Andrew explained his lack of personal transportation by telling her that money was tight and that he couldn’t afford to get a car until he had graduated and had gotten a job. Krystyn nodded understandingly and led the way to her mini-van.
When Andrew got in the passenger seat in the front of her mini-van, he noticed that Krystyn had a baby seat permanently mounted in the seat behind his seat. He notice with some amusement that she had sensibly placed a protective plastic mat under the baby to protect the van’s upholstery. Krystyn was obviously the sort of person who took preventative measures before accidents happened. Andrew noted that the seat had shifted slightly in position but the inch-wide ridges in the mat where the seat had been before had remained imprinted in the stiff plastic. Apparently the plastic of the mat had been permanently deformed by the weight of the baby seat. The deep indentations in the mat told him that the baby seat must have been in the mini-van for a long time, certainly for months and perhaps for a year or more. The seat itself looked well-used; the fabric padding had a worn patina where the almost imperceptible nap of the smooth cloth had been worn away. From Andrew’s limited experience with old furniture, he knew that the slightly glazed look on the fabric of the seat could have only come from constant polishing by diapered little bottoms. Andrew smiled at his own observational and deductive faculties; he was an ardent admirer of Agatha Christie’s detective novels and fancied himself quite the junior detective.
Upon arriving at Krystyn’s home, she unlocked the door, invited him in and ushered him into the living room to sit on the couch while she made a pot of coffee. Andrew looked at the triple row of framed baby pictures on the wall while he waited, realizing that the pictures must be of the babies that Krystyn had previously placed with families. Andrew had decided that the adoption business must be very lucrative; the living room was very large, fully sixteen feet wide by eighteen feet long. The floor was constructed of solid hard maple parquet and the walls were painted an attractive color of pale rose. The room was well appointed with what appeared to be brand new furniture. Krystyn popped her heard out between the swinging door to the kitchen and the doorframe for a moment and told him that the coffee would be done in a minute, but that she had just remembered that she had to make a quick phone call in behalf of a potential client. She assured him that her call would be over before the coffee was done and to make himself comfortable.