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"Is that all," Nancy moaned. "Well," the woman reflected, now tapping a lively beat on the tabletop. Soon, the glint in her beady peepers returned and she aimed a sharply filed nail at Nancy and said, "For shmall favor, I reread your feet, after you take bat, of courshe." And the two women then engaged in a most unusual negotiation, for the favor was neither small nor simple; it did, however, spark the younger one’s interest.
It was an hour and a half later when Nancy finally emerged from the tent. Within her clutches were a used cocktail napkin, a receipt from Roger Wilco’s supermarket and a lunch-size brown paper bag. She headed for the massage parlor where she spotted Morgan conferring with a dandily dressed red-head. "They charge thirty buckaroos," she thought she heard her friend saying, "for what I will do for free." Before Nancy reached them, the man departed, seemingly in a hurry. "What’s this?" Morgan asked, pawing at the stuff in Nancy’s hands. "Cues. Who was that fancy dude?" "A scum-bag who snubbed me. Should know better than to do nobles, prickless pansies that they are. Cues?" Morgan studied the crumpled napkin; along one edge was written ‘BridgeTown Beach Resort’ in gold letters and in the center was a ring-stain of what might have once been a ‘tropical bouquet’. Meanwhile, from the opposite end of the parlor, an employee momentarily broke from his work to stand and stretch. His broad jaw was smooth and taught and his skin, thought Nancy, as she gaped shamelessly at his well chiseled bare shoulders, was not unlike the color of chocolate silk frosting, with a hint of amber. A misty shaft of sunlight drifted in between the shadows of the oaks and framed the perfect soft round cap of velvet-black hair on his slightly tilted head. . . Their eyes met . . .
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