from The Quicksand Syndrome

excerpt: Chapter One: That Sinking Feeling

[Gabi Taylor, dozing at 37,000 feet, is flashing back]

--Didn't Malise try to give me a hand over brunch yesterday? Second floor of Isobel's; goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and Cold Duck; Malise reaches out her sapphire-ringed, pale coral-manicured hand and pats my arm: "Gabi, heads up. Back straight. You've got to get out of there. It's eight years, maybe nine, since I've heard you bitch about glass ceilings, rude natives and the lack of a few good men. The druthers are wearing thin, sweetie. If you'druther be in Vancouver, bail. Or talk about movies, or bikini waxes, or something. I'm not the original rubber maid, I can't bounce all this discontent around with you year in and year out. Bail, girl!" Sigh. Sink back in chair. Sip more Cold Duck. "But what would I live on? The golden handcuffs aren't just a cliche, you know. They're bread and wine and goat cheese and, for god's sake, the rent. You've got Mr. Right and his sapphire mines. You've never even seen a golden handcuff." "Sure I have. Attached to a mahogany headboard and hairy wrists. Delicious." "Geez, Malise. See what I mean. I'd probably just stand and stare if I even saw a hairy wrist these days. Out there it's the desert, and right smack in the middle of the desert is the nasty, sucky, slopping quicksand, and I'm in it up to my chubby little neck and sinking fast." "Yeah, I know. It's taken eight years to sink from your skinny little toes all the way up to the scruff of your chubby little neck and if you'd don't grab yourself by the scruff of that neck before the quicksand slops over it, guess what . . . but then, they say that with a little salsa quicksand's not so bad."