Valerie

In many ways Valerie was just like every other first-year university student. She stayed up too late, she eagerly attended class, she studied at the library, she joined some clubs and she occasionally thought about practicing witchcraft or learning to string her own guitar.

When she wasn't in class or studying, she could be found at the student lounge talking philosophy and religion with her friends or at the campus pub enjoying a drink and some dancing to ease the stress and sometimes she chased imaginary pigeons with her very real umbrella. Often she was between places as that just happens in life when you don't want to remain in one building all the time and you just have to be in transit. She never quite understood why she had to apologize for that.

She had thought about getting a job, but didn't want to take time away from her studies, so she decided to intern instead. Her lack of understanding of interning endeared her to all that knew her, although most weren't aware that that was the reason they found her endearing and there was quite the list. The list was presently at Dave's house. Her friends were, on the whole, quite unaware relative to the average group of academic-minded friends and they prided themselves upon that. Most university students have hyper-aware friends who analyze and over think every little thing so much so that they would drive her crazy. She remained sane aside from her occasional desire to either emulate or imitate an occupational therapist, whichever was easier.

She spent her time interning at the local accounting firm that she always dreamed of interning at; her parents had been worried about the total absence of creativity and fantasy in her dreams as a child. She was worried too, but only about the impact of consuming too much soy, especially during a cleanse or cleaning her bathroom using soy sauce. As a child growing up, she would walk past the accounting firm and try to see through the frosted windows just imagining the the glee and enthusiasm on the faces of the accountants and their interns. How she longed to be on the other side of that frosted glass and be the envy of the younger generation of accounting-firm-intern-dreamers. She wanted to be the object of someone's envy very badly even if it was misplaced.

When she wasn't interning, she enjoying throwing caution to the wind and when she tired of that, she returned to the glory of her childhood by dressing up as various Disney princesses and characters, especially Mickey Mouse. For years others made fun of her love of dressing up as a male, cartoon mouse, but as time passed, people moved on as they either found other, newer, things to make fun of or they just grew tired of it as it did get exhausting after a while as they were often relentless. It involved the hiring of several personal trainers if it was to be done well. She never quite understood her fascination with Mickey or her desire to "wear" him, and she decided that some fascinations were best left "unsolved" especially considering her credit situation and the fact that she had a term paper due on Friday.

At school, she would sit in class and take notes and then she would go to the library and take more notes, before returning home to take more notes. It was getting to the point where taking notes had become her life and as she the amount of notes grew and grew she realized that they had lost all meaning to her, what little they had started with, which was actually quite a bit. If she didn't have a pressing assignment or test on the horizon, she would return to her apartment, close the drapes and put the Mickey Mouse costume on while she went about her cleaning. She often wished she would be more dynamic and interesting while costumed, but the laundry needed folding and the dust wasn't going to sweep itself up and then there was the question of dinner. And always there was Mickey.

It had been months since she had last seen her dad without a thick pane of glass separating them. She missed her dad - he had robbed a bank and gone to jail. Or more accurately, he had been hanging out with some friends and thought they were going out for lunch only to realize, when it was too late, that they were robbing a bank instead. This sort of thing happened to him far too often, probably because he loved going out for lunch and allowed others to always choose the place. The fact that he just happened to be dressed appropriately for the heist and was carrying what appeared to be a gun with him - it was actually a lighter that just looked like a gun that he had with him as he was playing a recreational pyromaniac in a new community theatre play - didn't help his cause when the police grabbed them.

She loved him and wanted to be supportive of his hobbies, which she was, right up until he decided to progress from ceramics and stamp collecting to armed robbery, because of her absolute hatred of all forms of robbery and because he essentially turned his back on his amazing works of clay right before they were to be baked and glazed. Did he think kilns grew on trees? She really hoped he didn't. She was so angry at him for resorting to a life of crime as so many other lives were available to him at such an affordable rate.

She felt slightly better when she heard his story. He was quite confused when they passed by their usual lunch spot, even more confused when they donned black ski masks and his confusion hit it's highest level when they all stormed in through the front doors of the bank with guns demanding the combination to the safe only to realize that the bank was actually next door and that this store was just full of wigs and wig stands and the most pleasant sales lady they had ever met. His confusion subsided briefly after the bank was properly located as they waited for the combination and then rapidly rose again when they made their getaway. As an actor, he did his best to play the part as you never know who is in the audience, although he was quite disappointed when the lines demanding the combination to the safe were repeated at the actual bank as the first run through was far more realistic and gripping.

Often when she thought of her dad, she thought back to how supportive he was when she decided to pursue interning. Others, specifically her mother and grandmother, scoffed at her attempts to be a full time student as well as a part time intern mostly because they never quite got how to add fractions. Her dad always believed in her ability to balance and juggle and often to do both at the same time as long as she was not anywhere near the docks at low tide. "Docks at Low Tide" was coincidentally the name she had chosen for her autobiography as she believed the title would work on many levels once she dedicated some time to it.

Her dad helped her progress from just pretending to be an intern to actually doing it, all-the-while secretly drawing floor plans and making accurate lists of security details for local financial institutions. Some would say she turned a blind eye to his strange hobbies, while others said that we shouldn't make her feel any more self-conscious than she already does about her eye, which isn't blind, it is just a bit cloudy. Yes, he always helped her, and she hadn't returned the favour.

The lawyers and police confiscated his collection of antique pens and intricate drawings of banks claimed they were evidence, while he said that he had always had a love of floor plans and architecture and how the building that houses the most money were often the least aesthetically pleasing even when you consider how attractive some of the guards looked in their shiny boots and tailored coats. They said that he would rot behind bars and he said that he believed that was highly unlikely regardless of whether bars were involved or not as he bathed on a regular basis and was going to rot anytime soon.

He told them that he'd been used by his friends for his knowledge, while his friends thought they had made it expressly clear what they were doing; even going as far as writing out a detailed, yet simple list of what their plan was and what each person's job was. They claimed he was the mastermind and that he coerced them into it and that they really only wanted to sing beautiful harmonies and the occasional melody. Her father looked like either the biggest fool in town or at least in the top ten, which he found frustrating as he believed the methods for vote collection were totally faulty.

She often got so mad she wanted to scream, but she was usually sitting in class at the university and her professor had a class rule prohibiting screaming unless for the purposes of qualitative research. She also wanted to cry, but the accounting firm required signed written consent for all shedding of tears to be filled in triplicate a minimum of three days prior. She gritted her teeth, behind the huge comical head of the beloved cartoon mouse so that no one could see, but she sensed that Mickey did not approve of being used for such purposes.

She missed her dad so much and wished she could have been there to spend one more day with him. She often sits in the library, trying to study or write an essay, and she sees him outside the bank with his mask on and his lighter/gun in hand. She sees herself run to him to either talk him out of it or to drive the car as she is really quite fast and after making a clean getaway and taking her cut of the money, she would feel better that she saved him; just as he had saved her countless times.

If she could have been there she would have told him that she loved him and they would have gone out for ice cream just like they did when she was a child and he was more child-like. They both grew up so quickly; her because of growth spurts and he because of some discounted lifts he ordered away for. He adorably ordered random, discounted items all the time and she remembered her mother, before she left, off-loading a lot of stuff on him at low low prices that could not be beat.

She loved school, loved her work as an intern, loved her time each afternoon as Mickey Mouse and loved her father. If only she could have one more day with him, or failing that, part of a day, as that was usually all she could handle. She knew he would be free one day and they would be together again. She knew lots of things and others had to often tell her that now was not a good time for sharing. She dreamed of the day when he was released from prison and he would hold her in his arms the best he could as the Mickey Mouse costume was quite large making a normal hug between two averagely-sized humans quite difficult to say the least.