**

When Mrs. Stevens bursts into the room, Tasha in giving Nikki a cello lesson.
“Who the hell do you think you are?!”, Mrs. Stevens hisses, hands on her hips.
Tasha frowns, surprised.
“Excuse me?”.
“I’m paying you to give cello lessons. Not to pervert my child!”.
Tasha widens her eyes and gets up.
“Mrs. Stevens, I think you’re misunderstanding something…”, she replies, quietly.
Mrs. Stevens holds up Tasha’s letters.
“Is that so?”, she cuts in angrily, “You care to explain this then?”.
Nikki and Tasha exchange a look of worry.
“Where did you find those?”, Nikki asks, her voice trembling, panicking.
“Margarita found them while cleaning your room!”, her mother replies.
“Thos are my letters!”, Nikki exclaims, blushing.
Mrs. Stevens points her finger at her.
“Don’t you raise your voice at me. Go to your room, now!”.
Nikki turns to Tasha, silently looking for help.
“Now!”, her mother repeats, in a louder voice.
Tasha nods, and Nikki runs out of the room.
Mrs. Stevens observes Tasha, squarely, for a long time.
“How dare you treat me with such disrespect”, she hisses, crossing her arms in a self-protective way, “I got you off the streets and this is how you repay me?”.
Tasha winces.
“Got me off the streets? I live on 59th and Park!”, she exclaims.
Nikki’s mother throws her hands in the air.
“Whatever. You are never to set foot in this house again and you are never and I mean never to see my daughter again. Is that understood?!”, she replies, her voice raising at every word.
Tasha packs up her sheet music, while Mrs. Stevens wait.
“First of all, ma’am, I never touched your daughter and second…”, she says, calmly, not looking at her, “…I would like to think that in these times someone of your status could look beyond racial or sexual lines…”.
Mrs. Stevens grimaces, annoyed.
“Oh, don’t give me any of that racist crap. My husband and I gave money to Colin Powell”.
“I guess that puts me in my place”, Tasha replies sarcastically.
“Thank you for the hospitality, Mrs. Stevens. It was a true awakening”, she only adds before storming off the room.
She rides down in the elevator, sighing heavily.
“Took me off the streets?”, she mumbles to herself, angrily.
When the elevator stops and the doors open, Shane and Jenny stand in the doorway, both wearing shades.
Jenny hands Nikki’s letter.

**

Inside Shane’s bedroom, Tasha is sitting in a chair and reading Nikki’s letter under the attentive gaze of Shane and Jenny.
“Wow…”, she murmurs, shaking her head, “…I never knew she had these kind of feelings…”.
Shane lights a smoke.
“You’re a lucky guy…”.
Tasha looks at them with watery eyes.
“She really loves me!”.
Shane and Nikki roll their eyes.
“What do I do?”, Tasha asks them, her expression completely lost, torn.
Jenny shudders.
“What do you do? Tell her you love her”.
“But I can’t even see her. She doesn’t have her own phone, I don’t even know her e-mail address!”.
Shane sits in front of Tasha and looks at her.
“Tasha, e-mail’s for geeks and pedophiles. Be romantic. Write her another letter”.
Tasha looks clueless.
“How will I get to her?”.
“We’ll make sure she gets it”, Shane and Jenny reply at the same time.
Tasha stares at them for a long time, narrowing her eyes.
“…Why are you being so good to me?”, she asks, suspiciously.
Jenny smiles widely.
“Because we want to see Nikki happy and we know you make her happy”.
She hands Tasha a pen and paper.
“Now you just march yourself into the study and start writing. We’ll be there to check on you in a minute”.
Tasha leaves the room, speechless, and Shane closes the door behind her back as Jenny picks up the phone and dials.
“Who are you calling?”, Shane asks.
“Nikki”.
Shane hangs up the phone and Jenny looks at her.
“What are you doing?”.
Shane’s eyes are green, wide and show something different than usual. Guilt, maybe. Or remorse.
“Before we go through with this, I just want you to be aware of the damage we’re going to cause”, she murmurs, quietly.
“I am aware”.
Jenny picks up the phone and Shane hangs it up again.
“Are you really? I mean, we’ve done some pretty fucked up shit in our time but this…”, she shakes her head, “…I mean, we are destroying an innocent girl. You do realize that”.
Jenny narrows her eyes, tilting her head disgusted.
“What is that? Oh my God, it’s your conscience!”.
She reaches out toward Shane’s temple, plucks a handful of an invisible something, throws it to the ground and then stomps of it.
“Tim Reynolds is going down and if you’re not going to help me, someone else will”, she hisses to Shane.
“You amaze me…”, Shane replies, expressionless.
“Eat me, Shane!”, Jenny snaps, “It’s alright for you to fuck everyone, but because I look like the saint one it’s wrong. Well, let me tell you something, I didn’t ask to be the good girl here. Do you think I relish the fact that I have to act like Mary Sunshine twenty four seven, so I can be considered the ‘laaaaady’? Do you think I take great delight when I hear them say that I am wonderful, that I am a model child, that I’m going to make an excellent wife one day?”.
Shane just stares at her, her jaw clenched.
“…I’m the Marsha fucking Brady of the upper East Side and sometimes I want to kill myself for it. No, I don’t enjoy being a part of this shit and for that reason everyone around me is going to suffer. So there’s your psychoanalysis Doctor Freud. Now, are you in or are you out?”.
She watches her, her eyes flaming. Shane says nothing.
Jenny picks up the phone and dials.
“Hello Nikki. It’s Jennifer. Alright, stop crying. I understand. Hold on for Shane”.
She hands the phone to Shane, who rolls her eyes.
“Nikki. Now I need you to listen to me very carefully”, she states in a flat tone, “I have a letter from Tasha that she asked me to give to you. Now I can’t exactly bring it to your house, since your mother despises me so here’s what we’re going to do”.