The Devil and Mr. Charles (working title--might change daily!)
an excerpt

“Caroline, honey, you’re insane!”

“Why, thank you! But I beg to differ, my dear Dolly. Insanity is merely society’s label for someone whose ideas no one understands, which seem to have no useful purpose.”

“Oh, come off of it, darlin’. You’re just tryin’ to compare yourself to Galileo again. And a very poor comparison it is, too, Ah might add.”

“Well, he was a scientist, too…”

“Honey, even Galileo wouldn’t throw away his education and his nice, high-payin’ job, and start a business in a field that nobody makes any money in.”

“Dolly, being an actuary is sucking the life out of me. Yes, it’s what I spent five years in college to learn to do. Yes, I’m good at it. Yes, it pays well. But I will be double-gosh-darned if I spend the best decades of my life wearing dress shoes that pinch my feet and crunching numbers in a windowless cubicle with fluorescent lighting so that suits with no sense of humor can take my work and figure out how to cheat the government better. I’m no fan of big government, but it does provide a lot of services and protections to all the people in this country, and if people think they’re being overcharged for those benefits, they should lean on their representatives to get the laws changed rather than try to slide around them. When certain people cheat, it hurts all the honest people who have to make up for the cheaters, in money, and in additional hassles, and…”

“Whoa, baby! You don’t need to get on your soapbox with me, honey. Ah know exactly what this company is doin’ that will get them on the Fortune negative 500 list one of these days. Listen, Ah don’t hold any truck with that sort of thing, either, but by the time Ah found out, Clint had already cleaned me out of house and home and gone off into the sunset with his floozy, and Ah needed every dime Ah made to get a new place to live and put food on the table for Sara and me. Ah’m keepin’ an eye out for a government agent Ah can feed information to—preferably one with nice muscles—so the people runnin’ this es-tab-lish-ment can get their nuts caught in the wringer. Almost nobody thinks twice about lettin’ someone who looks like me see somethin’ maybe she shouldn’t. Every day Ah work here, Ah’m makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice. As soon as Ah can, Ah’m leavin’ this place behind like a date with halitosis and a bad haircut.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Dolly?”

“Tell you what, hon?

“That we’re working for an immoral, soul-sucking corporation filled with evil bureaucrats.”

“Sugar, there’s no other kind. They’re all like that. Except maybe for Ben & Jerry’s. Take it from your older and wiser Aunt Dolly. Now. We can talk later about discovering the sins of our venerable employers. Right now Ah want you to explain what you’ve planned about leaving the company. Ah want to hear all the details.”

“Okay. I’ve got some money saved up, after working this long for the Evil Empire and continuing to live like a student…”

“Evil Empire! Oh, Ah love it, hon! We can call it the double-E for short! Ooh, a new nickname!”

“Dolly, remember, I know you’re not a natural blonde. You don’t have to be an airhead with me.”

“Oh, right, sweetie, sometimes Ah just get carried away. All those pocket-protector types who think a woman’s IQ is inversely proportional to her bra size. Ah do believe they think that Ah reached my present position in the company due to my expertise in the Kama Sutra rather than particle physics.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that, being that I’m as flat as a breadboard. My alma mater had a ratio of four guys to every girl, so you’d think girls would be appreciated there, but it always seemed to me that female students there were generally expected to suppress their femininity and look and act like miniature guys. Except for dances and so forth, when we were temporarily allowed to be female. Of course, a certain number of those guys were socially-inept nerds who were comparable to your classic car-chasing dogs.”

“Caroline! Are you calling those poor boys dogs, sugar?”

“No, Dolly! Get a grip! I’m referring to the line about dogs that chase cars not knowing what to do with them if they caught them. Some of the boys at my college were like that. Then there were those who worshiped from afar…not that I was ever one of the worshipees…”

“Honey, I think we’re getting a wee bit off track, here. You were going to tell me about your plans for giving the Evil Empire the bird…”

“Oh, right. That bird. We loooove the bird, especially when it pecks at the Evil Empire. I digress. Where was I? Oh. Well, did you know I took a lot of art classes in high school? No? Well, I always loved art, but I pursued the science route instead because I thought I couldn’t make any money doing art. Maybe it’s true that I can’t, but I have enough saved up to give it a try for a while. I’ve done some research and started work on a website. I’m going to start a business painting portraits.”

“Darlin’, that’s fabulous! Ah’m sure you’ll be a wild success.”

“Dolly, not five minutes ago you told me I was insane! What gives, here? Make up your mind!”

“Oh, honey, you can’t expect a blonde to be consistent or anything, y’know? Besides which, why couldn’t you be both insane and successful? Van Gogh was.”

“Dolly, Van Gogh sold exactly one painting during his lifetime. You call that successful?”

“Well, Ah must’ve been thinking of somebody else. Besides, hon, he became very successful after he died, didn’t he?”

“That doesn’t count! Who cares what happens after they become a worm factory?”

“Eeeeewww, darlin’, Ah can’t take that kinda talk before mah fifth cup of coffee.”

“Seeing as how that happens about nine a.m., you’re only five minutes shy of the mark. Suck it up, and pour yourself another cup.”

“Ah think if you’re gonna get snippy, you can just get up and pour me another cup yourself, missy.”

“Oh, all right. I should know better than to talk back to my elders. And quit smiling! That’s supposed to be a slam!”

“Honey, you know and Ah know how old Ah am, but the boys will never know if you don’t tell ‘em, and you won’t because you know Ah got all the dirt on you, and Ah won’t because Ah’m much smarter than Ah look. Besides, Ah was thinking about how much you hate coffee.”

“I don’t mind the smell of it. In fact, I like that aspect, as long as it’s in limited doses. But I think it tastes like dirt.”

“How do you know what dirt tastes like, hon?”

“Are you serious? Weren’t you ever a kid? Didn’t you get your face pushed into it, or cut your hand on something dirty and then do what comes naturally when you cut yourself, namely stick your hand in your mouth?”

“Not me, darlin’. Ah was like Goldilocks, all pristine and dressed up all the time. That’s the way Southern belles like yours truly are raised. Where Ah come from, Scarlett and Rhett would fit right in.”

“I can’t imagine. I was a tomboy to the max most of the time. I couldn’t get the boys to hang out with me, but I climbed trees and dug holes in the dirt and my best friend and I built snow forts and got as far as sketches for a treehouse.”

“Do you…uh-oh, sugar, I hear your Big Bad Boss hollerin’.”

“Oh, Slimy Stuart can go bark himself. But I’d better get back to the crunching and cranking and massaging.”

“Massaging! Not massaging Stuart! Eeeeewwww!”

“Honestly, Dolly, if you don’t stop saying ‘eeeeewwww,’ I’m going to lose it! Although I do have to agree with you on that particular reaction. The idea of touching the Slimeball makes me want to crawl out of my skin. ‘Eeeeewwww,’ indeed! No, massaging the data! Didn’t you use that phrase when you were in college?”

“Honey, when Ah was in college, all Ah had to do was bat my eyelashes at the young man of my choice, and he would fall all over himself to massage anything Ah wanted.”