Griffin Way, Outside 15 Griffin, Saturday Morning

[my_own_advocate]

The rickshaws began to pull up to the mansion at 15 Griffin Way very early in the morning. Each was packed with items, all neatly taped up into boxes. The drivers would be in and out all morning; sometimes they'd even come bearing large items of furniture, wooden boards, the like.

The dark-haired man who now owned the place didn't turn up there until much further into the morning, wearing an impeccable dark blue suit with a purple button-up underneath and a matching pocket square peeking out of his pocket. He was on the phone. He was complaining.

"Rickshaws, Doctor. I knew vast swatches of the East Coast were backward, but this is just embarrassing."

A pause as he listened to the woman on the other side of the line.

"Yes, yes, I know. Distance, you said. Still a brilliant idea, that'll take the whole load off my mind, I'm certain. I'm on the other side of the continent - how much more distant could I get?" A pause. "Inside the nominally civilized world."

Another listening pause.

"You know, hold that thought," he said. "I've got this invitation to go to some shindig in the park. It's eating into my very important time--" That he was planning to spend moping around his new house in a bathrobe and his underwear, "--but I'm hoping there's an open bar, so can we continue this later?"

Linda did not get a word in edgewise in reply. He'd already hung up.

[[ open before he heads to the picnic. ]]