The red haired lovely lay on her bed, dumbly watching the flickering screen, none of the political ploys and inter-party politics sinking into her pretty skull. Tonight would be a long night, she knew. The first night since Bob had left for Minneapolis. Ten more sex-less nights in front of her before she could cuddle up into the protective circle of his strong arms and let him please her. Rhonda let out a long, heartless sigh. Ten days in a cold bed alone was an eternity! Fortunately, her sister Sharon had come to stay with her for three weeks that overlapped Bob's absence, and not by coincidence.

Sharon… Where was she now? wondered Rhonda dimly. Certainly the neighborhood was safe enough on a weekday afternoon with the playground and community swimming pool close by, for a pubescent thirteen year old to wander around unescorted.

But then one could never tell with all those crazies lurking the streets… Hmmm… four o'clock, mused Rhonda, watching her digital alarm clock slip to the hour.

Suddenly a smile broke out on the older sister's face. Maybe her little sister had met a boy, ridden off on his bicycle to the hamburger hang-out, and was sipping a soda out of her shared straw… Like a scene from one of those corny 1950's posters you saw in all the head-shops downtown. Sharon would be an easy shot for some young boy. She was a knockout with her platinum-tresses that hung half way down her back. Fresh as a model, Sharon was one of those girls who always appeared clean and scrubbed in every situation and who carried herself with a feminine grace that often put her older sister to shame. Part of this could be ascribed to her unusual hair. No one in the Baker family had been able to figure out where it had come from, though a few guessed their Irish grandmother might have jumped the fence once or twice, as the old saying goes… something old Grandpa Baker never told his kids when they sat on his knee and listened to family stories…