Joanne Howard was a bit puzzled by a few things that Monday morning. A part of her would have wanted to be by Monica's side all day, but she still had her own job to do, and with it being Monday, she would be expected to show up at work. As such, she'd set her cellphone to chime an alarm to get her up early so that she could be ready for work on time. She was about to make her way to the apartment's lone bedroom to collect the clothing that she would need for work, as the realty company that she and Monica worked for DID have a suit uniform that was required for all employees, realtors, agents, and secretaries, when she overheard something coming from within the bedroom where Monica's daughter Karen and her "fiancé" Peter were apparently already up and talking about something.
She couldn't help but listen in, and while she didn't hear much, what she did hear seemed a bit puzzling. Things like "induction" and things like that didn't sound normal to Joanne, at least not normal in the conventional sense. She knew that Karen had been in college in Washington state, as Monica had told Joanne about that. Getting the name "Moon Lake" from Karen and Peter was helpful with regard to which college, but some of the things she overheard was something that sounded like something from a Dan Brown book with some secret society trying to protect people and places from the truth or from the world. Some of that might not necessarily be bad, but Joanne was very much of the opinion that secrets were things that hurt the world rather than helped it.
As such, she made it her intent to find out as much as she could about Moon Lake. She also figured that Peter knew something about this and was leading Karen along, and that represented enough of a problem that Joanne was also borderline suspicious. He'd seemed polite and courteous to her, and in a sense that was a step up from Monica's prior husband, but that wasn't necessarily enough to prove that whatever was going on in Moon Lake was fully on the up and up. Deception and misdeeds could wear many faces, and to Joanne, Peter Talbot was something of an unknown. Of course, Joanne also knew that to Karen, Joanne was probably an unknown, and in that she was willing to give Peter some benefit of the doubt on that basis, but she still wished to get some information on Moon Lake, though privately and away from potential prying eyes.
Eventually Peter and Karen made their way out from the bedroom and found Joanne going about making her own breakfast.
"You're up..." Karen said with some surprise.
"Yeah... I am," Joanne commented as the two college students came into the kitchen, "What happened aside... I still have work today, and if they aren't going to release Monica today... they won't let me take the day off. Particularly when the hospital's visiting hours goes for a few hours after I get off work."
"Even with everything?" Karen asked with even more surprise.
"Welcome to the real world," Joanne answered, "and while someone may have paid Monica's hospital bills, that doesn't mean rent for this apartment will go away, the cost of groceries will go away, the need to check the mail will go away, and the responsibilities I have to my job will go away. Things don't go as we like... the only thing to do is to carry on and make do. If you wish to visit Monica through the day... that'd be fine, I suppose. I don't think cab fare would be too expensive... and if not, I can stop by after work before going up to the hospital."
"It'll be fine..." Peter offered, "and with our classes... we really can't stay that long, either. They will expect us back and will have to be back in order to pass the semester."
Joanne nodded to that and went about finishing her own breakfast while then getting ready to then get dressed for her job...
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Joanne ultimately did arrive the office on time, though she did get a few questions on how Monica was doing from some of the other members of the staff. She thought the pair of them had managed to keep things quiet enough, but then some things probably got out somewhere. A customer that Monica had shown a house to might have seen them together somewhere in a way that wasn't part of their work or anything like that, or a coworker simply suspected something. Regardless of how it got out, it apparently did, and thankfully many of the realty agents and secretaries seemed rather supportive and concerned as to how Monica was. That was something that Joanne took as a positive from the entire even, that the real estate company they worked for had some concern for Monica and at least for the moment wasn't going to dismiss her because of what the consequences of a man having a heart attack had done.
That then let Joanne settle into her desk and work area to then check her calendar. She wasn't one of the top agents, which mean that she didn't have as many appointments booked to show houses or properties to potential buyers or renters on her own, but there were times where if the company felt they needed a "team" to make the sale, Joanne would be sent out with the leading agent on a particular sale to help organize paperwork and provide any additional information that might shape the sale. These things could also come up by surprise and had often kept her in a state or readiness to head out should there ever be an emergency or some other action that would require her to move quickly. For the moment, things were pretty clear according to her schedule.
"That'll be good," Joanne thought to herself as there then came a knock on the edge of her cubicle. She looked up to see the office manager standing there in the opening to her cubicle that separated it from the rest of the areas of the office. She gave a soft sigh and looked to him with some nervousness, "was there something you need, sir?"
"Right now... just some information Ms. Yuletide's condition," the manager spoke, "I saw the whole report on the news... and my heart was in my throat. I mean... we'd talked about half an hour before the accident and she'd said something about we'd be able to make things work with the buyer down in San Diego..."
"I believe the property was here in Los Angeles, sir," Joanne corrected, "he'd just wanted a face to face meeting in San Diego."
"Still... my heart was in my throat as Ms. Yuletide has always worked hard," the manager answered, "I tried to contact the hospital... but they told me they would only give personal information to family or anyone with "legal responsibility" for her. And technically I don't apply for that. But some of the office gossip has said you two were close... so... I was hoping you might have something. As there ae things that are on her schedule that will still need to be handled going forward... and to handle that, I'd need some information how things are going for her."
"Well... the staff has said she isn't going to recover quickly, if that is what you're looking for," Joanne said weakly, "and that discharging her from the hospital... well... that might not be until much later in the year at the earliest and potentially even into next spring... assuming everything goes well, and..."
Joanne stopped before she started blubbering over what had happened to Monica. They were supposed to be moving toward a happy life together and Monica had been looking forward to introducing Joanne to Karen on Thanksgiving for quite awhile. Now a lot of that wasn't going to go anywhere. Monica presently couldn't feel anything below her waist and it would be a while before Monica would even show signs of recovery. All of which would mean that her job with the company would be in jeopardy and that the best that Monica would get would be a transfer from real estate agent to secretary, which would effectively be a demotion.
"I see... do they..." the manager began.
"Not with any real certainty at the moment," Joanne answered, she didn't like it, but she also knew she couldn't just lie.
"Well... her contract as an agent would go for another three years," the manager spoke slowly, "and she has worked well. In that, I'll pull my strings with the bosses upstairs to keep her on payroll, as per her contract with the hope that she can return eventually... but I'll need you to look through the things on her schedule map out what she had to work with and get them to me by lunch. I can then go over it and then divvy out some of Monica's assignments to the other agents by the end of the day."
"We'd be taking over Monica's clients?" Joanna asked.
"For the moment and at least until we can know better as to whether or not her health status is," the manager spoke, "it may mean a bit more leg work for everybody, but I'm sure we can do it if we can plan it out properly and that's why I need you to look over the files that are presently on Monica's active list. Hopefully... hopefully things go well and she can come back. But until then..."
"Of course, sir," Joanne sighed, though she was privately thankful. For the moment it didn't look like the manager would be doing anything that would relate to firing Monica and Monica still getting her salary would be good. At the same time, there really wasn't anything on Joanne's active schedule for the day, and would mean she'd be in a position where most of what she'd have to handle would be "emergencies," and technically this counted as one.
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Gathering the files and other materials that would be needed to organize things that had been on Monica's schedule didn't take too long. Monica's cubicle wasn't too far from Joanna's and Monica had things well organized with the clients that she had been assigned to work with regarding properties that the company managed or sold, representing the owner's of the structure. The one thing that Joanna couldn't find was an actual calendar for scheduled meetings, but it was quite possible that that would be on Monica's computer, which Joanne didn't have access to. In this she settled for noting the contact numbers on the paperwork and leaving notes regarding what information she had access to for the moment.
There were some points of jealousy over the fact that Monica often got more of the higher end clients than she did, but given Monica's present condition that didn't last long. She went about her work and organized them based on what the paperwork indicated was on the critical need for sale or related issues. Those in critical need might need immediate attention and those less critical would be those where the paperwork that was provided by the client being less detailed or having more "open" dates with regard to when their decision would be needed. It wasn't too hard and let Joanna get things organized with a note posted on each file folder before she took them to the manager's office. Though, he was busy on the phone at the time and Joanna was left leaving the information and file folders with the secretary who promised to pass it on.
That in turn let her return to her cubicle and look toward the thing that had been in the back of her mind since overhearing parts of Karen and Peter's conversation earlier that morning. She had no other phone messages at the moment and no one had come in as a client looking for help. In this, Joanne had a bit of free time, which she would use to find out what she could about this college town in Washington, make sure that Karen hadn't been lead into anything illegal or misleading. She started with a basic web-search and waited for the results to show up.
"With as bad a shape Monica is in... it'd break her heart to learn that Karen was in danger or mixed up with the wrong people," Joanne thought to herself as she scrolled through the initial results.
The results weren't all that impressive. One was a collection of photos that showed a lake with mountains and cabins in the background, along with some thick woodlands toward the right side of the screen. Some parts on the left looked a bit clearer, but that was enough in the background that it really didn't matter, and since the picture was of a lake, it really didn't help with much. It might help sell tourist trap type things, but given what Karen and Peter had said about the town, it was also unlikely that Moon Lake did a lot of tourist business.
The next link was actually to the city's website, and here, Joanne hoped to find out some things that would give her a hint at something and thus she clicked on the link. The city website wasn't really that much different. It had a map of Washington state and Moon Lake's location, in the mountains to the north east of Seattle and around an hour or so away from the city, Joanne guessed. It showed a few photos of its City Hall, which looked be a long two story building made of brick or stone. There were sections that covered the various elements of the city government including the various city offices and so on. There were a few occasional group photos for employees and staff for the city, but other than most of the people in those photos looking quite fit and the females rather voluptuous for their overall body size, there wasn't much of anything that would show anything.
"Of course if the city hold's some kind of secret they're not going to say it openly on their website," Joanne thought to herself, "maybe check the college and see if there is anything that connects some of the things I overheard..."
She then hit the back button and then scrolled down to where it posted the link to the college. There again she got more information that would look rather normal. There were buildings that were there, many of which had an architectural design that went back to the 1800s at least. There were a few more picks and information on the staff at the college. Again about the only thing that really stood out was that much of the college's staff and student body seemed rather well built in many ways. Now granted, she'd seen her fair share of people in LA that were curvaceous women or well muscled men, but in LA's population in the millions, they were actually rather low in number when compared to everyone else. With the number in some of the group photos for the staff that were there, most looked as though they'd had fairly good gym memberships for years, and to a certain extent, Peter seemed built much the same way.
"Could this town be some sort of fitness junkie's "safety zone" or..." Joanne wondered, "because most of the women that I've met that are big into working out are generally an A to B cup. Working out a lot burns fat, and that's pretty much what makes up a women's chest. The fact that there are so many that are at the very least in shape and like a D at the smallest... that's not normal. Maybe they're all implants... but then being in LA, most implants would stand out..."
Joanne had no real answer for this. She hadn't found anything criminal or even questionable, but there wasn't a lot that really matched up with things. Particularly in comparison to what she overheard. In that she decided to then check to see if Moon Lake had a Chamber of Commerce office. That would list the various jobs and businesses in Moon Lake and she could see if there was a local gym nearby. It might also give some indication if there was any group like the Masons that had a lodge there. The results there again turned up little. There was a Chamber of Commerce page, which seemed to operate in partnership with the city as a means of advertising things, but there was no formal gym in Moon Lake. The college and high school might have school facilities, but unless they were open all year to all residents, they wouldn't work. At the same time there seemed to be no Masonic Lodge or anything like that in Moon Lake either.
That killed just about all the guesses that she had and left her further wondering about what was going on there and what "induction" really meant. However, for the moment there was nothing there that would actually answer her questions and the only thing she could do would be to ask Peter and Karen about this and hope for an honest answer. Then she had to hope that if it was nothing, that Peter and Karen wouldn't put a bad word in with Monica over her being nervous.