AS THE MOUSE

OVES©

Soap Opera "As The Mouse Moves" - Friday September 20th 2002
Starlene picked up the remote to the TV and turned down the volume when she heard the phone ring on the coffee table of the apartment overlooking Washington Square Park.  "Hello," she answered hoping it was her older lover Stanley calling.  She had been waiting for his usual call all morning and hadn't heard from him.
"Oh God Starlene.  I just had a close call," her sister Tiffany said whispering into the phone hoping her boss Clark and his bride Nicole couldn't hear her conversation. Nicole had just come in after being gone all morning. She walked in as Clark was in the middle of a heated argument with Tiffany.
"What's up?"
"Clark was going to fire me and I told him that you and I saw Nicole coming out of Skeeter's apartment the other day," she said referring to her estranged husband that she suspected of having an affair with her bosses bride Nicole.
"Oh my God.  You told him?"
"Yeah and Nicole came in and denied it. Then she said she'd changed her mind about him firing me.  That she wanted me to stay on and work.  She said she couldn't stand the thought of working with Jan while he was gone to Florida to do the parties for her father."
"Well I can't blame her for that," Starlene said thinking about how difficult her lover Stanley's daughter Jan was to get along with.
"But then she insinuated that her father would pay my salary. She said that her father told her that once she got married he'd pay for her housekeeper and get this Starlene..."
"What?"
"She said her father would pay for a nanny, as if she were pregnant or something."
"Oh God.  Who's kid would it be?" Starlene said laughing.
"That's not funny. Then she asked me if I was willing to work for her."
"Yuck."
"Yeah, like I'll be her slave or something."
"Well, what did you say?"
"I said I'd work with her. I don't have any choice.  I need a job. The writing is on the wall.  This woman is nothing but trouble.  I'll never be able to stand her.  She said she didn't want to be strapped to a desk all day.  Starlene, she's never done anything and never will. She just wants her freedom so she can cheat all day while he's gone out of town," Tiffany said knowingly.
"I bet you're right about that."
"I'm going to look around for another job.  What are you doing home? Isn't Friday your usual day with Stanley?" she said knowing her sister's older lover always asked her to come over for their weekly rendezvous on Friday's at noon.
"Yeah. I don't know why he hasn't called.  It's not like him."
"Oh God," Tiffany said lowering her voice.
"What?"
"I hear the bed squeaking upstairs," Tiffany said as she heard the rhythmical sounds of the bed hitting the wall in Clark's bedroom.
"Nicole's something else isn't she?"
"Well, at least once he's gone to Florida I won't have to listen to this," Tiffany said embarrassed with her situation.
"I wish she'd go with him to Florida.  I worry that Stanley will be with her again," Starlene said remembering the day she opened her lover's office door and caught him in the act on the sofa with Nicole.
"She won't ever go with him. She wants to mess around while he's gone."
"Oh my God," Starlene said reaching for the TV remote as she read the scrolling message on the bottom of the screen.
"What's the matter?"
"It's a report on Amir's missing wife," she said turning up the volume as she watched her sister's secret lover being interviewed in front of his Upper East Side mansion.
CONTINUED MONDAY. MORE SOAP PHOTOS BELOW.