It has taken me a long to come to terms with what I am about to tell you.

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Loyalty, Betrayal and Forgiveness Before I owned my travel agency, I worked there for two wonderful people, Lou and Karen, partners but not married to each other. Karen and I worked side by side and Lou, a school councilor, worked at night and on the weekends. They were lovely to me and very fair employers. In 1991 they decided to sell agency. They wanted to retire and were willing to sell it to me and a former outside sales agent, Laura. They were almost giving us the agency as a gift. The price was so unbelievable low! When I had worked with Laura in the past and I didn't like her, she had made some mistakes and I didn't think she had her head on straight. I told Lou and Karen, I would prefer to never work with her in the future. But about one year before Karen and Lou told me they were going to sell the agency, Laura had changed. She was a totally different person. She was focused and was doing a good job. So when Lou and Karen asked me if I was willing to have Laura as a partner, I said "Sure." Laura confessed to me she was in two 12-step programs and she thought it was best I knew before we became partners. I was proud of the "new" Laura, and believed she deserved a second chance. Laura was tall, slim and looked like a blonde Jamie Lee Curtis. She was a divorced mother of a young son. She left teaching at the local Catholic grammar school to be co-owners of our agency. She was independently wealthy and assured me she had money to start up the business. She was a whiz at accounting and back office details. I was short and round. I looked like Mimi on the Drew Cary Show, only I don't wear make up. I knew the travel business inside out. My knowledge made up for my lack of extra money. I was qualified to be the manager, a requirement to get approved by ARC (Airline Reporting Corporation). I had a good working relationship with Airlines, Cruise Lines and Travel Wholesalers. All of which was important when owning and managing a Travel Agency. I could sell my little heart out. I have been known to sell people a cruise, when they just wanted to buy a ticket to Boston. I was the kind of person that would see a customer outside and go out side and ask how was their grandson. Our agency had many loyal customers. The agency was the oldest on Long Island and we didn't want to change its name and the reputation the agency had. The agency was well thought of in the Travel Industry. We worked well together. She sat in the back and I greeted customers. She asked if her son's nanny, Melanie could work in the office and she was a bright and shinny star. She became my right hand girl. Laura didn't like the computers and was at home doing the books. We were running a million plus dollar business. We took limousines, flew first class and traveled a lot. She was very good at thinking up ways to make more money and I was very good at selling the ideas. Laura and I took a trip to Las Vegas, and won everything in sight. We were on a roll. My family and I were able to go to places we only dreamed about. Then she met another 12-step fellow and fell in love. She wanted more time off and I didn't mind I loved my work. Laura asked me if I would work on Saturdays, because she wanted to visit a sick uncle in a nursing home. But I found out she was really at the horse race track. She started to make some mistakes, which grew into big mistakes. I covered for her and she would say, " Thank God you caught them." I made mistakes too, don't get me wrong. But none that caused the company to lose money. Here is one of the ones that sent the office in a tailspin. She had a couple getting married in Hawaii and the family was flying there for the wedding. All together there were about 24 people to be at the wedding. The week before the wedding the Hotel would call every day and say they hadn't gotten the couples room reservation. The Hotel was all set for the wedding, had room's for all the guests, but no bride and groom's rooms were reserved. I called the wholesaler and found Laura had booked the couple at the wrong hotel. As the bride and groom flew to Hawaii, I sweet-talked the hotel to giving them a room until everything got straighten out. It cost the agency $600.00. Laura was in the Caribbean with her new very controlling boyfriend, Bobby, and didn't have a clue what was happening. She called that day and I told her, she was very upset and cried. She said her life was in so much turmoil and thanked me for getting everything worked out. The first year we made a lot of money, but in the middle of the second year, things started to look gloomy. We were losing money, even though we doing more business. Thom (my Husband) had a gut feeling something just wasn't right. But I stood up for Laura and said, "I don't think Laura was doing anything wrong." I keep checking the books and everything looked all right to me. Our accountant could not figure out why we were losing money either. I am a very loyal person and would never think anyone would do anything wrong. The summer of 1993 she took a group of New York area cops and their families to Ireland and 5 days later she called in the afternoon crying, telling me something terrible happened to her and would I leave on the next plane to Ireland? So in 40 minutes I was packed, called Thom and said I need to be on the 7:00pm flight to Shannon. Once I was on the plane, I said, "What the hell am I doing? " I just came home from a cruise with my aunt and left Thom to take care of my mother and now I was off to Ireland doing the same thing. He was not going to be very happy. When I got to Ireland, we spoke for 20 minutes and she got on the same plane and flew back to New York. She told me she was going home to tell her mother about a childhood memory that came back to her in Ireland and I believed her. Melanie told me she never went into the office for 3 days, and her mother told Thom she didn't even know Laura was home. In Ireland, I found out why she really wanted to go home. She had a fight with her boy friend and he told her he was dating someone else. So she went home to make him see she was in love with him. I was so used but there was nothing I could do for 10 days. She called me in Ireland and made me an offer to send Thom to meet me in Ireland. But he couldn't leave my mother. Things between Laura and I changed. She wanted to do anything to make me happy. She knew I was getting worried about her relationship with her boy friend. And she was trying to show me it was LOVE and she could change him . He was mentally controlling and abusing her. She asked Thom to come to work for us. His function was to double check Laura, Melanie and my work. He had to catch mistakes before we lost any more money. She took the whole summer off and was glad Thom was willing to sit in for her. She did come in every week for her paycheck, and to do the accounting. Her relationship with her boyfriend got stormier that summer. She was missing for days at a time. Melanie had to take care of her son and come to work every day. Laura would be in a fog, and I would almost have to clap my hands to get her attention. Well, things got so bad we had to go without pay for over 6 months, she let Thom go and she was putting her own money in the business. She said until she got paid back -- no more paychecks. She still took Caribbean vacations and I still worked without pay. I agreed to the no salary because I really cared for the business and felt better going to work everyday. When my mother died I worked on that day, and worked even on the day she was buried Finally in April 1994 we started to get paid again. She married her guy in June and went to Bora Bora and Tahiti for a month long first class honeymoon. She took that summer off too, and hired a part-timer to help Melanie and me out. I thought I would take a short weekend trip to see my son in Orlando, and everything changed on August 9th. I was in an accident in Orlando, Thom flew down the next day and Laura would call every night. She told Thom our accountant told her to put my salary in an escrow account until I could return to work. I returned to NY in September, and I was far from ready to return to work. She NEVER came to see me. Even when I was rushed back in to a New York hospital because of my injuries. She would call me daily to ask me how to do and fix things and she acted like she really was concerned. Thom worked next to the agency and noticed the office change. She took all my stuff and put them in boxes. She gave Melanie my desk and was telling customers I was near death. My neighbor Jane worked at the agency as an outside sales agent and said the mood of the office became very secretive when my name was said. Just before I was to have an operation to remove the hardware in my foot, she called me and asked for money to meet expenses. I told her to use my salary that was in escrow; she said "What salary?" I told her what Thom said, and she said "I never said that!!!!" I could not believe I didn't have any money coming to me. I worked and she vacationed. I went in everyday, never was sick and she had no money for me? She offered to buy me out. She had money for that! But no money for my salary? I saw the handwriting on the wall. I said OK. She gave me exactly what little I paid for it. Then in December she sent me $900.00 that was coming to me from a cruise I couldn't go on because of the accident and told me our association was over. It was 2 years after we started our partnership. I was no longer needed as manager. (She needed 2 years experience to become approved as a manager -- her timing was just perfect) I was dumbfounded. I was so hurt and could not believe she was shutting me out. Thom found all his and my business cards in plastic bags in the back yard of the office and they were blowing all over. I could not sleep anym