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notorious for her backstabbing friendships with what she sweetly called, 'my office family.'
    I came back to what she was saying and realized it wasn't very important. She was in the middle of a description of the party she attended at Linus and Beth Tate's mountain lodge (I made a mental note to send them a thank you card), the special curry that was being named in her honor at Amritza (a posh curry night spot) and Anouk's (her yappy little bichon frise, vegetarian, Gemini) intestinal problems, yuck, I didn't want to know about that!
    Lillian walked into her office, calling out cheerful greetings to nervously smiling coworkers and I breathed a sigh of relief. She'd had a good weekend and was in a happy mood.
    Today was turning out better than I expected.
    I noticed the message light was blinking on my phone. I cradled the handset against my ear and entered my secret pass code to retrieve my voicemails.
    The first message was a reminder to use the new courier request forms. I still hadn't received a copy of the old courier request forms and frowned over that. Perhaps it hadn't been requisitioned properly from the document department? The document department had recently changed their document request forms too, arghh. Such was the modern law office.
    The second was from my Aunt Celia. Her voice was wispy and insubstantial with a faint French accent. I had to put a finger in my opposite ear and jam the phone hard against my head to hear what she was saying.
    Celia has a tiny voice that matches her petite, childlike frame. She is delicate, like a small china doll, with tiny hands and feet, a rosebud mouth and thinning, dark hair. I had outgrown Celia, in height and weight, when I was twelve years old. I felt freakishly tall around her with my five foot ten inch height, generous bosom and rounded hips. I wasn't fat, but anyone would feel like a plump giant around Celia.
    “Anna, I … darn, I wish I didn't have to leave you a message. I need to talk with you in person. Could you stop by tonight on your way home? I need to … hmm … well, I'll talk with you about it later.” Click! Then nothing but dial tone sounded in my ears.
    I stared at the phone a moment in disbelief. She did it again!
    This wasn't the first time Celia had left me a cryptic message. Sometimes I think she got a kick out of it and left these messages just to wind me up.
    I played back the message twice more, hoping to hear something I had missed which would shed some light on why she called, but it was the same mysterious message each time. I almost picked up the phone to call her but decided just to stop by after work.
    I spared a momentary thought on how best to get to Celia's place tonight. I was slightly southwest of her now. Celia lived in the Pearl District, it was a real bitch to try and find a WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 9

    parking spot there. But, if I headed over right after work, I might get lucky and snag a place outside of the new sushi restaurant around the corner from her building.
    I wondered what she wanted to talk about, I hoped she wasn't planning on moving again, because I had promised myself, no more moving, I liked Portland.
    Celia had uprooted us and moved to what seemed like every mid sized city in the country when I was growing up. We even spent a summer in Halifax when I was nine years old.
    As much as I would miss Celia, if she had any plans to move she would have to make them without me this time. Next month would mark my two year anniversary in Portland, I was staying.
    A heavy hand on my shoulder made me look up and forget my musings on Celia and her mysterious message.
    Guy Small stood behind me with an arrogant smile on his face. Guy was the office lecher, every place had one I thought with resentment. His father was the managing partner of the firm and in a burst of nepotism had given Guy the job title, Management Liaison, a six figure salary and the authority to do nothing important.
    He spent most of the day