"I heard you were coming for me."  Delilah smiled at her younger sister, the one who never came to visit, the one who thought she was smarter, stronger, so sophisticated.

"Didja now?"

"You know how fast word travels through the rumor mill."  She smiled as she jumped off her ladder.  The shelves were designed as if for a library, but instead of books, the shelves housed an assortment of curious little knick knacks, crystals, and small abstract art pieces.

"Except I never told anyone I was coming.  And certainly Jezebel never said anything."  Agnes already felt that this was a bad idea, but knew that Delilah was logically the next step.  "So I'm assuming the rumor mill was the sapce between my lips and your eavesdropping."

"Eavesdropping.  Rumours.  It's all the same."  She flipped her hands, letting a giant amethyst on her finger sparkle and reflect light off the crystal bangles on her wrist.  "In any case, I know why you're here."  She put up the same hand to stop Agnes from interjecting.  "And so I am prepared to tell you whatever you need to know."

"How much preparation does it take?"  Agnes imagined a straight-backed, mahogany-colored leather chair, adorned with brass buttons and nothing else, and sat down.

"Oh, you know," Delilah flipped her wrists again as she spoke.  "Meditation.  Remembrance.  Running through the files stored in my mind to recall the details of a case I had hoped to banish from memory."  She tossed her hair back, long waves, and looked at her little sis.  "You really should do something about that mop- shear it short, let it long, but that lip-length bob does nothing for you."

"Is that so?"  She eyed her elder and admired her style only in the sense that it fit her personality.  While Agnes was streamlined, a lot of simple pieces, pinstripes, clean lines, solid bold colors mixed with lots of grey, Delilah was about layers.  She wore flouncy skirts with strappy sandals, peasant tops corseted in leather.  If she wore a silk scarf in her hair, she wore a chain choker.  If she wore a daintily crocheted dress over satin, it was belted with a tight leather strap.  It was about soft volume and then restrained.  Chained flowiness.  And her conversation ran like that.  Off the subject and flowery, but then to the point.

Agnes was more streamlined.  In both dress and conversation.  All tangents must lead to a separate and necessary point.  And one must get there fast.  But when dealing wth others, she often let them lead and stilled her tongue so as to gather pertinent information that could be used later.  Plus, the other conversatee felt they were given free reign and often loosened their tongue.

"Oh, Agnes, if only you could trust.  Too much knowledge and not enough fact."  She shook her head and Agnes heard bells, somewhere hidden on her person, ringing.  "So be it."  Two glasses of ruby wine came off the shelf in crystal goblets.  "Where would you like to begin?"

"Well, you already know already."  Agnes took the wine and gulped rather than sipped.  It'd be better if she could relax through this.  "I'm stuck on a case wherein Mother Maui stole one of my clients and I'm working on trying to get her back.  Jezzie mentioned that you had gone through a similar predicament not long before, only a few rollovers and so in a contemporary setting.  I was wondering what you have/had done- did anything work? what failed?  what was your general assessment of the situation?"

"Ah, yes, and that's where the reminiscing (spelling?) began."  Delilah took a huge sigh and fell back onto a love seat equipped with large puffy pink satin pillows.  "She was beautiful.  Cute, really, in just so many ways, what with her jump roping and double dimples and ticklish little smile.  I was so sad to see her go."  And here, she really did frown, in that childish, piquant way that some adults maintain.

"Did she have a name?"

"Of course she did.  Doesn't everyone?"  Delilah scrunched her eyebrows and laid back on the sofa, which elongated just slightly so she could stretch out a bit.  "But we'll call her.... Gloria Vanderbilt."

"Isn't that the woman who makes purses?"

"Is it?  I thought the name sounded familiar.  Only it isn't her.  Or any real Gloria Vanderbilt.  That's just a fictional name.  But the person was real.  So real and so honest and so troubled and.... you know my gig, yeah?"

"Your gig?"

"How I function?  How I cull my caseload?"  Agnes looked blank and Delilah credited it to the youth assuming only they had their particulars.  "Just as you grab the tangential-thinking intellectuals whose creative genius is thwarted by the very locked thinking that makes them special, so I tend to a very specific category of young ladies."

Agnes had to smile at that description that so nearly described all the women on her caseload.  "And your specialty is?"

"Those who have suffered abuse.  Those who break free in an attempt to empower themselves but too often just escape into another cycle of something that chains them."

"Really?"  Agnes had never given much thought to her sister's caseload and was slightly unnerved by the noble sound of it.

"Yes, really."  Delilah smirked.  "And more than that, we have something in common, you know.  Your girls excel in essays, in diatribes that mask their pain and highlight their inadequecies.  My girls are poets, who reveal the pain, the self-loathing, the surrender, because they feel they can never overcome their own foibles and transgressions."  She waited a beat, and when there was no response, she added, "And they all love to dance."

Agnes smiled and Delilah continued, "Isn't that amazing?  You can hear your girls the same two ways that I can hear mine- when they write something out in that stream of consciousness style that begs to be acknowledged and when they're out on the dance floor somewhere letting their body do the storytelling for a change."

"Okay, so I get it.  We're a lot more alike than I'd wish us to be."

"No.  That's not my point.  I dont' want to comapre us so much as I want to compare them- your holly and my Gloria Vanderbilt."

"And what comparison have you made?"

"Oodles, just oodles.  Some more significant than others."  She clasped her hands together in excitement and all her bangled bracelets tinkled together.  "They both work with children.  Disabled children.  Children that others may have given up on and that's their biggest pet peeve- is when people give up on or abuse children.  They're both disgusted with people and find it inconceivable that anyone would hurt a child."

"That describes a lot of people."

"Enough to do somethign about it?  Enough that my Gloria wants to become a vigilante and hunt down those who physically or sexually abuse children so she can kill them.  Or send them off to war."

"To war?"

"Yeah, let them do something worthwhile before they die."

"But hten wouldn't they just abuse people over there and make the situation worse."

"Exactly the sort of thing your girl would say, but that's not the point."  She huffed and physically flipped off the sentiment.  "The idea is that they have this in common- that they work with disabled children and share a passion for learning and want for themselves, more than anything, to achieve greater learning, to be smarter than they already are.  Though they are both clever, in their own different ways.  Gloria has a lot of common sense, understands people, and has wisdom from experience.  Your girl, Holly, is well-educated and logical and has a mind like a sponge."

Agnes bit her lip to keep from responding, hoping Delilah would get to her point, but knowing that interruptions only led her further off track and her sister would get there eventually.  Perhaps it was a good sign that she had paused to collect her thoughts.

"They both are silly and like to play and take no offense at being on the butt-end of a joke.  If they're made fun of, they just take it, but then lash back later with no hard feelings.  They're both pretty humble, but really only because they don't believe themselves to be deserving of praise.  Pretty typical for women, in general, really, especially ones that are relatively bright and passionate. In any case, they have a similar demeanor, are both beautiful, and are totally broke."

"Sounds like a lot of people."

Delilah pouted.  "You ruin the fun in everything."  She made a nasty face equivalent to stickign out one's tongue, sipped some more wine, then said the next bit quite quickly.  "Fine, then, here's the coup de grace- they work in the same school, same classroom even, and are actually quite good friends."

"What?!?"

"That's right," Delilah said with little excitement, still feeling slightly put out.  "They're friends.  They know each other.  They're privy to each other's little trials and tribulations and neither of them are from Maui.  They both moved there and got stuck and so all their dreams and aspirations have been put on hold, probably never to be achieved."

"Well, that may be the case for your Gloria, but not for Holly.  I'm getting her out.  I'm finding a way to get through to her.  Hopefully before her roll-over."

"Good luck with that, but I tell you it's a lost cause."

"Why?  Because you couldn't do it?  Because you were too lazy to really even try?"

At this, Delilah shot up.  She was sick of Agnes's false notions about herself.  " I did try," she shouted, throwing her wine glass across the room.  "You know, you think you're so smart, so much better than me, so ready to conquer the Sphere, but I'll tell you this- there's a lot you don't know.  A lot more that you don't know than that you do.  Don't you think it's an odd coincidence that two people so similar, with similar interventions from our outside influences, get snapped away by the same Being, and wind up in the same classroom?"

"You and I both know that coinceidences such as those don't exist."

"Exactly.  So maybe there's something else going on.  And I know what you think of me, that you believe I'd just shrug it off, cest la vie, and moe on to the next girl.  But it's not like that.  It's never been like that.  I am very involved."  She came face to face with Agnes.  "I went down there."

"You went down there?"

"I went down there.  And you know what I discovered?"

Agnes hesitated, wanting to know, but wondering if what her sister was goign to say would be accurate, uncolored, purposeful. "What?"

"Ever hear of such a thing as atonement, Agnes?"

"Of course."

"Well, that's what these girls are doing down there.  So even if you went to save them, I doubt they'd follow you out.  They're i ntheir current circumstances becasue they believe they deserve them.  They take what comes without resistance because they feel that is their lot in life- too much involvement on our end perhaps.  Gloria and Holly seem to be of a mind that life flows around them and takes them to where they're supposed to be, to the next exciting adventure, but now the currents have ceased and they can't figure out why they're stagnant, how to go about affecting change."

"I thought these girls were both doers."

"Only becasue we always set up the circumstances, we staged a scene on which they could act out nothing but excitement and without our manipulating the backdrop, they don't know how to write the script."  She calmed herself.  "YOu've got me so upset I'm not making sense.  Let me try again:  They are quirky girls.  They know how to be cheeky, quirky, and individualistic.  What they cannot seem to do is reach out beyond their immediate environment.  We provided them with opportunities; we whisked them away into all sorts of different settings; we made funny stuff happen, strange events, and they acted their roles accordingly.  But they weren't happy.  Even when they were having fun, they weren't really happy."

"Happy is subjective."

"Well, then they weren't subjectively happy.  Because underneath it all, they believed they deserved less.  They believed that whatever misfortune, travesty or abuse, befell them, that it happened because that's what they deserved.  So now they settle into complacency, serving others, acting as martyrs, living sparsely, because they're atoning for perceived sins."

"Atoning for perceived sins?"

"Yes." Suddenly, a sobering cup of coffee arrived, rich with cream and honey.  "Gloria is beating herself for what she did to her children and Holly beats herself for what she did to her parents." 

Agnes also called forth coffee and took a sip.  "So you're saying Maui is a monastery?"

"To some.  Many call it paradise and wind up there as a reward to themselves.  For others, like our girls, it is a place of hard living, where they will have just enough to get by, but never enough to leave, until they finally forgive themselves for mistakes they've made in the past."

"But that doesn't explain why Mother Maui took them in and blocked us out."

"Oh yes, it does.  Think of her as Mother Superior, finding tasks appropriate to their talents, keeping them downtrodden so they stay and work to better a land that other outsiders are hell-bent on destroying.  Even some of the locals themselves."

"Maui is vacationland."

"For tourists.  IT also has high rates of domestic violence, drug abuse, people working multiple jobs to keep up with the cost of living.  And how much does it suck that most of the jobs are in the service industry where you make yourself subservient to the rich and famous?  Delivering them fresh fruit baskets daily that they don't eat and need to be tossed while you're family can barely afford groceries?"

"But I thought you said they worked in a school?"

"Oh, they do.  I'm just trying to make the point that it's not all as wonderful as it seems to be when you actually live there and aren't just visiting."

"So what do you suppose I should do?"  Agnes felt slightly humbled.

Delilah was shocked.  "Are you asking for my advice?"

"I am."

"Well, then, I'm sorry to tell you that I have none."  She thought a moment.  "Nope, none.  It's not that I want you to give up.   I just want you to understand that sometimes these Beings are more complicated than they seem.  Sometimes, no matter their talents, no matter how they';ve bettered themselves, no matter how good they've become, they still don't see themselves as worthy.  And until they do, well, I don't know.  What hope do we have in really inspiring them?"

"I'm going to talk to Margaret."

"Go right ahead.  And Agnes, "  she reached forward to hug her sister.  "Thank you for coming."