Elizabeth Lark had a pretty happy life...fairly normal. She was what a lot of people discribed as a goody-two-shoes, but she didn't mind. They didn't know her. Didn't know how she thought. Didn't even think about it, so why should Elizabeth care about thier...well, social blindness? If you go to church, and are a virgin, you are self-rightious and therefor are a garuenteed pain-in-the-butt.
And maybe Elizabeth was. God knew--and He did!--she had annoyed the hell out of many of her boyfriends (all of whom were ex-s now) when she refused, point blank, to go anywhere where there were no parents, cops, teachers, or anything else resembling a Responsable Adult.
She never told a soul about the stories she wrote when no one was looking. Silly things, weird things...things that made Elizabeth happy. Exicited. Little guilty pleasures. And because she made them, nobody could say there was anything wrong with them. They were just hers. And if the differences that made her a writer, a Transformation buff and a virgin also made her a loner...and made her lonely...
Well, we all have a price to pay.
And then she went to work here, at Comp-Tel, and made a Wonderful Discovery.
His name was Floyde Harper, and if one ignored his name--Floyde was at the top of a list Elizabeth called "Names I will Never Use in Stories"--Floyde was a wonderful guy. If someone suggested to 'Lis that she also was ignoring the color of Floyde's skin--namely, that Floyde was black--she would have laughed. Floyde's race, culture, and his obvious love of his race and culture was part of what made Floyde...Floyde. The same way 'Lis's love of her own culture--Irish-American, if you couldn't tell from her green eyes and red, ringlet curls--made her Elizabeth O'Brian-Lark, and not some other girl.
It ought to count for something that Lis did not count Mary as "Some Other Girl.". The going-ons in Mr. Carstars's office had not gone beyond Lis's notice, but it was also None Of Her Business, and she left it alone. She was too busy with her work, with her stories, with her religion, and with Floyde.
And now...
THIS happened.
She turned around from a long space of feilding phone-calls--a great many of which were from a man with the last name "Frasier"--and saw one of her better friends, Clark, with...was that a TAIL? And mouse-ears? And whiskers? And all of them moving like they were anamatronics?
And what was that screaming? That buzzing noise down near the front of the office? Did one scream, a moment ago, sound like Issac Garcia? And was that MARY?