The Peacok 1879

"Amaris". says Jesus, "Would you be so kind as to tell everyone here your story." She is wedged between Francois and Jeffrey, her white robe dress (because I cannot tell if it is a dress made to look like a robe or a robe that resembles a dress, but it is completely elegant on her.  Yet there is something about this young woman that suggests she is not even remotely interested in making any fashion statements. "I would be very honoured, my lord",she says, looking around at all of us seated here with her.  If she was indeed in her twenties when she claims to have come here, then now she might be around fifty.  But just as the parents of Jesus seem incredibly ancient, this Amaris appears to have cornered the fountain of youth.  She puts down the fork with which she was just about to spear a wedge of mango. "As Jesus has just mentioned, my name used to be Letitia Van Smit.  I grew up in Richmond where my parents and grandparents settled when they moved here from Holland in the nineteen fifties.  We had a huge cranberry farm that was in later years turned into a subdivision of townhouses and large homes.  As I mentioned already, I was brought here to this island under rather inauspicious circumstances.  I had been invited to a party for a weekend in Victoria, we went nightclubbing and there I picked up a young man who drove me out to Saanich to a remote and deserted beach.  I was not expecting he would leave me there untouched, but soon after came to see what a complete blessing this was going to be...