Free Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) by T'Gracie Reese, Joe Reese

speech. How very powerful. Please…always stick to your convictions!”
    “Thank you. That means a lot.”
    “You are welcome.”
    And he dropped her at the hotel.
    It was small. Not at all ostentatious, but clean.
    The desk clerk smiled and asked:
    ‘How may I help you?”
    “I need a room for the night.”
    “Will that be for only one?”
    “Yes. I’m not having an affair.”
    “That’s all right, madam; it isn’t a requirement.”
    “Whew.”
    “Your name?”
    “Nina Bannister.”
    “Ah! I heard your speech. Very moving.”
    “Thank you.”
    “No luggage?”
    I might as well just admit, she found herself thinking, that I’m having an affair.
    And who in this town hasn’t heard that damn speech?
    What do they do here besides watch television?
    Of course, she thought, wishing for a bag of some kind to take upstairs, what does anybody do besides watch TV?
    She was about to find out.

    The room was fine.
    A bed, well made, to be slept on.
    A writing desk to be…
    …what?
    Whoever, she wondered, ever went to a hotel to write things?
    Twenty minutes later, Laurencia arrived, with an overnight bag full of gear for Nina to sleep in, and a large box of pizza.
    Laurencia smiled:
    “Canadian bacon and pineapple. That all right with you?”
    “It’s great, especially because they allow you to pick off the pieces of pineapple.”
    “So. A traditionalist.”
    “Damned straight. Let’s eat.”
    Nina took the box and opened it, savoring the aroma.
    “This is the highlight of my day, Laurencia. Of course, it doesn’t have much competition…”
    In a minute, the two women were sitting on the bed and chowing down.
    Nina:
    “Now will you please tell me…”
    Chomp chomp..
    “How does everybody know about my resignation speech?”
    Laurencia shook her head:
    “Nobody knows about your resignation speech. I don’t even know about your resignation speech, and I’m your roommate. What did you do, resign?”
    “Yes, I resigned! I resigned a little over an hour ago, in front of a press conference, in Jeb Maxwell’s office.”
    “Why would you want to do a thing like that?”
    “I explained all that at the press conference.”
    “Good for you. Except nobody saw it.”
    “ Everybody saw it! People are stopping me on the street congratulating me on it.”
    “My God. You really don’t know, do you?”
    “Of course, I know! I’m not senile, at least not yet! I know what I said in my own speech!”
    Laurencia smiled, and said:
    “Which speech?”
    “The one I’ve been talking about! In heavens name, are we doing ‘Who’s on First’ here? I feel like Lou Costello! There’s only one speech! The one I resigned in!”
    A shake of the head:
    Then:
    “That was your first speech of the day, my dear. The one people are talking about is your second.”
    “My…”
    “Yes, your Second Inaugural Address, as it were.”
    And then, finally, Nina began to understand.
    “You mean, in my office…”
    “That’s what I mean.”
    “But that was just for my staff!”
    “No. It was for your staff, and their iPhones.”
    “Someone taped it?”
    “They all taped it.”
    “That’s impossible! I would have seen it!”
    “Did you ever see it when you were teaching?”
    “No, but…”
    “See? You’re talking about the youth of today.”
    “But…but…you mean, someone made a recording of me…and then sent the recording somewhere?”
    Another shake of the head.
    The chicken was fast disappearing now.
    “Nina, Nina, Nina. Try to understand this: THEY ALL WERE FILMING YOU AS YOU WERE TALKING! And as soon as you finished, they were all Facebooking their friends, and LIKES started pouring in from around the country and then you were being Twittered and then you were being YouTubed and now you’re the hottest thing since this chicken used to be when it still existed.”
    It took Nina some moments to begin to comprehend all of this.
    Finally, she whispered:
    “I’m viral. I’ve gone viral.”
    “You have done