Chapter 12

She was born Cassandra Blythe Worthing, the second daughter of Andrew and Cathy Worthing, of Plattsburgh, New York.  Andrew was a double dipper, one of those enterprising souls with the foresight to realize that being a bureaucrat could be the means to an end. After twenty years and six days in the United States Air Force as an administrative clerk, he parlayed that knowledge and experience into a second career with the Postal Service.  He and Cathy raised their girls in a modest three-bedroom home, and tried their very best to instill in their daughters a sense of protestant work ethic.  Sadly, both parents watched in silence as all the dance lessons, Girl Scout meetings and choir practices evaporated in a haze of alcohol-induced debauchery, ranging from drunken fraternity parties to full-blown orgies arranged at this or that cabin at Lake Placid.

The young, beautiful Cassie always felt that her life epitomized some strange compromise.  Even her name revealed a bastardized combination of her parents’ names. Cassandra became Cassie about two hours before a fashion layout portfolio that she presented to some obscure rag (she couldn't even remember the name), in her freshman year at Coe College. The portfolio disappeared into an executive wastebasket, but the name persevered.

Yes, Cassie hated school and anyone who ever met her realized it, but she took to writing naturally, and to management as the result of her ego’s desire to reach the top. Beautiful, intelligent, and arrogant enough to know that she could probably matriculate without once cracking a book, she lacked the chutzpah and meanness to disappoint her parents just because she didn’t want to study. The pretty girl with the long dark hair saved two thousand dollars for an adventure, about two dollar for every mile she would drive before deciding that Chicago held a certain aesthetic appeal.

But now, craziness swooped down from God Knows Where and threatened both she and her friends, and she carried the burden of involvement. Detectives interviewed her, Billy refused to understand that she had feelings, too, and the specter of doom hovered over her with every step she took. Yes, she liked Stats, but her involvement in his life held no more or no less emotion than any other employee at WFAN, regardless of Billy’s perceptions to the contrary. Why couldn’t he understand that? Now she questioned the motives of every stranger who looked at her funny, worried about every surreptitious glance and spurned the advance of every man who smiled at her. And why? Because she might be the target of some looney-tune with an axe to grind… and worse, she couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. She had absolutely no idea what he looked like,  although the tapes of his voice would haunt her to her dying days. 

Maybe a shampoo and haircut would help… a little pampering might force some of the demons back into their holes and give her a new outlook. One look in the mirror sent her scurrying to her cell’s speed-dial function… Two quick punches yielded #3… Mr. Randy… Now, if he only has an opening.