"Typing speed?" the pinched-faced employment-office lady snapped even before Sandi had a chance to settle herself down in the squeaking metal folding chair. "Shorthand speed? Telex experience? Dictaphone?" she continued as though reciting a litany, never even glancing at the nervous young blonde.

"I… I'm afraid I… I never worked in an office," Sandi stammered, trying to smooth her short navy blue skirt down over her ripely rounded thighs. She'd chosen the skirt, a relic from her high-school wardrobe, as being more appropriate than the vivid-hued outfits which Verne had brought her. Although she certainly preferred the new clothes, they'd seemed somehow too frivolous for a job interview, and it was only now that she realized how very short this skirt was. She felt her cheeks grow hot as she thought that this stern woman must be thinking she was trying to look seductive in a rather sluttish way.

She needn't have worried on this score, for the woman still did not deign to glance at Sandi, although she did adjust her white-plastic framed glasses to frown at the card the young blonde had filled out in the outer office.

"No office experience?" She repeated Sandi's statement as though she were accusing the girl of having a prison record. "Well, then, what can you do?"

What could she do? Perhaps because she'd been so distracted by her guilty thoughts about the depraved scene with Larry Johnson the evening before, Sandi hadn't even thought to consider this question. Getting a job and making lots of money to help her injured husband had been as far as her thoughts went as she drove into Brunrocke this morning, and she'd been very glad to have something to do that helped to alleviate the crushing burden of guilt about her wanton behavior. But what if she couldn't even get a job…?