You've been cerved.

Inez

"She's so taciturn these days," Justine sighed.

"Hm?" Inez asked absently, engrossed in sorting the cash from the register.

Everyone else had gone home for the weekend, so Inez was closing up. Justine had kindly offered to stay and help.

Inez suspected this was because Justine wanted to know more about what was going on in Tamra's life.

Unfortunately for Justine, despite renting Tamra a room, Inez and Tamra didn't exchange a lot of personal details, so Inez had a feeling she'd only disappoint. To be honest, Inez found that when Tamra wasn't on the phone (usually with Justine, now that Inez thought about it) Tamra was playing a computer game or watching a series or on her phone.

Different generation, Inez thought. Andersen was Tamra's age and he also spent a lot of time texting and gaming.

Justine repeated. "Tamra's taciturn, I said."

"Sometimes," Inez opted for diplomacy.

Re-counting the store income for the last few days, Inez was pretty sure she was one of only a few customers at the store that week, despite the online ads that her boss had used a not insignificant amount of their budget to fund. Inez wondered who saw the ads. Maybe I can ask Tamra or Andersen if they ever seen any ads for the Faith Brigade Consignment shop when they're doing stuff online?

Justine finished sweeping and put the broom down. "Yes, Tamra can be secretive and taciturn these days for some reason..."

Inez frowned. She really needed to get through to Larry before he spent all their funding on something other than their people.

Justine leaned on a shelf and watched Inez.

More loudly, Justine said, "One might even say Tamra was being a bit cagey about what's on her mind..."

Donations are all well and good, Inez continued thinking to herself, not really paying attention as she mentally reviewed her budget. But most of our cases, er clients, need money for housing and food and healthcare or childcare, not old clothes. It would be nice if the store made more money so we could expand our services...

"I don't know what's got into Tamra. She seems to spend a lot of weekends away but she doesn't share why with me..." Justine started dusting the cash desk, but she watched Inez.

"Mm-mm." Inez nodded again, distractedly. Technically, Inez didn't work Saturday, but given it was the infamously unreachable Amy's job to oversee the store on the weekends, Inez had a feeling no one would notice if she came in and opened the store. Inez had paperwork to catch up on anyways, and she thought to herself, I could easily do that while working the cash register and restocking...more people do their shopping on Saturdays anyways. Plus, Andersen is here this weekend, and he'll need a good distraction and we can't spend the whole weekend in bed...

"Meanwhile, my eldest is testy," Justine met Inez's glazed eyes with a significant look.

"Oh, how is Adrianne?" Inez asked quickly, tapping the small stack of dollar bills from the register into a pile and sliding the pile into an envelope to lock up in the cash box for tomorrow.

Justine's eldest daughter Adrianne had been a few years behind Inez in school - a physical duplicate of her mother but quite different in personality.

"Adrianne is fine. Just working a lot. Has Tamra got plans tonight aside from running?" Justine gave up hinting and got straight to the point.

"Tamra didn't share any plans with me," Inez said sympathetically.

Justine looked disappointed as she went back to picking up the front desk and dusting the cash register.