I'm totally in love. Can't help myself." Shay realized that she would be proud to introduce Anthea to Joan. She realized she'd be proud to introduce Anthea as her mate to anyone.

"Why would you want to? Oh, run along, I'm late for a meeting," Joan said. She shooed Shay out of her office.

Anthea slid into the only empty chair in the conference room. "Sorry I'm late," she said to Martin. "I lost my car pool and haven't quite got the timing down." There were some sympathetic murmurs from other people in the room — the entire reporting and costing staff. She would have made an early start, but she'd forgotten it was the quarterly staff meeting.

Martin went back to his agenda. It included an announcement, to Anthea's delight, of the ability to hire some additional staff. She'd speak to Ruben this afternoon. The last item was a mention of how all analysts and department heads were to remember that they were not to talk to the press, particularly in this current public relations "challenge" about some toxic problem at the refinery that had been in the papers for the last three weeks.

Anthea looked nonchalantly over at Adrian. He was looking innocently in her direction. Anthea had been asking herself how she could go on working for NOC-U after what they had done. Maybe because "they" were a single executive who, inside scuttlebutt said, had acted in isolation. On the other hand, ever since the announcement of the EPA investigation, NOC-U had claimed the investigation was based on flimsy evidence from a disgruntled ex-employee, and was just another example of regulatory harassment. The ex-employee, a company representative said, was only looking for a way to bolster her civil suit for wrongful termination.

The company was doing everything Shay had said they would do. It made it hard for Anthea to find self-respect coming to work every day. And if Shay moved in with her and NOC-U found out, they'd know where some of Shay's information had come from. And if Shay moved in with her and she couldn't tell anyone except Adrian how happy she was it would bother her.

She didn't know what she was going to do. But she was realizing more and more that she might have to walk away from the job she'd said she couldn't give up.

Martin concluded the meeting and people began milling around to chat before going back to work. Anthea gave a high-five to June Jamison, the head of reporting. June looked a bit like Lena Home.

"It's a glad day for me," June said, her ready smile flashing.

"Me, too. I know just who I'm going to swipe from product accounting, too."

Adrian joined them. "If Ruben comes back he's going to find just about the same work he left on his desk."

Martin joined them and looked at Anthea. "So you're not car pooling with that militant anymore?" Anthea shook her head, not wanting to talk about Shay. "I'm surprised you could take it."

"I didn't mind."

June said to Martin, "Militant what?"

Martin rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't want to be accused of anything, but let's just say that Anthea's probably glad to not have some lesbian thinking God knows what about her every day."

Anthea was sure other conversations around the room halted, like in an E.F. Hutton commercial. She noticed that June glanced at one of the men on her staff, then at Adrian. As if from a great distance she heard herself say, "Just because someone's a lesbian doesn't mean they have designs on every woman they meet."

Martin actually laughed as if Anthea had made a great joke. "What are you, some sort of expert on what queers are like?"

"I don't like bigotry," she said.

"I'm not a bigot," Martin said. "I'd just prefer they didn't work for me."

Again, just about everyone glanced at Adrian, then at the man in June's group. Apparently, they thought they knew who all the gay people in the room were.

"Then I guess you'll have to fire me, because I'm a lesbian. And I don't like hearing bigotry where I work."