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self. "I have to make a phone call," he said. |
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Abby nodded, as though she understood what a phone call meant. "I'll meet you in the bookstore," she told him. |
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"Here's some money." He handed her a piece of paper currency apparently worth 20 dollars. On it was a picture of Andrew Jackson, who had been president of the United States in the 1830s. She felt almost disappointed that the portrait was not of some statesman of the future of whom she had not heard. |
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After all, as long as she was in this time, why not learn all she could about what was to come? |
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Mike pulled a phone credit card from his wallet and placed his call. The female voice that answered "Arlen's Kitchens" didn't sound familiar, but she immediately put Mike through to Lowell Quadros, one of Mike's two closest friends and deputies in the running of Arlen's Kitchens. |
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"Mike, is it really you?" |
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He assured Lowell it was. |
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Lowell sounded delighted and relieved to hear from him. Ten years older than Mike, Lowell had been Mike's first employee at his first Arlen's Kitchena jack-of-all-trades who ran around as eagerly as Mike, cooking, cleaning, selling food, and fixing the myriad unforeseeable gremlins in every machine. They had grown close in those early days, and Mike had brought Lowell along as the restaurant had grown into two, then a chain. Lowell had little business acumen, but he took direction well and worked hard. |
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