“I am here to learn.I can be a friend and helpmate as well,” Helen said.“You can count on me as your teammate to have your back.It's all I have, and therefore I offer it to you.”
“I accept,” Tiffany said.“Bon appétit.”
Chapter 5- Close
Tiffany Morrow grewup in Mendota Heights in the large home nestled in the woods near the lake.The lake actually belonged to them and most kids, during her teen years, attempted to befriend Tiffany to gain access to the private oasis, but she didn't care for people.An only child of Hargrove and Bella Morrow, she became her mother's primary focus.Blond with green eyes and a petite figure, Tiffany also became the focus of men of all ages.
Friends and clients whom her father would have over to the house, especially the men, would often seek a means of finding her alone.She would look at them with abject boredom when they made comments that were just at the line of being inappropriate.Tiffany never bothered to respond or engage, and eventually when company arrived, she would speak, then make herself scarce, hiding away in the home from adult eyes.
As she grew, in high school, because of her petite size, boys often saw her as an easy mark.Hargrove, also aware of how men looked at his only child, enrolled her at an early age in private self-defense classes.A master martial artist came to the house twice a week for fourteen years to teach Tiffany the Eastern ways of self-defense.By the time she reached the tenth grade, she had a black belt in karate, a skill she employed on a date with Scotty Griffin when he refused to take no for an answer, resulting in a broken arm for the young man.
It was no surprise to Bella when Scotty's parents arrived on their doorstep demanding an explanation and for Hargrove Morrow to pay the medical bills for Scotty's bad decisions.Tiffany, called downstairs by her parents to explain what happened on her date with Scotty, was surprised to see the young man seated in the living room and wearing a cast.
“Young lady, we want you to explain yourself and why you broke our son's arm?”Randall Griffin said, getting red in the face.
Tiffany, unphased by his red-faced outrage, simply sighed.“Instead of asking me to explain myself, perhaps you should ask yourself why you didn't teach your son that no means no.My saying no was not an opening for him to attempt to overpower me to have his way,” she said to Randall's shocked face.
To drive home her point, she looked at his mother and said, “If I'm not being clear, your son had every intention of forcing himself on me.Perhaps he’d perfected his technique on another young lady, which made him feel emboldened to try it on me.He learned his lesson the hard way.Please leave our home after you thank me for stopping him from becoming the monster he was growing into.”
Tiffany said nothing more and left the room.Scotty's parents looked at him in disgust after the honesty from the young woman as well as their son’s lowered head.They rose, saying nothing, and left the home.
Tiffany Morrow also discovered early that men wanting what they didn't earn.In college, her first experience with a professor who bored with his life, career choices, and the need to publish or perish, took a liking to her words.He liked them so much; he planned to publish her work under his name.Professor James Bonji wasn't a very bright man.In the center of the paper, in the midst of the research were several findings on men who stole from women in education and pawned the work off as their own.His failure to catch the obvious dig didn't bode well for him, and when the peer review boards asked to see his research, Professor Bonji couldn't provide the data.Tiffany could, which earned her a research fellow position at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in sociocultural anthropology.
The more Tiffany studied people, the less she liked them.She traveled the world and worked on archeological dig sites beside some of the greatest archeological minds.She even had the opportunity to fall in love with her very own real life Indiana Jones.
“Harold Framier, Ph.D.is a snake, Tiffany,” she was warned by Lolita Bradshaw.“He has no original thoughts; the man is lazy and an opportunist.He sees the need in you to connect to others, although you say you're not interested, but you are.”
“You have no idea what you're talking about,” Tiffany replied, praying it wasn't true.Unfortunately, it was true, and Harold was the worst kind of snake with hidden fangs.
He stole her work along with her virginity and her heart.It was a lesson learned as she navigated her way through higher education, taking a faculty position at the University which had educated her.The third year on staff, a new man entered her life with lots of green flags which turned red in the sunlight.
“Tiffany, I want to marry you,” Frederick Bellston said late one night on the rear deck of her Minneapolis townhome.
“Frederick, I have a love for you, but I'm not in love with you,” she explained.“We have no real spark to make us have the kind of long-term love to base a marriage.I can't marry you.”
“I understand,” he said softly, but he didn't.
