I'm stil just the guy with the comic books." I said.
"How's Danny?" She asked.
"I really hadn't talked to him for a couple of months." I said.
"Oh." She said. "Mom worries about him. She thinks he might be mad at her for leaving him."
"I didn't know she was gone." I said.
"She didn't really leave." Maria explained. "Dad and her retired to San Antonio."
"Oh." I said.
"You know she really needed the break. She feels bad, though. She really loves Danny."
"I know." I said.
"She said he e-mailed a few times, but it just didn't seem friendly."
"I guess he's in Florida right now." I said.
"Yeah, Mom said that." Maria said. "But, you know. He could send her a little note or something. I hate to sound selfish, but he took up a lot of her time for a lot of years and she went way beyond what she was getting paid for."
"I know. She's really like a second mom to him."
"Well, you should call your mother, you know? Even if you're a little mad because she moved."

I went down to the prosecutor's office...

And got to talk with the poor woman who was supposed to be handing my complaint against SWSNBN.
"She hasn't lived there for two years." I said. "She's got no business breaking in."
"She says you stole her earrings." Assistant Prosecutor Donna Krieger read from a file.
"She decided two years after she moved out that she must have left them behind and that I somehow know where they are. She's done almost three hundred dollars worth of damage trying to get into my house. She broke in twice. It's ridiculous. I'm not interested in dragging this thing out forever. If she'll pay me for the damage, I guess I could let it go. And she has to stay the heck away from my home and my place of business. Coveniently, they're the same place."
"Do you have her earrings?" Ms. Krieger asked.
"No, I don't." I said. "Criminently."
"Criminently?" She laughed.
"I didn't think you were supposed to drop the F bomb around here." I said.
"It's more commonly used than the word and." She said.
"She tries to get in again and I want her shot." I said.

For some strange reason...

Maricel's aunt seems to think that there's something odd about deciding to move in with some dude from a foreign land that you met on the Internet. Even after you've gone to the trouble of spending a couple of days with him in Las Vegas. I don't get it. Sounds like a plan to me. Poor woman, I totally understand why she's calling here at 6 a.m. our time and yelling so loud that I could hear every word of it. Apparently Maricel's cousin has spilled the beans. I'm sure the news seriously ruined dinner. She pointed out to Maricel that girls who move to America to take up with strange men often end up dead or in dire circumstances. Although all of the cases she seemed to be citing were mail-order brides. I guess I could have brought up that more than one guy has ended up dead at the hands of some girl he's imported. But that would mean that Maricel and I are both idiots. Wisely, Maricel did not argue much. She let her Aunt yell until she was hoarse and then politely told her that she appreciated the concern. Then she told her that she was substitute teaching and thinking about furthering her education. She pointed out that I was not some creepy old man hoping to find an Asian sex slave, but a rather harmless comic book dealer who was completely under thumb. (AM NOT!)
While she was on the phone, I went down to the bakery and picked up some doughnuts. When I got back, Maricel had gotten off the phone and put on some coffee.
"She has a point." I said.
"She's absolutely right." Maricel said. "But she's wrong, too."