d1563b4
|
Some people spend their whole lives in a fantasy world, and that's not a good thing!
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good
world
imagination
fantasy
fantasy-world
recluse
mental-illness
psychology
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Rebecca McNutt |
de3efa9
|
What are you doing?" Alecto asked in surprise, stepping back. Laughing brightly, she dragged him towards the greenhouse, the shattered glass reflecting rainbows as brilliant as a million Kodak flashcubes, glittering as they were cascaded through the breeze. "See, don't be afraid of the glass, it can't hurt us," Mandy laughed, spectacularly eccentric, her eyes reflecting the fallen glass. "I wasn't afraid of the glass, but this isn't a ver..
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depression
fun
friends
funny
friendship
love
colored
flashcube
greenhouse
scarecrow
stained-glass
vibrancy
wind-chimes
kodak
cape-breton
nova-scotia
glitter
cut
air
whispering
yellow
waves
best-friends
sorry
green
sharp
vandalism
blue
canada
glass
growing-up
red
shatter
trees
noir
friend
house
smile
children
crashing
noise
nostalgia
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Rebecca McNutt |
c6d85ed
|
The prints shop manager, a balding man of about thirty years old, dressed in a plaid work shirt and faded jeans, looked very shocked when he saw the headline text. "Sydney Tar Ponds, Is It As Dangerous As People Say? Well," he exclaimed, glancing at the front photo, which featured the Sydney Steel Corporation, along with its plumes of orange smog. "You know, most people your age are really against that mill, as if it's a disease. We have un..
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earth
earth-day
go-green
industry-decline
manager
print
recycle
hippie
smog
newspaper
environmentalism
shop
career
green
pollution
job
nostalgia
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Rebecca McNutt |
5ba1edb
|
Whether you live or die, whether you're bad or good, whether you're born or not, it's all arbitrary... but what can I say? I don't like fate or chance, and I don't always play by the rules, legalist as I am.
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|
fate
philosophy
attorneys
legalist
vigilante
legalism
law
chance
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Rebecca McNutt |
97c866a
|
Where would we be without our painful childhoods?
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pain
humorous
depression
past
humor
sad-but-true
sad
trauma
psychology
|
Rebecca McNutt |
6f35fe4
|
She fought the urge to scream, feeling desperately like she needed to run, that she needed to go as far away from Manhattan as possible and never even give it so much as a backwards glance, but she was frozen to the spot like a wind-up toy that had finally given out. "This city is falling apart!" she shouted in cheerful trauma, her voice shaky and muddled by anxious, messy laughter as it resounded in her head. In a coping sort of euphoria s..
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nervous-breakdown
twin-towers
posttraumatic-stress-disorder
world-trade-center
september-11-attacks
new-york-city
trauma
new-york
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Rebecca McNutt |
5dc8a7b
|
Every day it's something worse being predicted. Mearth says that sooner or later copyright on books will be all in the past because they'll all be available electronically. She says that electric cars will replace gasoline-powered cars. She says that something called drones will be used to watch the entire country, she talks a lot about something called nanotechnology, and 3-dimensional printing and cellular phones being implanted into peop..
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led-lights
microchips
retro
nanotechnology
telephone
digital
obsolete
sinister
minds
film
technology
mental-illness
memory
nostalgia
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Rebecca McNutt |
9d07045
|
Everybody has magic, it's just that most people either don't know it, or don't believe it.
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magic
fantasy
wizardry
sorcery
talent
powers
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Rebecca McNutt |
4d6cb72
|
It's not some romanticized Atticus Finch-type picnic. You'd probably love it, the whole risk of it all, but it's not without a price. Out there in this city when you pass the bar, it's all broken dreams and out-of-reach stars. You have to be brilliant, and you have to throw away your social life, your hobbies, but more than that you can't get your moral values mixed up with legal ethics. They'll both clash whenever you least expect it, and ..
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morality
life
bar-exam
attorney
legal
legal-system
law-school
lawyer
law
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Rebecca McNutt |
2b4c45f
|
Smile for the camera, pretty little Sydney Tar Ponds.
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photography
prett
sydney-tar-ponds
cape-breton
nova-scotia
picture
canada
little
smile
|
Rebecca McNutt |
7d7144c
|
All sharks were born swimming.
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sink-or-swim
swim
shark
ruthless
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Rebecca McNutt |
a7191c9
|
I've got money!" Eve exclaimed in a frantic frenzy of hope, her eyes dancing wildly with the notion that there was some way out of this. "I mean, I don't know what use money is to the Grim Reaper, but I've got a ton of cash! It's in a hat box under my bed! I've got a bright red Lexus in the garage, I've got my engagement ring upstairs, it's real gold... there must be something we can trade off with..." "You can't bribe me away, I'm afraid,"..
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money
funny
death
bribe
frantic
garage
hat-box
lexus
under-the-bed
grim-reaper
engagement-ring
cash
weird
tragic
engagement
car
dead
die
sad
dying
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Rebecca McNutt |
8b619ff
|
He felt like the world didn't want him, like he was born hated, and he was. He was smart, he was funny, he'd never done a bad deed in his life, born innocent just like all the rest of us... but he was black in a white world, and I think somewhere along the way, he stopped feeling like a human being.
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hatred
prejudice
racism
dehumanization
bigotry
race
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Rebecca McNutt |
e7776f0
|
Her latest client is Professor Desmond Curnin, a university professor who teaches library sciences to large groups of students. He's quick to pay on-time, quick to never fall behind. He's a brown-haired man with an unkempt beard and thick-framed hipster glasses. He slides a leather briefcase stuffed with dollar bills into the open window of Geraldine's car. "Your fly's unzipped," Geraldine points out, disgusted. "Who gave you a license to s..
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money
library
briefcase
buddy
cash
glasses
hipster
hot-dog
leather
lewd
professor
unzip
window
fly
car
disgust
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Rebecca McNutt |
02d9443
|
I'm convinced that a few people are going to stand up and do something, anything, to get this world back in our hands.
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world
people
dreams
motivational
american-history
society
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Rebecca McNutt |
d42d0f0
|
Do you mean Y2K? The Enron Scandal? In devastation there is opportunity, you know!
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opportunity
business-quotes
enron
enron-scandal
new-york-stock-exchange
y2k
devastation
new-york
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Rebecca McNutt |
cb623f8
|
He didn't remember the very first time he actually died very well. It wasn't as bad as remediation, but he remembered being afraid and worried... and when he found himself alive again a few hours later with Mearth's wild green eyes peering down at him, he remembered still being afraid and worried. It was strange, he thought, to be afraid of being alive... but being alive was worse than being dead in his mind.
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pain
suffering
fear
death
life
alive
green
worry
memory
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Rebecca McNutt |
b30f0bc
|
So, um, you're from Rochester? Like, New York?" Jersey asked. "Yup, we used to live out there," Rudger confirmed, nonchalant. "You ever been?" "Naw, the closest I've ever been to there would be... well, believe it or not, New Jersey, the place where my parents named me after. It was crowded, polluted and full of crime... I loved it."
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travel
love
angst
urban
pollution
new-jersey
teenagers
crime
crowd
city
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Rebecca McNutt |
93fbd3c
|
Maybe a holiday miracle will change Mearth's awful behavior," Mandy suggested with optimism. "The only holiday miracle around here is that Mearth hasn't murdered us both yet," said Alecto, lighting another cigarette, his hands shaking erratically. He looked exhausted and terrified, his gray eyes soulless. "Do you know what Mearth likes, Alecto?" Mandy questioned. "Vegetables, she likes celery a lot, and lettuce," Alecto responded in a quiet..
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present
miracle
murder
humor
going-green
hoiday
lettuce
mother-earth
comedy
cigarette
christmas
vegetables
gift
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Rebecca McNutt |
7025e83
|
He was the only one who seemed to realize that she didn't want to be left alone to her trauma and bad memories, even if she got annoyed when he inquired about her life. She hated to be all alone, a paradox considering she generally disliked people.
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post-traumatic-stress-disorder
misanthropy
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Rebecca McNutt |
ffe302a
|
Mearth appeared angry and disappointed briefly, but then she just gazed at the ground. "...It must be horrible, feeling all alone, is it?" she asked. "Oh, not really," said Alecto, his eyes lifeless, his voice listless. "I'm going to be forgotten by someone who I can't forget, though. That will be terrible... but maybe it's better if she does forget me altogether."
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sadness
friendship
love
listless
lonliness
forget
sad
memory
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Rebecca McNutt |
948182b
|
I never said I was sad, I'm just pessimistic," said Alecto. "Expect the worst, that way you'll never be disappointed, Mandy Valems."
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friendship
pessamistic
disappointed
never
worst
expect
depressed
sad
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Rebecca McNutt |
8235210
|
I think we ought to find something else to do," said Mandy. "But Alecto my love, you're the first person to notice my retro diner kitchen. When my parents saw it, they thought I was creating a weird art project." "I like it. It's got that let's-drown-ourselves-in-better-days type ambiance," Alecto declared, his gray eyes narrowed."
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funny
friendship
love
ambience
better-days
fifties
retro
cape-breton
nova-scotia
diner
drowning
pollution
art
parents
kitchen
nostalgia
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Rebecca McNutt |
4018931
|
Through a large field that had turned a dead yellow after an early frost, past the multicoloured clapboard company houses and through a flurry of fabric hanging from clotheslines... after a few minutes he stopped at the edge of a high cliff, where a long time ago he'd been able to see the mine towers and orange smog from the steel mill way off in the distance, and he'd been able to stare for hours at the periwinkle-coloured ocean waves cras..
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Rebecca McNutt |
733cf38
|
Look, I'm real sorry about Cheryl, I know you loved her a lot," Mandy apologized gloomily. "It's wrong that people have to keep killing off Pollution." "It's alright, I think she wants to be remediated," Alecto told her calmly, though his grief-stricken and depressed expression said more to Mandy than his words did. "You don't have to forget Cheryl, no matter what Mearth said to you," Mandy pointed out. "People shouldn't be forced to forge..
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grief
loss
depression
fear
death
friendship
hope
love
grief-stricken
removal
remediation
confusion
lonliness
pollution
help
uncertainty
memory
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Rebecca McNutt |
ff44d29
|
I used to think to myself that I was the last kind of person who should have a guardian angel, but then I realized that maybe my type of person is the kind who angels come to first.
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worth
friends
friendship
love
type
guardian-angel
first
person
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Rebecca McNutt |
14fcaf9
|
Mandy was thinking back to when she was five years old, when she, her parents and Jud went outside before Christmas and had a snowball fight with the gray snow of Sydney Mines. "This is a wicked blast," Jud would say, and Mandy would snap photos with a 35mm disposable film camera, photos she wished very much she could step into sometimes."
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photography
family
35mm-camera
snowball-fight
wicked-blast
cape-breton
nova-scotia
sister
brother
coal
canada
christmas
fake
siblings
snow
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Rebecca McNutt |
c9831d7
|
Don't you think it's better to continue reading than to just close the book?
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reading
death
life
close
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Rebecca McNutt |
a2c2f3d
|
One man, an investment banker from Cantor Fitzgerald, took her to see the viewing deck like a good Samaritan since he felt sorry for her, and... and it was like flying, she could see the entire city, she could see the top of the clouds and the ocean, the pink and purple of the late sunset, and he told her, "it's the closest we can ever get to heaven! These buildings connect everyone together like a big community!" "If this is the closest p..
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heaven
investor
september-11th
twin-towers-angel-investor
world-trade-center
september-11-attacks
cute
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Rebecca McNutt |
6b9c2b8
|
Life is not the end, and death is just the beginning...
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heaven
death
life
grim-reaper
dead
die
dying
hell
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Rebecca McNutt |
bf81d56
|
Oftentimes she wondered what had happened to super 8. Sure, it made perfect sense that nobody wanted the hassle of spending money on a three-minute cartridge of film and threading it through a projector, but though digital cameras were convenient and cheap, Mandy didn't care. Super 8 had integrity, it wasn't just nostalgia, it was art, it was history, it was a little recording medium that somehow possessed the power to evoke lost memories, ..
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photography
integrity
future
future-shock
home-movies
kodak
projector
retro
super-8
vintage
popcorn
digital
lonliness
movies
nostalgia
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Rebecca McNutt |
3fff438
|
Geraldine keeps her eyes trained on him as she slowly reaches into her purse, wrapping her fingers around her gun. "...Callo, I'm so sorry that your life ended up this way," she sighs as she gets out of her side of the car, her feet burning from the cold as her high heels sink into the fallen snow. "Aren't you scared?" "I'm you, Geraldine... I fell into the same trap as you, anyway," Callo answers. His large eyes are shining with tears, but..
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depression
emotion
fear
death
friendship
apology
forlornness
usurer
high-heels
forlorn
purse
revolver
lonliness
friend
trap
gun
tears
regret
kill
depressed
dead
guilt
die
eyes
dying
mental-illness
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Rebecca McNutt |
75a6320
|
Money isn't everything. It's the only thing.
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money
greed
finance
|
Rebecca McNutt |
fef62ac
|
there's no better system than our own morality, not law, not science, not religion... just decency.
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|
morality
religion
science
philosophy
law
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Rebecca McNutt |
e4c945c
|
7 Up soda pop mixed with bright pink grenadine with a chemical-tasting maraschino cherry stuck to the plastic straw. It was one of those drinks marketed for children, but Mandy could see that she wasn't the only adult ordering one. For some reason or other these old-fashioned restaurants always seemed to attract old ladies ordering strawberry Jell-O with whipped cream, truck drivers ordering "worms and dirt" (chocolate pudding with Oreo coo..
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|
music
adult
bounce
businessman
cherry
shirley-temple
swiss-chalet
diner
canada
growing-up
kid
wind
car
desert
childhood
memory
snow
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Rebecca McNutt |
31331dd
|
Like weddings, funerals are about unity. Funerals are the unity of a person with the sweet hereafter, assuming that one believes in such a thing.
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|
unity
living
death
mortuary
undertaker
graveyard
wedding
funeral
dying
|
Rebecca McNutt |
0eaec6c
|
There was nothing Mandy had wanted more than to give her full attention to the world of Personifications and ignore those who ignored her in society. She'd wanted to talk out loud to Alecto, to have conversations in front of other ordinary people. Unfortunately, to do that in front of ordinary people would only prove her insanity, and although Mandy was naive at times, she wasn't stupid.
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|
friendship
personification
ordinary
conversation
friend
talk
insanity
insane
mental-illness
psychology
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Rebecca McNutt |
acfd3d5
|
I can pretend it's all pretend! I can be the life of your death and you can be the death of my life... what a trade-off!
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|
life
trade-off
vow
pretend
trade
sad
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Rebecca McNutt |
644075a
|
Tony had spent a great deal of time dwelling on whoever this poor Disney hostess must have been, not as a casualty but as a person. She never got to be an adult, he'd told himself in horror.
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|
tragedy
america-sings
casualty
debbie-stone
disney
disneyland
tragic
sad
horror
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Rebecca McNutt |
349cf3d
|
It's true, I guess, that no matter how much it sucks, you're supposed to sacrifice things for a friend. It was a concept that he hadn't understood earlier on in his life. In elementary school, Bernie had been assigned 'Charlotte's Web' to read, and he'd always found it selfish how Charlotte the spider gave everything she had to Wilbur the pig, all her time and energy trying to keep this pig alive and off the farmer's dinner plate, only to e..
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sacrifice
friendship
love
pop-culture-reference
smurfs
pop-culture
sharing
friend
|
Rebecca McNutt |
ac132cf
|
When your friend who died was still alive, did you ever tell him?" "Tell him what?" "That you're... what's the word? Celibate?" Tony asked, trailing his fingers along the buttons on the remote control but not really finding himself able to change the channel. His name, his daughter's name, it all could've easily become a statistic, an obituary, had they not left the tower when they did. "I'm asexual, not a celibate," replied the lawyer, "an..
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|
television
asexuality
attorney
carpet
celibate
lawyer
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Rebecca McNutt |
4b1465b
|
Bernie cursed and swore like a sailor sometimes, even around young children, to the point where he was kicked out of Disney World during a trip to Orlando, Florida one year. To boot, he'd jabbed a sewing needle into the helium Mickey Mouse balloons of at least twenty kids before a park worker dressed as Cinderella finally called security. "Disney's a greedy, bloodsucking corporation," was Bernie's half-assed excuse. Tony wasn't sure that ev..
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kids
funny
corporation
disney
cinderella
swear
needle
weird
excuse
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Rebecca McNutt |
36282ff
|
And what if the other kids laugh at me?" Kerry complained to her parents as she nibbled on a piece of toast that morning. "I have a Cape Breton accent! They'll know I'm from Canada and they'll start asking me if I lived in an igloo or ate maple syrup, bacon and seal meat every day!" "You're really overreacting," Susan chuckled, sipping on a glass of orange juice. "Canada is a lot like the States and the only thing separating both countries ..
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funny
wisdom
pittsburgh
polar-bear
seal
cape-breton
nova-scotia
canada
united-states
weird
morning
girl
teenager
parents
stereotype
teen
joke
nostalgia
school
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Rebecca McNutt |
f44d1e7
|
The lawyer was a short, ugly, little man. He stood about three feet taller than his desk's two foot eight inch frame and he had dark eyes. Lois couldn't tell if they were black or an extremely dark brown. His hair was dirty blonde and very messy. He looked as if he had just crawled out of bed. His white button up shirt was tucked in on only one side and the other side hung out freely. He wore a pair of tan khakis and a pair of black loafers..
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funny
creepy
crawl
frumpy
khakis
lawyer
loafers
pants
sleazy
unprofessional
lazy
|
Rebecca McNutt |