Sneaky Teenagers

"Guess who I ran into today?" Veronica asked her boyfriend, Tom over after dinner coffee in Tom's apartment. Veronica had made dinner for Tom, his teenage daughter Tiffany and herself and all in all it had been a pleasant evening. Tiffany had come a long way from the snarly teenager that she had been when Veronica first met her.

"Who?" Tom asked.

"Mindy Cooper. She's working at Kutrate Kemicals as an administrative assistant."

"You're kidding! She quit the newspaper?"

"I guess so. She didn't seem quite right to me, Tom."

"What do you mean?"

"She was a little bit out of it...she told me about a product Kutrate Kemical's putting out and asked me to introduce her to someone in research and development at Schuyler Industries so she could get the product away from Kutrate."

Tom laughed. "Was she joking?"

"I don't think so...like I said, she seemed odd."

"Who seemed odd?" Tiffany joined them.

"Mindy Cooper. You've met her--she used to run the newspaper but now she's working at Kutrate Kemicals."

"Smart move," Tiffany remarked. "No one reads newspapers anymore. Dad, do you mind if I take the car? I want to study at the library."

"You're awfully dressed up for studying," Tom remarked.

"I'm meeting friends to study with," Tiffany said, a hint of her old snarly self surfacing.

Tom fished his keys out of his pocket. "Be home by ten," he instructed as he gave his daughter the keys. "It's a school night."

"You are way more strict than Mom was," Tiffany mumbled. "See you later."

Neither Tom nor Veronica spoke again until Tiffany had left the apartment. "Do you think she's really going to the library?" Tom finally asked.

Veronica sighed. "Who knows? At her age, she could be going anywhere."

"That's what I'm afraid of."