<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">“Hello Chrissie, hello Sam; call me Emily, please.”  She smiled at them, not responding to the boy’s negativity.  At least he was actually here, for whatever reason; her car perhaps or just something different to do.  Chrissie was smiling back – what a lovely smile - but looking nervous…she must have realised Emily would have overheard.  </span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">Better deal with it:</span><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">“I’m not doing anything with your dad Sam, don’t worry.  I just work with him and I was leaving and…” she realised as she was speaking that ‘your dad is worried about you’ wouldn’t work in the slightest with a rebellious adolescent boy; she needed a pretext…”I have to check over my boat and we wondered if you two would be interested in coming along?  Your dad was saying how he doesn’t get to take you out as much as he’d like.”</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">She smiled at them, hoping it didn’t sound too made-up.  Frank did apparently spend a lot of time visiting their mum, who was in some kind of institution long-term, though Emily didn’t know if it was a hospital or what.  Anyway the boat was the only way she could think of to keep Sam around long enough to talk to him as Frank had asked.</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">“What sort of boat is it?” asked Sam, still unsmiling.  It was a bit rude but Emily felt she had a hook in.</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">“It’s a cruiser,” she searched for the things a boy would tune into, “twin 350-horsepower Hondas.  Well, a sport cruiser really I suppose.  Forty-two feet.  It’s quite fast.”  He almost returned her smile, but stopped himself just in time.</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">They were approaching her metallic red M3.  Emily knew she looked expensive, altogether.  Her clothes, makeup, car, boat…the kids were impressionable and they were impresssed.  Really at that age - whatever they were, seventeen and fifteen perhaps she wasn’t going to alienate them by asking – they were so vulnerable.  You could say all kinds of things to them and they’d believe you; they had so little experience to draw on, and they were so keen to learn, they just soaked stuff up. </span><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">Chrissie especially seemed innocently trusting, and under the brooding truculence Sam wasn’t very different.</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">She took them up to her apartment while she changed, increasing the awe factor even more, then drove to the marina.  After making a show of checking the boat over she asked them if they’d like to go out in it and of course they did; so Emily spent the next half-hour showing off its speed, letting Sam steer for a bit, and getting him to admit he’d been going to watch street racing and talking to the racing dudes.  What Frank could do about that Emily had no idea but it was a start for him, at least.</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">She couldn’t prevent herself surreptitiously ogling slender </span><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">little</span><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">Chrissie with her fabulous skin and her long hair blowing everywhere.  Her lovely smile with that little mouth turning up at the ends, and her pale brown eyes that leaped irresistibly out of her face, alight with having fun.</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">While Sam was occupied at the wheel Emily chatted with the schoolgirl, about makeup and her classes and friends and other trivialities; she was such a sweet person.  </span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;">It was a very pleasant time.  Nicer than taking bad people out, putting them to sleep and sinking them a couple of miles offshore.</span>