Giving Away Virginia Holton

Today would have to wait, thought Marla Holton as she hurriedly gathered her bag and notebook in preparation for a no-holds-barred departure from her office at Prism Design. As general manager she had the privilege of arriving and leaving at will, though no one could ever fault her for not putting in a full day's and night's work. Usually Marla would announce to her secretary, Marian Leopold, that she was going somewhere, and then she would spend the next thirty to forty-five minutes circling the hall offices, talking with people who were just arriving, visiting and in general doing everything but departing.

Eventually her staff at Prism began to kid her about the fact that when she said she was leaving, she meant that she was cruising the office for no good reason at all. She good-naturedly giggled at her employees, many of whom had long since graduated from 'employee' to the coveted status of friend, and agreed with them. As time passed and it became even more difficult for "Elvis to leave the building," the staff began making bets as to how long it would actually take Marla to exit the building on Palm Beach's portion of the Intracoastal Waterway.

This time she wanted to be alone to think and realized that if she didn't leave right away, it being Wednesday, she probably would not do so at all. Moreover, she planned to meet Virginia for lunch. She pressed "Control-Alt-Delete" on her recently installed computer system, clicked on "Lock Computer," stepped to the door of her secretary's office and motioned for Marian to step into her room when she got off the telephone.

"I have no earthly idea what I'd do without her," she remarked to no one in particular as she sat down on her couch to wait for the young woman. She idly surveyed herself in the quiet of her office as she heard Marian's conversation wind down following an appointment with a photographer for a shoot the following week.

Waist-length thick, wiry white hair, loose and spread out in a massive cloud as usual, felt wonderfully sexy on her bare arms.