Travel Reference
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I squinted through the evening light.
It was Armando, our realtor.
“This was my listing,” she went on, pummeling his chest with her tiny fists. “You stole
it!”
“I didn't steal anything,” he said, backing away. “You tried to sell it for a whole year
and couldn't. You failed.”
“That's a lie!” she screamed, charging at him.
Taken by surprise, he toppled over haplessly onto the driveway. Clara leapt on top of
him and, securing him in what appeared to be a half nelson (her yoga training was obvi-
ously serving her well here), reached down and grabbed his testicles, giving them a power-
ful squeeze.
Arrghhh! ” he screamed, bucking upward with almost superhuman strength from the
pavement.
The ferocity of his gesture threw Clara clean off him, causing her to fall backward onto
the low garden wall with a squishy thud. There followed a brief, dramatic pause as Ar-
mando stood up and shook himself off. Then silence.
I sprinted down to the other end of the terrace to get a closer look, only to have my
worst suspicions confirmed.
Clara lay at Armando's feet, out cold.
My first thought, I'm embarrassed to admit, was for myself. I didn't want our party
ruined by the fact that one of my male guests had just knocked an uninvited female inter-
loper unconscious.
Yes, I know. I'm a Bad Person. So sue me.
I glanced around quickly to see if anyone else had witnessed the altercation. Luckily
everyone seemed so well-lubricated they wouldn't have noticed if a neutron bomb had det-
onated under our breadfruit tree. That is, with the exception of Jane, who was staring dir-
ectly at me from the other end of the balcony, a look of unbridled horror on her face.
I tried to move but couldn't. Jane, with her usual purposefulness, strode down the ver-
anda, grabbed my arm and shepherded me gently towards the staircase.
“Oh my God,” she murmured. “I hope she's not dead. You've got good insurance, but
not that good.”
“Thanks,” I said, my teeth chattering with dread as we made our way down the stair-
case. I swung open the carport gate. Armando was patting Clara's thin cheeks.
“Wake up, bitch, wake up,” he muttered mechanically
When he noticed us standing above him he looked almost relieved.
“She fell,” he said.
“We saw,” Jane said.
“Oh.”
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